The newest movement to decline your vote sends steam shooting out my ears. A voter, in protest against all candidates and parties, potentially takes their ballot from the Returning Officer and then hands it back unmarked. Such actions are recorded as a protest ballot. That this suggestion to decline your vote comes directly from one of the parties currently running in the Province of Ontario election is an unconscionable affront to all those who fought for the very freedoms we now enjoy.
This past June 6th, the 70th Anniversary of D-Day and the beginning of the end to World War II, was celebrated. In World War II, a staggering 45,400 young Canadian men and women lost their lives fighting for the very rights so many would now "take a pass on". How dare you! I defy you to stand in France amongst the crosses in any Canadian armed forces cemetery - World War I or II - and tell "them" why you didn't vote.
No time to vote? It takes only moments out of your very important, busy life to check off a ballot. Not informed? A plethora of web sites and news articles summarize the party policies and stances in terms a Grade 7 student could easily understand. Don't like any candidates. Vote for the one you dislike the least. Just vote! Exercise a right preserved by the sacrifice of so many young lives and envied by so many nations.
To partially paraphrase Franklin Delano Roosevelt ( I have jnserted 'Canadian' where he wrote 'American' ), Nobody will ever deprive the Canadian people of the right to vote except the Canadian people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.
See you at the polls tomorrow.
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