Who do I want to see win in October?

To The Editor,

In 2015, I knew who I did not want to see win: Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. To that end, I strongly encouraged people to vote ABC. To vote strategically. In Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, that meant voting for the likeliest to oust the then-Conservative incumbent. That meant voting Liberal. I thus voted Liberal. Did I win? No! Did I get what I wanted? No.

While I did see us get rid of the Harper Conservatives that I didn’t want to see in my country’s driver’s seat, I did not get what I really wanted.

I wanted to see 2015 be our last First Past The Post (FPTP) election. Trudeau promised us it would be, as did his bobbing head local contender, Francis Drouin. Did they deliver? No! Why was this so important to me? Why is it still so important to me? Because all Canadians are losers when a political party, any political party, gets to rule as a “majority government” when it has the support of less than 51% of the electorate’s support.

We end up with “FALSE MAJORITY” governments, as we saw under Harper and now under Trudeau, that do not listen to or reflect the collective view of those they govern, but rather the views of the Corporate élite lobbyists who monopolize their time, their thoughts and their boardrooms. In my books, both the Liberal and Conservative Party élites and their backroom strategists are little more than Corporate-fed and Corporate-led. The primary interest and that of our elected MPs and MPPs has shifted from doing what is in the best interest of their constituents to that of being bobble heads who do and say as their Party deems best in their shared lust for power and the continued bottom-line growth of their Corporate puppeteers.

The state of today’s party partisanship is dividing us rather than uniting us. Simply put, it is killing us. If either of these parties was in fact motivated by the state of jeopardy we are in when it comes to the future of our health and our environment, including our water, air and forests, they would cease the political gamesmanship and work together, across Party lines and across jurisdictional lines , on a jointly agreed upon climate change plan in the interest of the sustainability of life on this planet.

We are at the point in time when the prime purpose of our economy should be retooled to sustain our ecology. Continuing on our present path that sees our ecology sacrificed to sustain our economy is short-sighted and dead-ended. (Pun intended.) So who do I want to see win in October? I want to see Canadians win. And I believe the best way of getting a win, is to see a Minority government in place post-October.

In my Ottawa riding I will be voting GREEN and hope to see them holding the Balance of Power in a Minority Government. It is important that we all get out and vote. We all have a voice and it does count. Never underestimate the power of one. We can make a huge difference when we stand together. It’s what democracy is all about. Follow your heart and vote ECO not EGO.

Gary Champagne
Ottawa