Wednesday, October 15, 2008

It's My Party and I'll Cry It I Want To

With just shy of 1 million votes, that is 6.8% of the popular vote, my party failed to translate any of the really good contests into a single elected MPP. It was pretty disappointing watching the results last night. Especially when at one point the little ticker at the bottom of the screen reported on Green win and then it went away - robbed, I felt robbed. Locally my candidate didn't do so well, but it was going to be a hard slog against John Baird (conservative environment minister) and David Pratt (former Liberal defense minister). But I was hoping for more from high profile (and well spoken) Greens like Adriane Carr, Mark Nagy, Lori Gadzala, etc. or even Elisabeth May herself. My did pull a solid second place, but there also was no Liberal candidate in her riding?

I'm not happy with the gains the the Conservatives made. Obviously Newfoundland was a blow to them, but they won a solid minority. I shudder to think what that means for my country. The economic woes of our current moment turned out as a boon for the conservatives, I was afraid of that. People are afraid of change. We will have to brace ourselves as economics trumps justice to the detriment of our embattled planet and impoverished world.

What is odder to me is the apathy. Lowest turnout, that was expected, but the unwillingness to vote if you are not going to win is ridiculous. I really do not get this fatalistic approach to voting. Seriously, what do people expect? You get one vote, throwing in with who you think will win does what? Makes you feel like a winner? The worse option, refusing to vote, means you will get exactly what you don't vote for. But I think Harper counted on this. Why else would you set an election so close to Thanksgiving? A time when folks have other turkeys to deal with then an election. $290million dollars went into this travesty. Not voting is what makes this a waste of money - we had an opportunity to roast the real turkey but instead we re-elected him.

3 comments:

Steve said...

I read about the low voting turn out and I wasn't surprised. When you looked at what we were given as options. There was no winning option. Harper and the conservative, not exactly where I wanted to cast my ballot. Dion, that was a huge mistake. The Liberal didn't stand a chance with him as leader. Then NDP and Jack Layton. Layton has spunk, but unfortunately for most Canadian the NDP is a little too far left. As for the Green Party, people are afraid of change, and Green represents change so they didn't stand a chance. It's funny to hear people's comments about the green party. I hear it at work, at social gatherings and sometimes in public. They are not perceived well by the bulk of the population.

Nonetheless, the Green Party is where I casted my vote. I voted for what I believed to be important. Yes the economy may be a factor, but I think that the Environmental issues dwarf all others. Unfortunately, the majority of canadians do not share the same view.

I believe that Elizabeth May would have won a seat in her own riding instead of going toe-to-toe with Peter Mackay. She did the honorable thing, I can tip my hat to that.

steven hamilton said...

dismaying...low turnout in a meaningful election (not that other elections haven't been meaningful), but one would think that the issues hitting home, people would...well, who knows what people think...

One of Freedom said...

I think the apathy reveals that the majority of Canadians did not care who won or lost in this election. Steve's (dmofkor) read is a good one. I personally convinced a few folks to vote, folks that were not interested - how many voted just because of peer pressure and not because they felt compelled to intellectually participate in the electoral process.

But then again this moment calls for greater personal activism, especially on environmental issues. If the apathy towards something as simple as voting is this great, imagine how hard it is to motivate folks for activism.