I wrote this last Thursday.
It鈥檚 April 24, days before election day. I haven鈥檛 voted yet, and I don鈥檛 know what happened, though I can guess. However, even without knowing the outcome I have some notes.
First of all, if this election has shown us anything it is that we need proportional representation, and we need it now. In 2015, one of my first articles as a journalist in my university paper was a story about how 2015 would be the 鈥渓ast strategic election鈥� and that 台湾MM裸聊室 would bring about a change that would be far more democratic than anything we鈥檝e had before. Now, ten years later when the term 鈥渟trategic voting鈥� has been plastered on every power pole and bulletin board north of Nanaimo, I lament the lost chances we鈥檝e had at actually doing something that would benefit everyone. Maybe whoever our MP is can lobby for that in Parliament.
I also think that we need to have some additional rules for candidates. If there鈥檚 a debate or all candidates meeting, you have to show up. Not only is it respectful to the people you want to represent, it鈥檚 also a vital part of a functioning democracy. All of the forums and all-candidates meetings have happened by now, and it has become common knowledge that not all candidates attended them. I attended the meeting in Comox, which had a standing room-only crowd. Only one seat was empty at the meeting, and unfortunately it was at the candidates table.
I'm not going to talk about who showed up and who didn't. That information is easy enough to find. This wasn鈥檛 a local issue either, since I've heard of candidates not attending these events or responding to media across the country.
Every time there's an election, we reach out to each of the candidates involved and give them a chance to answer a set of questions. We are not the only organization that does this, too. Across the country, community groups, non-profits, organizations, and yes, news media all drop everything they're working on and set about making sure the voter has all of the information they need to make the best decision they can. We add to our already swollen workloads, we work into the night, on weekends and around the clock to help the people in our community decide how they want to be governed for the next four years.
Why can't the actual people who are running do the same?
It is vital that we, as a country, do not devolve into the fighting and vitriol that has coloured politics since the American president rode down a golden escalator in 2015. Without going into specifics 鈥� there鈥檚 another page in this paper with all of that information 鈥� I saw how politics got messy this time around. At the end of the day, we鈥檙e all just trying to make our community a better place to live. That shouldn鈥檛 have us fighting. It should be about working together.
A more proportional electoral system would fix a lot of the issues I鈥檝e listed here. If implemented 10 years ago, it would have kept our political temperature cooler, and then we wouldn鈥檛 be at each other鈥檚 throats. It would also have kept our political system more accountable to the people it ultimately has to serve.
It鈥檚 easy to look back on an election and ruminate about what could have gone differently, but I'm not doing that. I don鈥檛 know what happened during the election, I don鈥檛 know for sure who won or who lost.
Remember, I wrote this last Thursday.
