The longest election campaign in modern Canadian history is coming to an end. The parties and candidates have done their work, and now it’s our turn. Our work takes only a few minutes, but it’s the most important part of the whole process.
This time, interest in the election seems uncommonly high, and the emotions seem uncommonly heated.
The interest and the emotions could have something to do with the length of the election race. After 78 days, many of us have difficulty remembering a time before the campaign. Whoever wins should at least promise never to do this to us again.
Tired as we are, however, we have had plenty of opportunity to examine the platforms, the issues, the leaders, the candidates. If we are not informed now, we never will be.
Here on the Island, we have hurled ourselves into the campaign, pounding election signs into lawns, organizing all-candidate forums, discussing the issues on doorsteps and in coffee shops, and learning our way around new or redistributed ridings.
Anyone who wants proof of our interest in the election can find it in the turnout for the advance polls. The three B.C. ridings with the highest percentage turnout were in Greater Victoria.
In Saanich-Gulf Islands and Victoria, 19 per cent of eligible voters showed up to cast early ballots. Third place went to Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke, with 18 per cent turnout.
Almost one in five voters in those ridings was interested enough to vote early. Will that translate into a high turnout on Monday? We can only hope.
The interest could have something to do with the perception, at least for most of the campaign, that the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP were in a three-way race. It magnifies the usual election uncertainty and feeds the tortured debate over the pros and cons of “strategic voting” that has consumed almost as much time and energy as has been devoted to the issues.
If you think strategic voting is the answer, go ahead. But keep in mind that successful strategic voting depends on your ability to predict how everyone else in your riding is going to vote.
As the strategic-voting discussion shows, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has, rightly or wrongly, become the focus of the campaign. That should come as no surprise to a leader who insisted on labelling the entire Ottawa operation “the Harper Government.”
So many voters and pundits have convinced themselves that Harper will likely lose his majority that another tortured debate has erupted: What will happen if the Conservatives end up with a minority?
Voters, candidates, reporters, lawyers and political scientists have deluged us with opinions on what Harper and Gov.-Gen. David Johnston could or should do. Leaders of the other parties have been forced to say who they would or wouldn’t support in a minority situation. The calls to “Stop Harper” have reached a frenzy of negativity that for many voters seems to crowd out the many other issues in the campaign.
Democracy, however, should be a positive force. Cast your ballot for something, rather than against something. Find a party or candidate that shares your vision of Canada, and give them your vote.
However you weigh all the factors in this election, we urge you, as we do in every election, to spend the time to make an informed decision and then take the time to go to the polls.
Despite the metaphors, this is not a horse race. It’s an election. And your vote counts, no matter who forms the government. The only way you can waste your ballot is not to cast one.
