Friendly Humanist

I know, I just posted about the election.

What can I say? I live in a province that has been governed by the same party for more than my entire life, and all of the polls are suggesting that this streak will end on Tuesday. For over four decades, the centre-right Progressive Conservative (PC) party has formed the government. Now, it is looking entirely possible that the left-of-centre New Democratic Party (NDP) will not only have more seats than their opponents, but will form a majority.

The projection website ThreeHundredEight, run by writer Éric Grenier, presents the results of the latest (final) polls here. While Grenier is prudently cautious in his interpretation, he points out that the NDP’s “minimum seat haul is projected to be 25 seats – which would count as a historic best.”

There are four main parties in contention here. Roughly from right to left, they are the Wildrose, the PCs, the Liberals, and the NDP. (There are other parties in some ridings, but for my constituency we only have candidates from these four, so I’m basically ignoring the others.)

Now, it’s easy to feel discouraged. I looked through the platforms of all of these parties. Easily 95% of the claims in each were gassing on about trigger issues, without any specifics. They give the impression of meaningful promises, without being particularly specific. And of course, I am only one of about 4 million people in the province.* In my riding, there are somewhere north of 30 000 voters, though fewer than half of them bothered to actually participate in the last election.

So what do I want to say here? Well, I really feel like it’s time to stir things up, so I would love to promote the NDP as the party to do that. But even worse than the fact that the PCs seem to be taking their position as Alberta’s governing party for granted is the fact that more than half of the people who have the power to say something about this don’t bother.

Seriously, people? Everyone complains about politics, but it looks like three out of every five complainers have literally not done the first, most straightforward thing they could do about it.

So I have a few bits of advice for my fellow Albertans. (Those of you outside of Alberta, most of this advice could easily translate to you when the next election comes around.)

To those who lean left: Get out there and vote on Tuesday. Show the wary pollsters that sometimes an extreme prediction actually means we’re going to have extreme weather. There is a real chance that Canada’s famously most-conservative, most corporate, most environmentally irresponsible province could start a new page in history on Tuesday. This will only happen if you actually vote. Those poll results will only translate into reality if you actually go and vote. Vote early if Tuesday doesn’t work for you. Check out the Elections Alberta website for where you can vote – early or on the day.

To those who lean right: The PCs and Wildrose are in a dead heat for opposition. It looks to me like Wildrose is more fiscally conservative, and the PCs are more socially conservative. You may hate the thought of splitting the conservative vote, but even worse is making sure it doesn’t show up. Are you really prepared to let some socialist upstart walk into our legislature and overturn forty years of conservative leadership? All parties are talking about environmental stewardship. Do you think conservatives can achieve that more responsibly, and at less cost to the economy than the Liberals or NDP? Then tell us all. Get out on Tuesday and vote. Or vote in advance polls. Check out the Elections Alberta website for where you can vote – early or on the day.

To those in the centre: Politics is not all about right and left. Those are convenient fictions to let us think less while making important choices about our political lives. Being centre doesn’t mean being undecided; nor does it mean that your vote doesn’t matter. The parties all make particular claims about where we should get money from, how we should spend it, and how we should treat each other – from wealthy corporations and employers, to working families, to vulnerable people of all sorts. Your vote is your voice. Tuesday is a day when you will be heard more loudly by your government than any time in the next three or four years. Vote for a person you trust. Vote for a party you believe in. Vote strategically to block a hated alternative. (I’d prefer you didn’t, and so do these folks. I think that’s a whole separate post.) Whoever you support, however strongly or weakly, for whatever reasons, your hope that they get in will only make a difference if you back it up with a mark on a ballot. Vote. Check out the Elections Alberta website for where you can vote – early or on the day.

So whether the polls have you terrified or excited or indifferent, you have plenty of reasons to vote, and no excuses not to.

Footnote:

* I’m guessing this based on the 2011 number here (3.6 million) and the 2015 summer projection reported here (4.2 milion).

This entry was posted on 2015/05/01 at 13:42 and is filed under community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.