Whitney Pier election sign.
So I’ve been putting off a post about the municipal election, mostly because I haven’t really had the time (or made the time, I guess it depends on your perspective) to think about the municipal election.
I find myself wishing I cared about it more.
I mean, in general, if I had to answer a T/F question on a quiz that went like this: “Democracy is important,” I’d say True. For sure.
But, I’d also answer the following question True: “Elected officials aren’t very responsive to the needs of their constituents.”
At the ripe old age of 28 I find I’m getting apathetic.
It wasn’t always this way. I was involved in provincial politics in my teens, when I followed my Dad, an active volunteer, to the NDP headquarters to make calls and canvass. I became a member of that party and have voted in every federal and provincial election that I’ve been able to. But when life got busier in my twenties I let my membership lapse.
Lately I’ve been supporting the Green party, and I definitely still vote – as my friend Tanya, a history buff, says, “Women fought too hard to get the vote for me to not vote,” – but overall I don’t follow politics much. I don’t get it when some folks say, “Oh, I’m a political junkie, I can’t get enough of it!” To me, political news is all about back-peddling and name-calling, with the occasional inspiring leader. It tires me out pretty fast, so I mostly tune it out.
Again, I wish that weren’t the case. I wish I felt it was a valid use of my time to help someone campaign, or to go to rallies and debates. I’ll be voting in this weekend’s election, for sure (another phrase that comes to mind is “you can’t complain about the system if you won’t even participate in it,”), but I’m not expecting huge changes when the results are announced. I guess we’ll see!
Do you feel the same? Or are you excited and inspired by the election? Leave a comment with your thoughts.
If you’re not sure how to vote, here are some resources for you:
- CBRM’s Election 2012 page.
- Richmond County’s “Where do I vote?” page.
- Victoria County’s “Municipal News” page, which includes all the info about advance polls and electronic voting.
- Inverness County – No website dedicated to the election that I could find, but on their municipal website they mention that the Returning Officer for the election is Dernie Gillis, and that you may contact Mr. Gillis at 625-0844 or the Administrative Office at 787-3501 if you require any information.
i feel much the same way. i have a hard time seeing the point when politics has almost nothing to do with what people actually claim they care about / are going to do. so if you can’t base your vote on what the politician says they will do, then what do you base it on? guessing? previous evidence? what if there isn’t any? it’s all pointless rhetoric. and in order to make sense of it, it seems you have to spend a lot of time in this bizarro-doublespeak netherworld, which i am not willing to do. they get rid of smart young people by boring them to death. because if smart young people were in the equation in any numbers, things would change bigtime.
this election, i voted against someone that i didn’t want representing me, rather than for someone i really cared about winning. that kinda sucks.
and provincially / federally, i support the green party too, but our voting system is such that you sometimes can’t vote for who you want. if you are afraid of say, conservatives winning, then you feel you have to vote for whoever has a chance of beating them, rather than who you actually want to win. that really sucks! so pretty much every election, i have to evaluate pretty seriously, and i never know what to do.
Yes, exactly. To all of it.