I’m trying to figure out whether
it was a wishful dream, or a nasty nightmare. Whichever it was, I know what
prompted it.
Before bedtime I had been reading
opinion columns on what might happen in the June 7 Ontario provincial election.
One piece, by Margaret Wente of the Toronto Globe and Mail, noted the
indigestibility of the choices.
,Although I don’t always agree
with her opinions, I respect Ms. Wente’s work. So I was interested to read her
view that Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals have zero chance of being re-elected and her
labelling Doug Ford as a “blustering ignoramus” who has no grasp of policy,
platform or budget.
The other choice was New Democrat
Andrea Horwath, who Ms. Wente wrote “plans
to run gigantic deficits for years and years, until Tinker Bell arrives with
magic bags of money.”
All that reading heightened my anxiety over
this election, and no doubt the anxieties of voters who can’t see a palatable
choice among the three major parties.
Ontario is in trouble, and has been for some
time. Its manufacturing sector is evaporating, its health care system is a
mess, its hydro policy is sinful and its debt load is shocking.
It is doubtful that any party will make the
hard choices needed to pull the province out of its nosedive and onto the
straight and level. A Sir or Lady Galahad is needed to take charge but there
are no such persons on the political horizon. They exist, but they are unwilling
to enter the fanatically partisan circus that politics has become.
All that was floating in my mind when I went to
bed.
When
sleep took me I found myself back as a junior reporter assigned to gathering
lesser aspects of the election, what is known in the news business as getting
colour. I decided to visit polling stations just before closing to interview
last-minute voters.
I walked into one polling station and found the
place as silent and still as a cemetery. The returning officer, various polling
clerks and scrutineers all sat staring at the ceiling and looking bored. There
wasn’t a voter in sight.
“Pretty quiet here. The rush must be over,” I
said to no one in particular.
Several officials stared at their hands, Others
began to look busy.
I walked
over to the table where you check in to vote. On the table was a sheet listing
the names of eligible voters in that polling district.
When a voter approaches the table to get his or
her ballot, one clerk checks the person’s eligibility and hands out a ballot.
The other clerk, usually holding a pen and ruler, puts a line through the voter’s
name to show he or she has voted.
The sheet in front of the poll clerk had no
lines drawn through any names. No one had voted all day at that polling
station.
I checked other polling stations. Same result.
No lines through any names. No one had voted!
I went to the polling stations of the three
major party leaders. No one, including the leaders themselves, had voted.
I ran down the street, searching building after
building for a telephone. This was the biggest story any reporter could hope
for and I needed to call it in.
Wherever I went there were no telephones. The
more I searched, the more panicked I became. It was terrifying having a massive
scoop and not being able to file it to your editor!
I ran until my lungs ached. I was sweating and
screaming when a ringing telephone woke me. I never thought a marketing call could
make me so happy.
It took me a few minutes to return to the real
world, and I began thinking about the June 7 election. What if it really
happened? What if no one turned out to vote?
That seems impossible, of course, yet just the
thought is scary. We already are partly there. In the last two provincial
elections combined, fewer than one-half of eligible voters turned out.
Troubling as it was, my dream gave me an
important realization: There are times when we dislike our voting choices, but
at least we have some.
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