Canadians will go to the polls on Monday to decide who will be the next government of this country.
Many took the opportunity to vote during the advanced polls that were offered from Oct. 11-14. But the bulk of the traffic at the polling stations will come on election day itself.
It will be interesting to see the end result. The pollsters continue to indicate a dead heat between the Liberals and the Conservative Party, with the New Democratic Party enjoying a resurgence in support to fortify its place as the No. 3 federal party in this election.
The Bloc Quebecois has also experienced a recent uptick in popularity.
All of this leads to what should be a very suspenseful election night.
It also reinforces the need to have people get out and vote in the election, if they haven’t done so already.
In Souris-Moose Mountain, and many ridings in Western Canada, the Conservative Party candidate is expected to win handily. These ridings have shown strong support for the Tory candidates in the past, and it’s likely that will happen again.
We’ll see if the Tories enjoy the plurality of support they have had in the past in these ridings.
Sure, the other parties will get their support. The New Democratic Party has its base of support, and the Liberals will always get votes in Souris-Moose Mountain, no matter how invisible their candidate might be this election.
At least Conservative candidate Robert Kitchen, who is looking for a second term as this constituency’s MP, isn’t taking victory for granted. And neither should his supporters.
At the same time, the other candidates opposing Kitchen, with the exception of Liberal candidate Javin Ames-Sinclair, have shown varying degrees of commitment to this campaign, and we hope that will translate to their supporters getting out and voting.
If the Tories take victory for granted, and they don’t get their supporters out on election day, then they’re susceptible to defeat.
There’s another reason why it’s important to vote: if you don’t vote, then you forfeit your right to an opinion.
That might seem like a harsh statement to make, but every four years, we have the privilege and freedom of voting for the future direction of the country. We get to do so without pressure or the threat of violence or the possibility of imprisonment.
We know that the party that receives the most votes, and wins the most seats on election night, will have done so properly.
Yes, there are irregularities and rules that are broken from time to time, but you don’t run into issues of ballot box-stuffing and other electoral irregularities like you do in other countries.
There are billions of people all over the world who would love to enjoy the same democratic freedoms that we have in Canada.
So even if you aren’t fond of the leadership candidates in this year’s election, if you’re worried about the abilities of the people who want to be our prime minister, you should still take the time to vote.
Sure there are people out there who can’t vote because of age or health or citizenship. Most of those in the latter category look forward to the day in which they can vote in Canada.
If you’re able to vote in this election, then vote. If not, accept the result that you contributed nothing towards, and be quiet until the next time you have the chance to vote.
Ultimately, we’ll see what happens on election night. It seems unlikely that we’ll be electing a government that will represent us for the next four years; rather, it appears we’ll have a minority government that will be in power for a couple of years, before it is toppled by opposition parties.
And so it could be very difficult for the parties to push forward with the agenda that they have for the duration of their time in office, and it will be difficult for the government to get anything completed.
