It's Election Day in Ontario

We are having a provincial election today in Ontario and I'm hoping people get out and vote. In the last election only 49% of Ontarians voted. It doesn't seem like democracy to me when only half the people have a say. If you are in Ontario, get out and vote! There are changes that need to be made to the electoral system (see: Fair Vote Canada), but until they are made this is the system we have to work with. Vote anyway! Even if you think your vote doesn't count. Also, if you are able to take someone with you when you vote, do it! I'm taking John's Grandma with me to the poll.

When the election is over, I have to say I will not miss all the campaign signs in public spaces. I understand and accept the political expression, and always love to see a house with a lawn sign (there are only two houses with a sign on my entire road). However I can't help but call the signs along the roadway an eyesore. This stretch of the bike trail (right) has 17 campaign signs. In a row. For only four different parties. It gets to be a little much.

If you are in Ontario - VOTE! Polls are open from 9am-9pm. If you need information about your polling station, check out the Elections Ontario website. The website may require you to provide an exact address for the information you need. It could be that the address they have for you is different than your actual address. Fun, right? If you run into trouble, just give them a call at 1-888-668-8683.

Name's The Same

On a drive to Elmvale this evening I noticed the sign for the NDP candidate in my neighbouring riding of Simcoe-Grey:

Here's hoping he plays acoustic and sings eight minute power ballads!

Speaking of which, here is my favourite Dave Matthews songs lately:

For Better or Worse: Vote!

Monday is municipal election day in Ontario and I hope you get out there and vote!

I live in Tiny Township, and this year voting was done through Vote By Mail ballots.  I found that out on Friday.  I have never voted in a municipal election in Tiny, so I was not on the voter list and did not receive a Voter Information Package.  I called the Tiny Township office on Friday to ask where the polls were going to be held on Monday and I was simply told that it was Vote By Mail this year.  I said that it was obviously too late for me to vote by mail (because there is a reason they call it snail mail), so I asked what to do instead.  I was told that on election day (Monday), I can get a ballot at the Tiny Township office and put it in their ballot box.  So the Tiny Township office is the one and only polling station then?  That doesn't sound good.

Maybe it is because I am used to casting my vote in Toronto, but it seems like a really bad idea to only have one venue for voting.  Tiny Township has over 18,000 residents who are eligible to vote.  Is there enough space for everyone who will be coming to vote?  Does the township office have a room to vote in?  Is there enough staff to assist people?  I imagine they are assuming that most people mailed in their ballots and that people casting their vote at the office will just be those who aren't on the voters list.  Unfortunately, if the people I know are an example of Tiny voters, I think there are going to be plenty of confused people at the township office on Monday.

Two people I know who are on the voter list and got a Voting Information Package in the mail, didn't even open the envelope.  They both assumed they didn't have to care about it until election day.  That seems fair to me.  People are really apathetic about voting in general (voter turnout is less than 50%), so I don't think it is too much of a stretch to think that people wouldn't give a shit about their Voting Information Package until the day they thought they had to (election day!).  I didn't even care about asking where to vote until the Friday before the Monday election, and I think voting is really important!  Who knows how many people just left their ballots in a pile of mail on their kitchen table, only to open them sometime this weekend and not understand what to do?

Another person I know received their voting package and opened it, but thought the information about voting by mail was just that - information.  They assumed they could take their ballot to the polling station on election day.  I looked over the package.  It does have instructions on how to vote by mail, but it never tells you why you should.  Nowhere does it say: "Hey Look! There is NO POLLING STATION in your area! We want you to vote by mail this year! Please mail this back to vote!!"  A lot of people just expect to do what they did last time (go to a polling station) so unless it is specifically spelled out, I imagine some people just ignored the vote by mail option and assumed there was a polling station somewhere.  I know I thought there was.  Isn't there always a polling station somewhere?

Oh yeah, there is...  The Tiny Township office.  I wonder how full and crazy it is going to be when I get there on Monday?

Even if there are long lines, make sure you get out there and vote!  It is worth it to make sure your voice is heard.

UPDATE:  The township office wasn't all that busy when I went to vote.  There was a steady flow of people dropping off their ballots in person, as well as a few I overheard saying "I just opened it this morning..."  The woman I was behind in line said her parents opened theirs that morning, and if they had known, they would have mailed it last month.  I asked the election clerk how many ballots they got back through the mail and she said it was over 6000.  About 9000 people vote, so that left about a third of voters dropping off their ballots/having to vote at the office.

Whose Service??

The Mayoral and Council elections are quickly approaching and I took notice of this sign that is posted all over the township.

I know I live in a small town, but isn't a giant Jesus fish on an election sign wildly inappropriate?  Also does the slogan "in your service" refer to me (a constituent) or is he referring to being in God's service?  I don't even know what this candidate's platform is, but based on his sign, he is really into his religious beliefs.  Maybe that is all I need to know...

