Winter is on the media's minds today, whether it's making snow tires mandatory, or if ski hills will be open by next week-end, or if we want to vote in winter. The latter seems a bit mind boggling as a question. Last time I checked we Canadians all experience winter about 6 months of the year, some as dreary rain and clouds true, but it's all frigid. Somehow we manage to get up, go to work, hang out with friends, play in the snow, even in the most freezing of temperatures and blasting of blizzards. Yet we can't go vote?
Cold and snow -- or thunderstorms in January this being Toronto the capital of insane weather -- isn't the problem for me; it's finding a polling station. It seems to me that with each election, polling stations are becoming fewer and farther apart to the extent that they're so far out of my neighbourhood, I need a detailed map to find the place. I've taken to advance voting, as the location for that is closer!
Running up to the last election, there was a hue and cry over electoral reform. The NDP championed proportional representation and in this minority Parliament were supposed to advocate for changing the way we vote. What happened to that? In the last few months, we've heard nothing, and so we're going to the polls under the same old system that has produced abysmal do-nothing governments since 1993. To make matters worse, the physical act of voting has become more difficult as polling stations have become scarcer; yet no-one has talked above a peep on that issue.
I'm ready for another election now. I hope Ontarians are ready too, ready to vote for the NDP if that's their bent, not to park their vote in the Liberals, thinking that's a good use of it, ready to give the Conservatives a chance because the Liberals are so not better than the Conservatives, ready to vote Green if none of the familiar parties are to their taste. In other words, I hope Ontarians are ready to climb out of the stagnant waters and make a decision to improve things. Any decision to take a chance is better than being afraid to vote for anyone but Liberal.
Tags: News and politics, Canada , Election
Cold and snow -- or thunderstorms in January this being Toronto the capital of insane weather -- isn't the problem for me; it's finding a polling station. It seems to me that with each election, polling stations are becoming fewer and farther apart to the extent that they're so far out of my neighbourhood, I need a detailed map to find the place. I've taken to advance voting, as the location for that is closer!
Running up to the last election, there was a hue and cry over electoral reform. The NDP championed proportional representation and in this minority Parliament were supposed to advocate for changing the way we vote. What happened to that? In the last few months, we've heard nothing, and so we're going to the polls under the same old system that has produced abysmal do-nothing governments since 1993. To make matters worse, the physical act of voting has become more difficult as polling stations have become scarcer; yet no-one has talked above a peep on that issue.
I'm ready for another election now. I hope Ontarians are ready too, ready to vote for the NDP if that's their bent, not to park their vote in the Liberals, thinking that's a good use of it, ready to give the Conservatives a chance because the Liberals are so not better than the Conservatives, ready to vote Green if none of the familiar parties are to their taste. In other words, I hope Ontarians are ready to climb out of the stagnant waters and make a decision to improve things. Any decision to take a chance is better than being afraid to vote for anyone but Liberal.
Tags: News and politics, Canada , Election
Comments
A couple of letter writers in The Star have been talking about heat pumps as a way to meet Kyoto. What I don't understand is why the government isn't aggressive in encouraging people to do things like get heat pumps and insulate their houses. The program they have is a joke and useless to someone like me who'd like to do it but has little capital.