Please note that I am well over the voting age. I was elligible for the last federal election and for the last two provincial elections in Saskatchewan and the last provincial election in Manitoba. And for a whole LOAD of municipal elections in three different cities. I have voted a grand total of ONE time and then, I only voted because my polling station was literally one block away from my front door and it was a municipal election, so it doesn't really count.
I am the ugly Canadian. The one who doesn't vote. The one who shrugs off her democratic duty. The one who says "Yeah, but Pirates of the Caribbean is playing!" or "I would, but I've got to get a manicure, this hangnail is KILLING me!" or even "Would I have to get up? Now? Let's get a slurpee first." And then, there would be a series of comic misadventures and where do you get a nun costume at 5:00 p.m. on a Monday anyway?
So I just didn't vote.
I don't come from a family full of voters either. The last time my parents voted,Trudeau was up for re-election. And my brother has loudly voiced his drunken opinion that he doesn't care about politics one more than one occasion when we get together and drink and I start waxing political, all "You know whoshe a good guy? *hic!* Roy Romanow. I mish him. He was sush a good leader *hic!* guy."
When I lived in CitythatIhated in Manitoba, my boss was enraged when I mentioned that I didn't vote and didn't plan on voting. He couldn't believe that I wouldn't want to be part of democracy in action. He would tell me that I had no right to complain if I didn't vote. My complaint then (as now) is that there's nobody to vote FOR. I said if there was a candidate whose views I agreed with, whose platform I could at the very least stomach, who wasn't a pretty-boy, talking head and actually had some substance, some ideas, something behind him or her to make me believe that I would be voting for something that would be great. But there wasn't. So I didn't. To me, not voting is just as political as voting. I could show up and spoil my ballot, but you know. Slurpees.
I've been paying much closer attention to the campaigns this year. Mostly because I have to since I lay out and edit the election pages of the newspaper. Now that I'm informed, I can honestly say: Blech. I can't believe the photos that come over the wire. Candidates eating ice cream. Candidates kissing babies. Candidates petting dogs. Candidates yelling at other candidates. Candidates playing baseball/football/I'm just a regular guy sport of your choice. Candidates kissing their wives. (Whooo! Jack Layton! Slip of the tongue indeed!) It's ridiculous. I would rather see them getting together for more debates and engaging in political discussions. I would rather see what Stephen Harper says about the privatization of medicare and a woman's right to choose. I'd rather see what Paul Martin has to say about why he cut health care so much when he was finance minister. I would like to hear Jack Layton's excuse for that moustache.
Let's face it, my vote this year is a vote AGAINST two other parties. I cast my ballot not FOR any one candidate, but AGAINST one, possibly two idiots. Strategic voting. Or throwing my vote away? How can you throw your vote away? By not voting for the winner? Well how the hell do you know who wins until you vote? I don't get that. Politics. Take it or leave it. I guess you have to take it since it's so much a part of your life, whether you know it and acknowledge it or not.
I just don't put a lot of stock into it. What I do every day is get up and function. The issues that I care about (the environment, farming, gay marriage, and women's rights) are rarely, if ever mentioned. I guess you could say medicare is an issue I care about, but nobody is going to fix that. I mean if the aforementioned Roy Romanow can't, then I'm sure as hell that nobody else can. I don't see things I care about being brought up, so I don't vote.
And if you want to write me and chastise me and tell me I'm a horrible, rotten, evil person who has no right to live in such a wonderful, perfect, blessed democracy like Canda if I don't vote, then you're welcome to do so. I'll ignore you. I've got a lot of practice since I've been ignoring politicians this long. But this year, I decided that I can't just stand by and watch Stephen Harper get elected.
"Wheee! Tax cuts for the rich! More military money! How will I accomplish this? By cutting social programs of course! Duh! Who needs medicare anyway? We're rich! We'll just BUY our medicine! All you poor people can just go rot in the street until the corpse cart comes by calling 'bring out your dead!'"
Seriously. It would be like having the Wizard of Oz as your prime minister!
Plus, with all his MP's saying these politically incorrect things like "We're anti-abortion!" and "You know who sucks? Asian people!" and "Good thing I'm not late for this meeting with you natives! You might scalp me!" And "When we form the government we're going to use the not-withstanding clause in the charter of rights and freedoms to veto any bill favouring gay marriage!" And so on and so forth. They're reprimanded, I guess. And Harper hauls out his well-practiced "Uh, that's not party policy" speech. but I just can't help feeling like for a second, the veil has been lifted and we've had a peek at the man behind the curtain. He makes me want to protest, and normally, I can't handle the smell of patchouli and the stink of dreadlocks.
This year, I guess I'll walk the two blocks, wait the 20 or so minutes, mark my little mark and watch with discouraged humility as the Conservative candidate is re-elected in the bible belt of Alberta once again. And when fall rolls around and if I'm still here, I'll head to the polls to vote against Klein too, for all the good it will do.
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Kodos: It's true, we are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It's a two-party system! You have to vote for one of us.
(The crowd murmurs)
Man: Well, I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate.
Kang: Go ahead, throw your vote away! Ah-hah-hah-hah-haaaah!
