Everyone has already said most things I was going to say about the election, so just a short post to fill in the few things I still think are worth mentioning.
With the votes falling the way they did, I predict another election within 16 months. And I hope Chuck Cadman doesn’t flip back to the conservative party. He claims he’s going to let his constituents decide whether he should officially re-join the party, or remain an independent. I hope his riding realizes that he can have just as much, if not more of an impact by remaining independent, and voting as he sees fit, rather than toeing a party line.
I’m quite pleased with the way things turned out over all though. Although I think it would have been nice to see a couple more NDP seats over the Conservatives, it will make the coming months interesting, if nothing else.
I don’t typically post anything too political on here – but I’ll make the same mention a lot of my fellow bloggers are making: if you didn’t vote, you can’t complain. Though honestly, I’ve got a fairly enlightened group of friends, and they all voted, and I just don’t usually converse with people outside that circle with any amount of seriousness about these issues.
You can definitely complain about the party that did or did not end up in power if you exercised your right to vote, including whether or not they did or didn’t keep their promises. I know I’d be pretty vocal about my disappointment if the party I chose suddenly reneged on any and/or all of the promises they made.
You lose your right to complain about parties that are or are not in power if you did not vote.
However, that being said, if you chose to not vote as a protest to our particular system of democracy, you can complain about the system, and the parties that are or are not in power as a result of that – but not about how a specific vote turned out (since your ballot could be the “one vote” that was needed to give or deny a certain candidate power).
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so your personal political mandate is unlikely to be fully realized, no matter how much research you put into your vote. However, simply not voting, IMHO, means you have consciously excluded yourself from the democratic process, and therefore have lost the right to comment on it.
Feel free to cite examples if I’m wrong, but I feel that someone who is convinced that the system is flawed, would go in and spoil their ballot (perhaps write “the system is flawed” all over it) or otherwise make it known that they think the system as a whole is bunk, instead of simply refusing to participate at all. If someone really wanted to “not vote” then why don’t they move to a 3rd world communist nation where that decision is already made for them?
See, I disagree with the whole right to complain thing being tied to your vote.
What if you voted for a party that then broke their promises and policies? I’ve been told in the past “well you can’t complain, you voted for them”.
IMHO, voting is a choice and people add their will by excercising that choice. For some, abstaining is part of the choice. But regardless, it’s an imperfect choice, you don’t end up with an absolute extension of your political will via your vote.
If you’re a Canadian citizen, especially a tax paying one, you have a right to complain about the gov’t regardless. That’s my opinion.