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I'll start this off by stating that I support the all-but-inevitable Liberal-NDP coalition government. Despite the fact that I've moved away from my old NDP support, or the fact that I'm not comfortable with the leadership prospects of the Liberal party, I think that this coalition will be much better for the country than the ongoing government of Stephen "let's gut the country and democracy" Harper.

I support the coalition enough that when someone created a Twitter account @No_Coalition, I just had to step up to the plate and create @Yes_Coalition to push the coalition side of things.

I already blogged earlier in the year about the use of Twitter on elections night, when many people across the country were following election results via the internet, thanks to the impossibility of keeping the results quiet in areas where the polls were still open. And others blogged about Twitter being used by the party leaders during the campaign.

Post-election, it seems that Stephen Harper and Jack Layton continue to use their Twitter accounts, even now. Meanwhile, in the Liberal leadership race, we see both Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff using the service to keep their followers up to date, and to keep an ear to the ground.

It's awesome to see this tool being used by politicians. It shows that they are actually interested in knowing what we think. And while it may be for their own self-interest, enlightened self-interest such as this usually helps us little people more than hurt us.

Twitter: Once a toy to let our friends know what we're doing. Now a method of connecting with the people who manage the country for us. I like it, a lot.

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