After a short and strange campaign, we are now in the final days before Canada’s 44th general election. The time has passed for advance voting or requesting a mail-in ballot, but it’s not too late to get informed and carry out your civic duty on Monday.
Since the election was called, we have been bringing issues-based coverage in print and on the Canada Votes 2021 tab at nsnews.com, including our ever-popular candidate questionnaires. If you haven’t been following the race in granular detail, consider this your indispensable cheat sheet to getting informed on where the candidates stand on the biggest issues.
All three North Shore ridings are up for grabs, as far as we’re concerned, and it’s anyone’s guess whether our MPs be in government or Opposition.
We understand not everyone may be feeling enthused about a snap election called needlessly in the fourth wave of a pandemic but there is good reason to go stuff something in the ballot box, even if you don’t expect much in return.
Every ballot that is cast will parsed by academics, pundits and the parties themselves, looking for shifting trends. This in turn helps shape their positions and the discourse that will follow for the life of the next term. The more engagement we have in the political process, the more responsive the political process will be to our needs as a whole.
Whether you love the parties, their leaders and their policies – or not – the only wrong decision on Monday is to not vote at all.
