Earn the Right to Complain

            This week, as I cast my vote for my provincial elections at an early polling station, I was asked if this was my first time voting. Amused, I replied that it wasn’t, and assured the questioner that I’m somewhat older than I look. But, then I reflected on it and realized that, while I’ve voted in the last few federal elections, this may actually be my first time voting in a provincial one.

            Looking back, I distinctly remember not caring at all when I was first old enough to vote. I didn’t see what good it would do – I was only one person, after all, and, quite frankly, I didn’t care what the government did. I didn’t feel that who was elected to government had any direct impact on my life. So, I didn’t vote.

            I think it’s a major failing in our education system that we don’t teach people the importance of voting – at least, not in a way that sticks or that they care about. I did have a mandatory Civics course that lasted half a semester where we were taught how to vote and given the basics on the structure of the government, but I don’t recall being taught the why of any of it. Admittedly it may have been because I lacked interest and none of what I was taught stuck, but young people not voting seems far too common a thing for it to have been just me.

            So, it falls to parents to educate their children on voting, which is a catastrophe on its own. Some people don’t vote because they don’t care and don’t think it matters, while others vote for the same party every time because that’s what’s “done”, and others believe people should choose for themselves and avoid talking about it at all. It’s made all the more difficult because talking about politics is considered a taboo subject.

            It’s fair to say that I picked up my parents’ political leanings, even though it wasn’t a major topic in my house. Even so, it was because I agreed with their views, not because I was blindly following. When I chose not to vote in that first election I was eligible to vote in, they respected my decision – though they reiterated the one idea that had been present all my life: If you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain about the government.

            It’s a very simple idea, yet powerful. It taught me the idea that you have to earn your right to complain about the government by voting, because if you didn’t vote, you obviously didn’t care enough, so it’s your own fault. You may not feel like one vote in a pool of thousands, or millions, counts for much, but if you didn’t cast your vote into that pool, you didn’t partake in the system and, thus, have no right to complain.

            Still, I didn’t vote. Not until a government came into power that started doing things I disagreed with – a government whose every decision seemed to fly in the face of what it meant to be Canadian and that was dragging the international name of Canada through the mud. But, as I saw this, I realized that I couldn’t complain about it. I hadn’t voted, and so I had no right to complain. But the very next federal election, I did vote. The same government ended up in power, but at least this time I felt I had done what I could to fight against it. I had earned my right to complain about what they did.

            So, today’s lesson is: vote. It doesn’t matter if you think who you vote for will win or not, the important part is to make your voice heard, however small it may be. Be it in this election, or any other election to come, anywhere in the world, vote. Vote, or be prepared to remain silent and live with the decisions made by others.

            Earn your right to complain.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Whoops, Politics Happened

            I generally try to keep politics out of my blog posts. Sometimes I wonder why and quickly remind myself it’s because that’s one of those topics we’re not supposed to talk about. Politics and religion. It’s too easy to upset people. Besides, that's not what I (or my blog) is about.

            Unfortunately, right now, Canadian politics are frustrating me so much that I can’t get them off my mind. I’ve just spent the last half hour trying to find something else to talk about, but my mind kept circling back to this.

            Canadian democracy. How it’s supposed to work vs how it actually works.

            Let’s pretend for a moment that Canada is much smaller than it is. Let’s say there are ten cities governed by one body. The government is supposed to be representative of what the people want, so each city sends one person in to represent them. This person is elected from a selection of candidates, each of which presents their ideas on how the country should be run. People vote for the person who they feel best represents their ideals whoever wins becomes part of the government.

            We now have a government made up of ten people. Those ten elect one of their members to be their chairperson and spokesperson. That person doesn’t have much more power than the rest; they’re just in charge of keeping the meetings running smoothly. The ten of them discuss issues, vote and deliver their decisions.

            That’s how it’s supposed to work, only on a much larger scale. That’s where it starts to fall apart. The first problem is that there are too many cities, so the country is divided into districts. Each representative now represents far more people, too many for them to possibly get to know everyone personally.

