The Canadian electorate suddenly pays attention

Opinion

At a moment of deep political dissatisfaction and a profoundly irritating existential threat to our national identity, Canadians quite clearly want to be heard.

They’re cancelling plans to travel to the United States, the suddenly less-neighbourly neighbouring nation whose president muses tiresomely about annexing Canada as the 51st U.S. state. They’re doggedly donning shirts and hats adorned with “Elbows Up,” “Never 51” and “Canada Is Not For Sale.”

They’re embracing a “buy Canadian” ethos at grocery stores, shopping malls and even online, and some are even ill-advisedly booing the U.S. national anthem when it’s performed at sporting events.

Every day, in various ways, Canadians are making their feelings known.

When it comes to the federal election that will, a scant four days from now, determine which party will form our next government, Canadians seem to be making it clear that they want to be heard at the ballot box as well.

According to Elections Canada, 7.3 million people cast their ballots during the advance-voting period that ran from April 18 to 21 — a 25 per cent increase over the 5.8 million early votes recorded during the 2021 federal election. More than two million voted on April 18 alone, a record-setting figure.

More than usual when it comes to electoral politics, Canadians are engaged. Galvanized, even. And if the turnout for advance balloting is any indication, we might see a significantly higher participation in this election than for any other — federal or provincial — in recent memory.

That this election campaign has been reduced to a single question — how best to deal with the threats, chaos and erratic policy-making of U.S. President Donald Trump for the next four years — rather than a campaign-trail comparison of how each party proposes to address numerous issues of abiding concern to Canadians makes this a rather unique election.

The fact it took a direct challenge to Canada’s sovereignty to spark widespread interest in something as fundamental to the democratic process as an election is somewhat troubling; the revelation that voter engagement seems elevated during this campaign is, at the same time, both encouraging and discouraging.

It’s good news that more Canadians are immersing themselves in the federal election; less heartening, however, is the reality that it would take the involvement of just 63 per cent of registered voters for this election’s turnout to top the 2021 figure — that vote had 62.6 per cent participation, a significant drop from turnouts in 2019 (67 per cent) and 2015 (68.3 per cent).

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Voter engagement has, in fact, been on the wane for decades; the last time uptake for a federal election topped 70 per cent was 1988.

Perhaps, then, this time — this moment of existential angst, which has unleashed a wave of patriotic pride and a rare interlude of unpolarized unity — will remind Canadians of every political inclination that ours is not a democracy or a country that can be taken for granted.

The point here is not to declare whether the Pierre Poilievre-led Conservatives or the Mark Carney-led Liberals are best suited to confront the cavalcade of perils presented by the second Trump term, or whether the NDP, under the leadership of Jagmeet Singh, deserves to wield continuing influence in yet another minority Parliament. Those are choices each individual voter must make.

What’s important — and, perhaps, what robust early voting indicates might be the case — is that this fraught moment in our nation’s history underscores the reality that participation in the democratic process is not merely a right; it’s a duty.

Vote, as if your nation’s future depends on it. Because it might.