I love elections. I truly do.
While I’m 99% certain this one won’t go my way, I cast my ballot early to be good and sure my vote counted. For what it’s worth, it’s worth everything to me.
By Thursday night the election will be over and our fate in this province will be set in stone for another four years. I can only speak for myself when I say I feel like the last few years, I’ve been living in a plot that combines The Handmaid’s Tale, Squid Game, Survivor and an episode of The Price is Right, but with less cheering.
That’s why this voter just wants to buy an inflatable unicorn inner tube, lather in sunscreen, don a lifejacket and fill my Yeti with tap water, grab some snacks and float away on Georgian Bay with no mobile phone to give me the news. You guys go ahead and fight it out.
I cannot do that though (the Carpenter said the unicorn isn’t in our budget). One of the joys of living in a democracy is contributing to it and holding politicians accountable. I’ll keep paying taxes and paying attention.
Nothing would make me want to run for political office in this election. Nothing. I cannot imagine anyone believing they can fix the quagmire this province is in, much less taking a run at it. That’s guts.
Everyone has the solution though, so don’t worry. There is a plan. There is a policy. There is package that outlines it all. They’ve got this. Red. Orange. Green. Blue. New Blue. A sort of blue. A bunch of other colours. A rainbow of solutions. Pray for the colour blind.
What worries me most in this election is that people seem to have short memories. No doubt the pandemic is something we’d all like to forget, but guys, it’s not over.
We are so quickly distracted by the news cycle that we forget what happened months ago, much less years ago, decades ago. We get distracted by the next shiny thing. The sound bites. The mob mentality that clamours for attention and gets it, because we cannot believe how American we’ve become, though we can’t say that, because Canadians are different. We are different, right? Right.
Guess we’ll know when we wake up Friday morning.
I’ll be happy when the election signs come down this weekend. Funny, people claimed the pandemic was media brainwashing, but signs plastered everywhere that declare nothing more than the bold party colour, a name, and some with a professional headshot, are not seen as such. They are plastered all over town, at intersections, near schools, parks and trail entrances, sometimes in clusters. It’s ugly and unnecessary. If you don’t know who is running locally for the election, that’s on you, not on a lawn sign.
Remember when we had signs posted in our windows and lawns to show support to our frontline workers? We were united then. At least I thought we were. Those signs made sense and I never got tired of seeing them.
With that in mind, I chose to vote for a party based on the things that matter, not just to my family here in Wellington County, but to the bigger picture in this province.
Whomever wins this election locally, we’re counting on you to be our voice in the legislature. Good luck with the quagmire.
It’s worth everything to us.
