Columnists
It’s not your parents’ election
We are one week closer to marking a ballot to decide who will be the person to head up the next government. I’ve never been more conflicted about casting my ballot. I know what I want to see happen with this country, but my “laundry list” is huge. I am reminded, “meme by meme” that my tax dollars are the dollars the government is spending to make my life better. It’s time for me to make a meaningful choice for leadership and guidance.
A young friend posted an interesting statement, recently. Basically what she said was, “if we all voted for the party whose platform most suited our vision for Canada, instead of strategic voting to keep another party out, we’d end up with a much better governing group”. Hmmm. The wisdom of young people. I’m still leery of casting a vote that might give the wrong party a “leg up”, but I am seriously leaning toward voting for what I think is right. This election, more than ever, we have to send a clear message to the candidates. When I was much younger, I didn’t pay much attention to party platforms and voted strictly for the party. I didn’t want to be thought of as stuffy and stagnant, so I didn’t vote PC. I didn’t want to be thought of a “communist” so I didn’t for the NDP. I was young, what did I know. I certainly didn’t want to be considered a weirdo, so I never voted for an independent. Generally, I was a Liberal-Party-Voting kinda gal. My parents voted “Liberal”. My grandfather voted “Liberal” and LOML never would say who he voted for because he believed it was his business. He still keeps his vote, his secret. If the kitchen table conversation came around to politics, I’d just nod and act like I knew what was being said. And then? Well, and then I moved to Picton. I thought I was moving to a quiet, little community of gentle agricultural folks who didn’t give a gosh-darn about how the outside world operated. Little did I know!
Picton was a Conservative stronghold when we arrived. George Hees was the Member of Parliament at that time. Mr. Hees was someone I was familiar with because my mom’s family knew him. Mr. Hees was followed by another Conservative, Jack Ellis, from 1979 to 1988. And from 1988 to 2004, Lyle Vanclief represented Prince Edward and Hastings as a Liberal MP. I remember the surprise that a Liberal would take the seat from a Conservative, but Lyle was a local farmer and he spoke the language of a large number of people. Lyle’s competition was relatively unknown. In 2004,the area swung back to Conservative with Darryl Kramp in office until 2015. Neil Ellis is the current MP, in a recently redefined riding, and he’s a Liberal. Since my arrival, there has only been two notes in the political song of this area. It might be time to change the tune.
For a long time I thought unless a candidate was well known to this community, they didn’t stand a chance. We seemed to waffle between voting for the party, if the candidate was well known, or voting for a well-known candidate even if they weren’t affiliated with the party we would lean toward. Think about it. It’s a tough concept to wrap your head around. And now we need to think about a whole lot more than the individual. We really need to stop playing silly games at the ballot box, demand more, and put our style of “strategic voting” away for good. This election is the most important election of our country’s history.
We have a climate emergency. This should be our priority. We should be paying attention to the candidates who are completely committed to working with the world community to end climate change. We should be voting for a candidate who has the ability to juggle all of the “Canadian specific issues”, but also is willing to work to halt species loss, to end the rise of sea levels, to end the loss of our polar ice caps, to end the warming of the planet and to end climate change health related issues.
It’s not going to be an easy job. This isn’t your parents’ election, kids. Choose wisely, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
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