Canada went to the polls yesterday (June 28th) to elect its next federal government. Latest results show the incumbent Liberals turning in a better-than-expected performance, and clinging to a minority government. The next few months promise to be interesting as they broker their way to power.
As a crusading journalist who fights for the rights of the little people, democracy is a pretty critical thing to me. We are privileged to be able to democratically elect our government - especially when we don't need to look far for examples of countries whose citizens so clearly lack those - and many other - rights.
Indeed, publishing this blog - trivial as it may seem - could land all too many of our fellow citizens of Earth in a state-funded, earth-floored prison cell.
So it was important to involve the kids in the process. So when I got home from the office, we loaded up the stroller and headed over to the polling station near our house. Our three-year-old, Noah, mis-heard the word "vote" and wanted to know where the boat was. He perked up when he and Dahlia got to help me stuff the ballot into the ballot box. Then he and his sister played the piano in the hall on the way out. Such fun!
Democracy starts young. They have no idea how lucky they are that it's all so easy for us.
Tune into this week's London Free Press column (updated Wed. June 30) for more on why this stuff really does matter. And if you didn't bother to vote this time out, you now have a bit more time to think about why you're such a slack-jawed troglodyte.
Carmi Z.
BTW, can you guess where that last cultural reference comes from?
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3 comments:
Ahhh - on has to love Mr. Burns.
I can't agree with you more. I was somewhat dismayed to hear so many people in the office today say they "didn't have time" to vote, yet have an opinion on the results of the election. Who would have thought there would be so many Homer Simpsons in London! My tongue aches from the continuous biting of it.
Cheers to you for involving your family in the process. I spent a good half hour explaining the electoral process to the older of my children. He enjoyed watching the results as they came in - he thought it much like the Stanley Cup playoffs....
Nice to see that someone else included the "little people" in the democratic purpose. We took our little noodle along and tried to involve him without getting into too much detail about what a DRO was. When all was said and done, and we were leaving polling station 075, my precious one announced to the gathering sublime masses that he had sand in his diapers and he really wanted to go home. It just seemed to sum up what we had just done that day ... Thanks for the blog
Nice to see that someone else included the "little people" in the democratic purpose. We took our little noodle along and tried to involve him without getting into too much detail about what a DRO was. When all was said and done, and we were leaving polling station 075, my precious one announced to the gathering sublime masses that he had sand in his diapers and he really wanted to go home. It just seemed to sum up what we had just done that day ... Thanks for the blog
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