On Writing, Local Politics, and Finding My Voice

My favourite thing to do on a Thursday afternoon is to read the local paper and check out the weekly grocery flyers that come with it.  The previous sentence could have easily been written by my mother, but it was in fact me, and I don’t begrudge inheriting this rather enjoyable past time. My number one interest is looking for deals in the weekly flyers, and secondly I like to see what my local community is talking about in the editorial section of the paper.

Last Thursday (Apr. 15) I was taken aback by an editorial and it enraged me so much that I wrote a rebuttal letter.  I wish I could say that the process was as easy as “I was mad, I wrote a letter, I sent it in”.  Far from it.  I spent countless hours over far too many days this week trying to find the right words that would adequately express my thoughts, feelings, and level of outrage.  I was also struggling with the confidence of expressing my opinion, and of letting my community know who I was and what I believed.

So what made me so mad?  Someone expressed that this society no longer has the values of yesteryear, with the main argument being that not enough people celebrated Easter properly this year.  The letter didn’t say anything specific, but made a number of statements that seemed to imply a lack of tolerance for other people and their beliefs.  As someone whose belief system mainly surrounds not caring what anyone else does (so long as they aren’t causing other people to suffer), I was completely offended that someone thought it was okay to write into the paper and tell me what to do.  For the sake of flow, from here on out I am going to refer to this letter as the ‘April 15 Letter’.

My first reaction to the April 15 Letter caused me to write a very incendiary rebuttal that put words in the author’s mouth and was very much a full out attack.  I spouted everything from accusing him of hating women, gays, and other races, to accusing him of supporting fascism.  I admit it, I was extreme, but it was just the rage talking.  The roots of rational discourse had not yet begun to sprout in my head.  This very incendiary first response taught me a very important lesson in writing: never get too attached to the first draft.  Which reminds me of an amazing quote the writer/director of Toy Story said about his own movies:

''Every Pixar movie at one time was the worst motion picture ever made.'' - John Lasseter.

This reinforces the idea that having a good editor is crucial to the writing process.  I have several editors in my life, including myself, and for this exercise, John helped rein me in to actually write something more than just an incendiary attack.  I wrote my first draft on Friday, my final draft didn’t fully appear until Monday night, and I didn’t even send it to the paper until Tuesday. It all seems like a blur now, but I really struggled to find the right words, argue my points on solid ground, and express what I actually meant.

Beyond expressing myself properly, I also had to combat my own psychology when it comes to saying opinions out loud.  I have strong opinions but I can be guarded and hesitant when it comes to conflict; don’t rock the boat.  So not only did I feel l was fighting someone who I thought was trampling my beliefs, I was also fighting with myself on whether I should be fighting at all.  Would the community judge my letter?  Would I just be seen as attacking someone?  Would anyone agree with me?  I was unaware of my audience and that helped fuel the fires of my paranoia over how my letter would come across and what kind of conflict I would face for submitting it.  Who knew that simply writing a letter to the editor would turn into a week of learning how to express myself and face my fear of “putting it out there”? 

It took all weekend and most of Monday, but finally I felt confident in a letter that I would submit to the paper.  The final draft of my letter still had a lot of fire in it as I attempted to dismantle the author’s statements and expose the flaws in how he had stated them (the guy relied heavily on rhetoric).  Although I was proud of my letter and it said what I needed it to, I could never really get away from feeling like I was just fighting with the author, when really I just wanted to express, “hey man, don’t tread on me.”  My letter would have taken much less time to write if I had said only that!

I submitted my letter on Tuesday, the same day the Tuesday edition of the paper printed a rebuttal letter from another reader.  The rebuttal letter was great and I feel it expressed an opposing opinion of the April 15 Letter, but wasn’t a direct attack on the author.  Something I will definitely learn from.  The rebuttal was basically to the tune of to each their own and thank goodness for freedom and democracy. This reader said simply what I had struggled to say and I realized that the finished content of my letter didn’t actually matter as much as what I had learned during the process of formulating my argument and rounding up the balls to send it in.  Which is mostly why I wasn’t upset or surprised when my letter wasn’t published in the Thursday edition of the paper.  It turned out that this week for me wasn’t about trying to school an old man in basic human rights, but rather learning how to express myself, both articulately and confidently.  Plus, at least someone was able to tell the old dude that we live in a democracy that celebrates diversity.  Really, somebody had to.

The printing of the other rebuttal letter also reminded me of something that I already knew: there are like-minded people here. Any paranoia or lack of confidence about expressing my opinion has to do with me and my fears, not with my audience.  Which is why yesterday, when the paper came and I was driven to write a rebuttal to something that had been said, I was able to write, edit, and submit the letter in under twenty minutes.  For the first time in a long time, writing felt easy. This week of process, though incredibly hard and tedious at some points, actually taught me important lessons in writing, expression, and confidence, for which I am tremendously grateful.