Monday, August 16, 2021

pandemic federal election, a good idea?

Yesterday the prime minister asked the governor general to dissolve parliament to allow for an election to take place. The federal election is to take place on September 20.

Here is what happened in my electoral district at the last election:

The Liberal party candidate won by an enormous margin, so my vote to the Green Party candidate last election served no purpose. Francis Scarpaleggia has had it easy as he has had a significant majority like this in every election since he first became this electoral district's Liberal candidate back in 2004. Well, in 2011 it was close as the Orange Wave took place when Jack Layton led the New Democratic party to its best result ever.

I am leaning toward voting for the New Democratic party for this election even though it is a very high probability that Francis Scarpaleggia will yet again get elected. My reason for voting for the NDP is that I believe that if they were in the leadership position, they would do a better and more aggressive job of cutting GHGs. The recent IPCC AR6 report is a clear signal to policy makers that the time has come to not only get serious about emissions reductions, but to make significant changes in all areas that could lead to CO2 and methane emissions.

In terms of running an election where there are still SARS-CoV-2 transmissions going on, there will be plenty of advanced polling days and mail-in votes which will make it so that on election day, the polls should not be too overrun. I know that in my recent pre-pandemic voting experiences in my electoral district, I would vote on election day and there were barely any people around.

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