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Editorial: Rock the vote

Full disclosure: I’ve only voted a few times in my life, usually when I knew someone running in the election, or if there was a particular issue that was near and dear to me at the municipal level.

Full disclosure: I’ve only voted a few times in my life, usually when I knew someone running in the election, or if there was a particular issue that was near and dear to me at the municipal level.

I’ve never trusted the political process, and often not the politicians themselves. Putting my faith in one person or party to represent me was always frustrating and ultimately seemed futile.

Broken election promises and the ever-looming threat of corruption made me shut off; it was easier to not vote and remove myself from the process than vote and then begin the cycle of being disappointed and enraged.

My wife’s family changed that for me. Four years ago, during the last provincial election, the subject of voting came up. When I confessed that I usually do not vote, the look of shock and terror on my wife’s parents’ faces was alarming. So, we made a deal. I would vote in the election if they would bring me to the riding’s victory party. I figured some finger foods and ginger ales was a fair trade for my time.

Along with my cheeky deal came a clearer understanding of the voting process. As I watched the polls roll in with my in-laws, I finally understood the importance of exercising the democratic right to draw an X on a piece of paper.

It wasn’t like I didn’t care about political issues all of those years. Anyone who reads my editorials here, or has spent any time with me, knows that just isn’t true. It was more like I cared too much, and the thought of electing someone who would let me down again was causing me to disengage. Being publisher/editor of the Peak has taught me that we can never stop caring, and removing ourselves from the process is always a mistake.

We don’t have to be sponges sopping up everything a political candidate says and does. We don’t have to be versed on every party’s platform statement, or what position a candidate takes on a given issue. We don’t have to listen to election promises, or pay attention to the mudslinging and political tomfoolery that goes along with every election. We don’t even need to trust the political system.

The first and most important step is to vote. What we do after that is up to us.

Jason Schreurs, publisher/editor