The campaign has been like a Zoom meeting — exhausting

Pollsters tell us the biggest issues for voters are health care and affordability. Issues relating to management of the pandemic have slid down the list

This was the Zoom meeting of election campaigns.

You know what I’m talking about. You’re at the meeting, microphone off and camera on, and everyone says what they are supposed to say, and decisions are made.

But there’s no feeling of connection, as there would have been at an in-person gathering. And by the time it’s over, you’re exhausted.

That’s what the past few weeks have felt like across Ontario.

“It’s almost like it’s been stuck in the mud,” said Ian McLean, president and CEO at the Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce, about this campaign.

Opinion polls haven’t budged since the campaign began, a sign that people across the province aren’t engaged.

Lawn signs showing support for different candidates have not appeared as often as before (I drove around Breslau for 10 minutes last week and saw only two signs).

And McLean noted that this may be the last year that the chamber organizes debates for each riding, in which candidates respond to the arguments of their opponents, and the voter can see how they stack up side by side.

The chamber organized the debates this year, but too many of the candidates didn’t show up, he said. “We may move to one-on-one podcast interviews” in future. What a shame.

It’s such a paradox. We’re facing huge social and economic problems in the wake of the pandemic.

Costs of homes, gas and food are soaring. Health care is under tremendous strain, and the fear of climate change that can’t be reversed in time gnaws at us.

Even the war in Ukraine, as far away as it is, is very painful to witness.

You’d think all this would have fired us up about the election. There’s so much that needs to be fixed. But it did the opposite. Perhaps that’s because we know these problems we face are too big even for the biggest province in Canada to handle.

Premier Doug Ford refunded vehicle licence sticker fees, while Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca promised buck-a-ride public transit. Both are nice perks for their respective voter groups, but they’re like a fresh coat of paint on a house that’s about to collapse.

Pollsters tell us the biggest issues for voters are health care and affordability. Issues relating to management of the pandemic have slid down the list. Yet the pandemic, and the grief and anxiety it brought, is the biggest issue in one sense because it has created this apathy.

I’m writing this before the polls closed on Thursday. I don’t yet know the outcome of the race as I write. But widespread apathy on election day means two things.

One, a lot of people may not bother to vote at all, which means the people who will decide the election are the over-55 crowd — because they vote every time, no matter what. Older people are more likely to support the Conservatives, especially a middle-of-the-road Conservative like Ford.

Two, some other people who want to see change will vote — but because they aren’t fired up about the possibilities of what a new government could do, they don’t do other things to help the cause of their chosen party. They might not volunteer, and they don’t talk to their friends about why they like this party or candidate, and they don’t post on social media about why voting matters. Weeks ago it was already too late to save this campaign. Let’s hope that next time there’s an election, we’ll be back to our usual argumentative, loyal, passionate selves. I for one care much more about this spirit returning than I do about who wins the right to govern Ontario.