After a gruelling campaign season of door-knocking and sign-erecting, the candidates in Quebec’s municipal elections are either licking their wounds or preparing to start a new mandate.
Kudos to all who put forward their name on a ballot in the hopes of serving their fellow citizens. It’s not easy to seek out a job that residents spend the better part of four years complaining about.
For those who ran and lost, good on you for putting yourself out there. As a consolation, if you decide to run again, the name recognition you have built up can go a long way to helping you be successful next time around.
To those who won, congratulations. But now the hard work starts. We’ve been told ad nauseam about the struggles facing the Pontiac and what these candidates can do to help. Now it’s time to put those words into action.
However, we still don’t have enough people standing up for their community and putting their name on the ballot. Just under half of the seats in MRC Pontiac were won unopposed.
Forty-four per cent of those who are newly-elected didn’t even have to beat an opponent – they were handed the job. This doesn’t exactly ensure good governance since there is clearly nobody holding these politicians to account.
Canadians tend to vote “against” things or people more often than they vote “for” things and people. After all, one of the most common phrases uttered by Canadian voters is “throw the bums out.”
Well in this scenario, you can’t even vote them out. Do you have a politician who isn’t responsive enough? Well, there was nearly a 50 per cent chance you couldn’t vote them out even if you wanted to because there was no opponent.
This makes it harder to replace poor politicians with more viable options. There are plenty of smart people in the Pontiac who have expertise to lend to the MRC, and we need them to step up.
Obviously not everyone has the time to dedicate to municipal politics, and that’s understandable. But the fact that 44 per cent of all seats were won uncontested speaks to more than just a lack of spare time – it points to a lack of interest.
Even the voter turnout is nothing to write home about. We were told that this was an unprecedented election because we had the chance to elect the warden of the MRC for the first time.
Even with this supposedly historic election, voter turnout still lagged below 60 per cent in many municipalities. More than 5,000 people simply decided not to come out and exercise their democratic right.
In light of these numbers, it’s shocking to hear the amount of negativity directed at our municipal politicians. Odds are, many of those who gripe the most about the Pontiac couldn’t even be bothered to cast a vote.
How can we expect to get the most out of the Pontiac if we aren’t even willing to give a small amount of time to put the right people in power.
As citizens, we have three main responsibilities: the first is to pay taxes; the second is to avoid committing crimes and the third is to vote.
Most people manage to pay their taxes on time and go a lifetime without spending any time in the slammer. Why is it then that so many people feel that the third responsibility is less important?
It could be the fact that people are lazy. Maybe they don’t know how to register or don’t have a way to get to the polling station. In many cases, people spout the common refrain that “my vote doesn’t matter.”
Just look at the election results across the Pontiac and you will see that many races were decided by just a handful of votes.
Your vote does count. But don’t just show up and cast a vote for someone you know or because someone has been in the job for a while. Do your homework, look into the candidates and see what their positions are.
Most of all, participate in local democracy. Although this election was an improvement on the last, here’s to hoping the next one will be an improvement on this one.
Chris Lowrey
