Ontario is in the middle of an election, but you’d be forgiven for having not noticed that.
In spite of everything going on in the world, here in our corner of it, we’ve slid into an almost anemic election season. The premier called for a snap election on January 24, 2025 (as snap as could be when almost everyone saw it coming) and slapped a deadline of just over a month onto it, meaning that in about one week’s time, we’ll know who our leader and provincial representatives for the next few years will be. An election is a monumental occasion any time it happens, a hallmark of the democracy we hold dear in Canada. And yet…
And yet, for such an occasion, this election sure does feel off. I’m not sure if it’s because of just how wild the wider world has become since it was called, or if we’ve well and truly hit some heretofore unseen level of voter apathy. Casting an eye about town, much as our Publisher Emeritus says in his column this week, there are hardly any candidate signs to be seen and nearly no materials handed out for potential voters. This all could change in the next few days; Elections Ontario has noted that voter registration cards are due in the mail this week, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see more pamphlets for candidates with them.
But the anemia seems to extend to our political parties as well. Despite a few leadership debates that have our four major party leaders showing varying levels of verve and vigour, most other candidates outside of the incumbent government feel like they’ve been caught on the back foot. The NDP was sending out emails announcing their riding candidates in the leadup to the election, but I recall no such emails from the other parties in that same time period. Many names popped up across the province following the dropping of the writ, and therein, I think, lies a problem.
Make no mistake; it is a difficult calling to step into the political ring. These individuals are doing so in an effort to stand up for the people of their riding in an effort to improve their lives. But it seems so often like a thankless job, where for every piece of good news they get to deliver to constituents, there are nine more defeats to bring home.
However, come an election, I feel like the most important work a candidate can do should have already been done. When people step forward and ask us to cast our votes for them, we should be able to look back at the ways they have fought for us already. Our political system doesn’t exactly allow for this, where only the winner gets to join the government. Even then, in the event the new MPP is not of the party that holds the power, their ability to demonstrate anything at all might be severely diminished. But could we imagine a system where candidates aren’t only named in the lead-up to an election, where they have the space to make their efforts at improving life for Ontarians known throughout the remainder of the government’s lifecycle as well, so that when the time comes to ask for support, they have a portfolio to fall back on to make their case?
Granted, that’s what many political candidates do in one way or another. Rare is the individual who shows up for the political game who hasn’t cut their teeth advocating in one way or another. Many political aspirants have already worked to make their names known to those in their prospective ridings. But when we have record low levels of voter turnout in Ontario (2022 saw a total turnout of only 44.06 percent of eligible voters, and I fear that record may be shattered this month) it’s clear there is a disconnect in our system. If we want to engage more people in our politics, if we want to rise above the apathy we see all too often when it comes to voting, maybe we need to change the way things are run and give people more of a chance to get to know their candidates in a political setting outside of seeing their name for the first time in the short lead-up to election day, or, even worse, at the ballot box.
The incumbent might have the stronger position when an election is called, but other parties should be waiting in the wings for the chance to show off their victories, not leaving voters feeling like they’re scrambling to catch up.
