It’s getting down to crunch time as general voting day looms.
The advance polls have passed over the long weekend and now the final opportunity to cast a ballot in this fall’s federal election is Monday, Oct. 19, between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
We encourage all of our readers who are eligible to do so, to get out and vote. Check those official Elections Canada voter registration cards carefully (don’t trust ones sent out by the political parties) and bring your photo ID in case you’re not on the list — and should be.
We here at the PNR are not going to endorse any one candidate over another — it’s your job to determine who will represent the interests of the Saanich Peninsula and Gulf Islands the best in Ottawa. It’s also your job to think about which party is going to do the best work for Canada.
And that’s going to be based entirely on your own world view, how you see your own role in this country and how you wish to see Canada as a nation.
We’ve done what we can to present some of the issues the local candidates have had to address — from local seniors concerns to how their parties are aiming to govern should they win the day.
In fact, there is a lot of information out there on all issues, big and small, the candidates and their parties. Democracy requires a lot of participation to run effectively. So, taking part in this or any election demands work.
Will all that hard work make a difference?
You bet it will. Take the last provincial election, for example. In this area, the top three candidates were separated by only a couple hundred votes, at most. A few more percentage points in voter turnout here, and that race could have gone any one of three ways.
The Saanich Peninsula traditionally has a good level of voter turnout, so in some respects, we are preaching to the choir here.
So, we reach out to undecided or non-voters: there’s still a little time to participate in the federal election. Give it a try.
Or be prepared to face the music on Oct. 20