Voting is our most important civic duty
Dr. Vianne Timmons warns that we are turning into a nation of observers.
As a child, I loved the western novels of the late Louis L’amour — novels that in retrospect I realize often featured unflattering and untrue portrayals of women and North American Indigenous Peoples. While I can’t agree with those portrayals, I do agree with something Mr. L’amour once said: “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers.”
That statement has never been more true, both in the United States and here in Canada. Sadly, however, there is a danger that as Canadians we are more than ever becoming a nation of observers — and our apparent collective lack of interest in the current federal election is evidence of this.
From within our personal social media “filter-bubbles,” in which we can choose who
we follow and who we do not, some of us might be tempted to think that as a nation, we are positively rabid in how we devour coverage of the federal election. But that is not actually the case.
Public opinion research has indicated a low level of interest among voters with respect to the campaign. As one pollster puts it: “The Apathy Party is winning.” According to Ipsos Research, only 40 per cent of Canadian voters have been paying even minimal attention to the campaign, and in many cases they are the engaged partisans with strong political affiliation.
No doubt there are many reasons people feel the way they do about this election campaign. But lack of interest should not be an excuse to disengage, or merely to observe dispassionately. Election campaigns — federal, provincial, municipal or otherwise — are the very foundation of our democratic process. Whether we agree or disagree with the substance, style or personalities in a campaign, the right to vote remains fundamental to shaping the kind of nation we want to live in.
At the time of Confederation, voting in Canada was a privilege for some — primarily men of European descent who owned property. Slowly and by degrees that changed over the next century and a half, and voting became a right for others. Royal assent for women to vote federally was granted in 1918. Members of different ethnic groups such as Japanese-canadians received the vote in later years. By 1960, Indigenous People did not have to renounce their Indigenous status in order to vote. As late as 1993, persons with intellectual disabilities were finally given the right to vote in federal elections.
And of course, we must never forget that in two world wars, thousands of Canadians fought and died for our democracy and our right to vote.
In a very real sense, voting is uniquely our most fundamental and important civic duty. It is a way for us to participate in rather than simply observe the democratic process, and we should never take it for granted.
All of us need to exercise our hard-fought right to vote and encourage others to do so as well — especially young new voters who will carry on the traditions of our democracy like the generations who came before us.
As a Canadian and as a woman, I will proudly vote in today’s federal election — keeping in mind as always those before me who did not have the right to do so. I hope everyone else does the same. We must be a nation of participants, not simply observers.