What I absolutely dread is the Canadian right doing what the American right has done over the last couple of decades -- uniting and organizing one agenda under which they will operate, and that agenda further right than the conservatives have been previously.

Canada has always been politically centrist -- the traditional parties were more alike than different. But Preston Manning changed all that: his Alberta-based rightwing extremism led to the left and right becoming far more polarized in this country, and that's a recipe for disaster, with wild swings left and right, depending on who is elected.

It's scary stuff, and I hope it doesn't happen here.