Get out and vote, please

Waterloo Region will be a very different place on Monday night, after the votes cast in this year’s municipal elections have been counted.

Will you have played your part in making this happen?

For the first time in 33 years, the top elected municipal leader — the regional chair — will be someone new, owing to the retirement of Ken Seiling who’s held the job since 1985.

That change alone will shake up local government. But owing to other retirements, there will be new faces on many local councils and, perhaps, even a new mayor or mayors.

The new councils — regional, cities and townships — will be grappling with the pressures of growth that are transforming Waterloo Region. We desperately need new responses to challenges as varied as affordable housing, urban intensification, transit, doing more to accommodate cyclists and dealing with the opioid crisis.

In addition, Ontario’s new premier, Doug Ford, will almost certainly require these new municipal councils to make local governments more efficient. Indeed, it’s possible that he could slash their grants and push for municipal amalgamation.

The stakes in this election, therefore, couldn’t be higher. And yet if past elections are any guide, the vast majority of eligible voters will stay home.

If that’s your inclination, all we can say is if you don’t vote, you’ll have lost your voice in determining what’s to come.