            The second problem is that, even separated into districts, there are still 338 representatives. That’s a whole lot of people who have to agree upon one spokesperson, the Prime Minister, from amongst themselves, or to come to any decision for that matter.

            The solution? The candidates arrange themselves into parties, networking themselves with people with similar ideals and working together to earn a victory. They pre-pick who will be the Prime Minister if their party if their party wins more seats than the others.

            The idea is solid and it worked to a certain extent, except for the part where three major parties rose to the top. With these three parties playing tug-of-war over the majority of votes, a problem began to arise. Each party obtained loyal supporters, who will vote for them no matter what. Then, in the middle, there are the swing votes – the people who like to believe they are more politically informed and will vote based on the issues.

            But, rather than voting for the individual they want to represent themselves, they vote for the party and the Prime Minister they think will do the best job. In fact, most Canadians don’t even realise they’re supposed to be voting for their local representative rather than the Prime Minister – or that those representatives, if they win, aren’t supposed to follow the Prime Minister blindly.

            While the representatives are supposed to vote based on what they believe is best for the country and for the people they represent, as part of a party they are expected to follow the pack. If their party wants an issue voted on one way, that’s how they’re expected to vote. With all the pressure, how many will actually vote against their party if they believe their party is wrong?

            So, what we end up with is a room full of people elected by the swing votes. Those people mostly vote in pre-determined ways. Now, if we have a minority government (going back to the ten representative example) with one party with four representatives and the other two with three, we see a government that functions mostly as it should. There is an even distribution of views and so changes are only made if two of the parties agree. Not as much happens, but more Canadians are happy.

            On the other hand, with a majority government (say, five, three and two representatives) the party in power can do pretty much whatever it wants. The only thing to stand in their way are the few representatives willing to go against the flow.

            Of course, this is where things start to get really messed up. All it takes to get voted in is to have the most votes in your district. This means if 35% of the people vote for you, and the majority of the votes are split between your opponents, you still get in.

            And so starts the dirty politics. The focus shifts from sharing your great ideas for the country to making your opponents look bad. It won’t work for all their supporters, but you just have to sway them enough to keep the votes split between them. As long as you don’t look as bad as they do, you can win with 34% of the voters behind you – less, if your district has smaller parties and independent candidates to absorb more of your opponents’ votes.

            Here, we come to Canada’s greatest problem. We have one right-wing party, two major left-wing parties and a further two less substantial left-wing parties. The vast majority of Canadians voted for left-wing parties, yet we ended up with a right-wing majority government. How? Because with four left-wing parties to choose from, the single right-wing party just had to keep their loyal supporters, win a handful of the swing vote (using manipulative fear tactics to scare them away from the opposition), and make the other parties split the vote.

            The worst part is that the left-wing parities perpetuate the problem. In their struggle to rise to the top, they further split the vote. The majority of Canadians are sick of our right-wing government and our Prime Minister who thinks he should be allowed to do whatever he wants. Our left-wing parties know this, so they are fighting harder than ever to win, knowing that they have the support of the country.

            Yet, they are further splitting the vote. They are even helping the right-wing party by attacking their left-wing fellows on petty details when they should really be teaming up. All it would take for them is for them to work together a little – to have some candidates drop out of key swing districts so the vote won’t be split. Then we’d end up with a government we’re at least reasonably happy with.

            Since both major left-wing parties want to alter the electoral system so that more votes actually count in the end result of elections, they would only have to do this once. Then they could work together to implement the better voting system they’ve promised and Canadians will actually end up with governments the majority of them are happy with.

            Well, as happy with as is possible.

            I’m just tilting at windmills, though, aren’t I? All I can do is shout out to my fellow Canadians and encourage them to vote. You all know who not to vote for – although, I suppose if you’re voting for them already, nothing I say is going to change that (and, for those people, I want to assure you that I’m not saying the right-wing should be out of the government. Everyone deserves their representation. That representation should just be proportional to what the people want, and that is not a majority right-wing government.)

So, really, this is for the 9 million Canadians who didn’t vote in the last election because they thought they wouldn't make a difference.

            Vote. Because this is probably the most important election in Canadian history and you can make a difference.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.