It’s Canada Day, and what better way to celebrate than with a sigh of relief that the federal election is over?
Thirty-six days seemed a long campaign in this era of mass media and its ability to inundate voters with relevant and not so relevant information about leaders, candidates, platforms, policies, promises, travel itineraries, rubber chicken dinners and the party leaders’ favourite songs.
Given today’s resources, Canada’s longest election campaign, which was in 1926, would have made those 74 days seem like a lifetime -Êthe more so since it took place over summer. Even the most gleeful, election-loving journalist might flag during such a campaign.
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And yet the 20 days of the 1874 election, the shortest on record, seem barely long enough to learn about the candidates and do a decent job of defacing election posters.
Thinking of it that way, maybe 36 days is a reasonable medium. After all, if we lived in the United States, we’d be subjected to a more or less constant campaign. It’s yet another reason to celebrate our Canada.
Some pundits say the 2004 campaign was particularly nasty, but that has probably been said about every election since 1867. Campaigns seem tailor-made to bring out the best and the worst in politicians. Any way you look at it, it’s handy information for voters.
As for controversy, Calgary newspaperman Bob Edwards pegged it back in the 1900s: “Without the periodical scandals at Ottawa, lots of decent people in the West would never hear of that place.”
However, there were some confusing elements to this race, particularly in the final days. Was anybody else flummoxed by the “a vote for the NDP is a vote for the Conservatives” ploy? And the “a vote for the Bloc is a vote for the Conservatives” ruse?
Had the campaign run long enough, no doubt a vote for the Liberals would have become a vote for the Conservatives, and vice versa. Then where would we be? The same place we are today? Or milling around polling stations chewing on our pencils?
Such electoral convolutions are fine for political scientists and analysts after the fact, but I think most of us still expect to cast a ballot for the person or party of our choice and simply have it counted at face value.
Many Canadians did just that.
So here’s the answer to the opening query. A better way to celebrate Canada Day is to celebrate the fact that we live in a democracy, we’ve just exercised an important right within that democracy, and we live in the best country in the world.
Happy Canada Day.
