This past weekend, advance polls in our Federal election opened across the country. With COVID still a risk, I decided to take advantage of the smaller lines for the advance polls to cast my vote.
This election, perhaps more than any election I’ve voted in, had me in a bind. I’ve considered myself in recent years to be a Progressive in my thinking and, consequentially, in my voting habits. But, between the Progressive parties on the ballot, and the Conservative alternatives, I found myself worried that my vote might be useless, or worse help deliver a result that could be dangerous for Canada. How to make sure my vote counted?
In recent years, I’ve taken to asking myself two questions that have helped me navigate that dilemma:
- Which Party has a chance of actually forming a government – majority or minority?
- Which Party’s platform has a good chance of making things better for all Canadians, and of preparing Canada for the challenges to come – at least, as I see them?
If the answers to those questions delivered the same answer, then I’d know who to vote for.
Of course, a Party could form a government, and could promise many things… but not deliver on those promises for some reason. But then I realized that, if a governing Party doesn’t fulfil its promises, than the overall situation for Canada doesn’t change exactly (though the window for solving some problems – like mitigating climate change – does shrink somewhat, when a Party chooses to do nothing or to do as little as possible to solve a problem or fulfil a promise). So, really, a Party can only be good or bad for Canada if it actually follows through on the promises.
That last is a distinction we need to remember. The British Tories, for example, followed through on their promise to take Britain out of the European Union – and now their nation is in growing crisis; the resultant lack of workers and access to markets is slowly wrecking the British economy, and hampering Britain’s ability to deal with COVID-19. We must always remember that just because a given Party thinks their promise will Make Things Better, that it doesn’t necessarily mean that their promise will actually do what they think or say it will, if and when it is realized.
Which is why, when all is said and done, despite my own misgivings, I cast my vote for the Liberals. They have the means to form a government, and while their platform does not go far enough to aid the poor, tax the rich, combat climate change, combat systemic racism, and a myriad other problems, they will do better than the other party that can realistically form a government, to wit the Conservatives. The Conservatives’ promises, in my opinion, either do less than the Liberals, or do nothing at all to address the real problems our nation faces.
(And what of the parties that promise to do more than the Liberals? The NDP, despite having what I think of as a better platform, simply doesn’t have the numbers to be more than holding the balance of power in a minority government – which is the role they held prior to the election, and one where they did quite well in keeping the Liberals honest. As for the Greens – sadly, they never did a good enough job of selling their dreams to Canadians, and the recent racially-charged infighting between the party and its leader has done them no favours. I’d be surprised if the Greens remain a party of note after this election, honestly.)
Of course, my vote doesn’t mean that the Liberals will win the election – we could still see a Conservative government, or perhaps the NDP might surprise us and get a surprise surge on election day. But the above process allowed me to deliver a vote I could live with, and that’s what matters to me right now.