In the first day of the advance polls in Canada over two million Canadians cast their ballots. By Saturday evening, Elections Canada had received almost three quarters of a million mail-in ballots. It is an unprecedented number that harkens back decades. Looking back on our history, John Diefenbaker’s 1958 election saw 79.4 percent of eligible voters turn out in his landslide victory.
In subsequent elections in 1962 and 1963 over 79 percent of eligible cast their ballots. Voting has declined since those heady days and Stephen Harper, with only 58.8 percent of eligible voters, won election. It is the lowest turnout of voters in Canada’s history. Harper won a majority government in that election.
In 2015, Justin Trudeau won a majority to lead the government with 68.7 percent of Canadians going to the polls.
There appears to be much more interest in this election. Advance polls are telling us that Canadians are more determined than ever to speak their voice to our leaders. It may be that Canadians feel under attack from our neighbouring government to the south with tariff wars.
It may be that our neighbours to the south wish to remove our sovereignty and have Canada join the fifty states beneath the 49th parallel. It may be that we wish to protect our independence as a free nation that celebrates our health care system and social policies. It may be that our election boundaries are created free of political interference that is common in our neighbours to the south.
Perhaps Canadian have come to realize that to retain our independence, we must trade more with the rest of the world that with the United States and our political parties have been put on notice that it is important that we can move our products to salt water quicker. And with that Canadians now realize that to protect our sovereignty we must boost our military size and spending to protect our waters to the north. We are also coming to the realization that we must boost our armament industries so that we are not dependent on our neighbours to the south.
Each party has a road map for all the above, protecting our social programs while growing our manufacturing industries in Canada and developing new trading relationships around the world. Your vote counts. By casting your vote even if it is not for the winning party, gives the government a mandate that says, “This election is important to Canada’s future.” If we can reach the totals achieved by John Diefenbaker and later by Lester Pearson, our government will have a mandate for the future.
It is every Canadian’s duty to vote.
