Dear Canadians: Have you voted yet? If not, get your butt out the door.
Stop Harper.
Vote for anyone but the Conservatives. Vote to take back our country. Vote to show you care about protecting our environment, supporting scientific research, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, educating the children, employing the willing, sheltering the homeless, supporting the arts, taxing big business and giving the “little people” a break, already. Vote for transparency and empathy and compassion and community. Vote for survival, clean water, clean air, employment, health care, education, beauty, art, research, and all the other good things that create a societal fabric.
Vote strategically for whatever candidate in your riding has the best chance of defeating the Conservative candidate. And don’t give me any “I’m-too-ethical-to-vote-strategically” bullshit, either. We compromise every day, people. Every day you go to work and sell your time / labour / energy for money to pay your rent, you are compromising. Every time you engage in social intercourse and the normal give-and-take of everyday life, you are compromising. It’s a way to sacrifice short-term desires for a greater long-term goal. Let’s get the boot of the “Harper Government” off our necks, vote in a new Canadian Government, and start holding it accountable for its actions.
I’ve barely slept for nearly six weeks. Today, I finally went in to see the doctor about it. I stopped to vote on the way. There was a group of people at the wrong entrance of the building, holding their Voter Information Cards and looking confused. I called over to them “Vous venez voter? Are you here to vote?” They all nodded yes. “It’s over here, par ici. Stop Harper!”
So then I went to my clinic. (Free health care. On demand. No fees or premiums. Using the sick time I have through my workplace thanks to labour activists and unions.) My nurse practitioner had called in sick today, so I had a doctor I hadn’t met before. We shook hands and I asked if he’d voted yet. He was taken aback. “Nooo, I was going to do it on my way home.” I asked him if he knew where his voting station is. “You can look it up at elections.ca, you know. We have to stop Harper!”
Since I was there anyway for the insomnia, and it’s time for my annual checkup, I stripped down and hopped onto the table for my pap test. As I was on my back with my knees spread, wincing at the cold speculum, I was holding my phone up, reminding my social network peeps to vote. Vote! Stop Harper! The chaperone was aghast: “Are you taking a selfie????” “No,” I told her. “I am reminding people to vote. Have you voted yet? We have to stop Harper.”
Go vote. It’s not much power, a single vote. But it’s a power that you have in your own hands. Exercise it. Vote for change. Vote for someone new. Maybe the new boss will be the same as the old boss. But we know the old boss far too well. Stop Harper, and stop letting any boss get the boot on us. Let the new boss make mistakes, and hold them accountable, and expect them to do better. That’s the real power. Get rid of Harper and then get vocal. We are stronger together.
Barking Back 