Let’s be honest; for many of us, it is tough to care about the upcoming election.
First, the October 2020 provincial election and now a federal one, both during a global pandemic?
It is so annoying when neither one needed to happen when they did. Instead, our politicians chose to call them during a global health crisis.
We just voted federally in 2019, for goodness sake.
Even for those of us in the news business, who usually relish digging into policy, dissecting leaders’ speeches and tracking polls, this is a hard campaign to get motivated about.
And the reasons to care start to sound like the teacher in the Charlie Brown cartoon, “Wah wah woh — democracy — wah wah — right denied to many —Wah wah woh wah wah.”
Most of our brains are exhausted from what seems like a never ending pandemic; our nerves are frayed from the division in our families, friend groups and online over COVID or vaccine passports; and from trying to figure out back to work and school and making it all work.
Put a fork in us; we’re cooked.
But we all know we have to find a way to care because voting is critical, especially now with our community’s recovery, environment and our families’ futures on the line.
Whoever is elected will be leading us out of some of the toughest times we have had. We can’t leave that to chance — or to the rare folks who have the energy to care because they have sailed through the pandemic with relative ease.
So, let’s all pick one thing. Whatever the one thing is that matters to you; your “ballot question,” as political researcher Doug Munroe described it — your line in the sand thing.
It might be childcare or climate change or foreign policy — whatever.
Zone in on that.
You can’t read and watch and understand everything out there related to the election, especially not this election, we get it.
So, have your one thing in mind and tune in to the Squamish Chamber of Commerce All-Candidates Meeting on Sept. 16. Just do that.
Watch how the candidates answer questions about and from your community.
If you don’t hear what you want as it relates to your ballot question, go back and watch the debate from the Sunshine Coast or the Whistler one, held Sept. 8. These show you the candidates live and under pressure.
Pick the person who answers your line in the sand question the closest to how you would.
Then go back to your regularly scheduled program of getting through each day, up until Election Day, Sept. 20. Then get out and put that ballot in the box.
Having to think about hard things when you are overloaded with hard things sucks, but we can do this.
Reward yourself on the way back with a local ice cream, double scooped.
We’ve got this.
