Happy By-Election Canada Day!

Today (June 30^th) like many people I’m celebrating my Canada Holiday by sitting at home and enjoying a day off. 

Where I work, it was a mutual decision between the employer and the workers to have a 3 day weekend rather than have everyone show up for Monday and then take Tuesday off.  It’s a win-win case.  The workers have a long weekend, and it makes it far easier for the employer to schedule production for the week.

A lot of other people will be celebrating tomorrow, which IS Canada Day, and some lucky buggers will get a 4 day weekend out of it.

I wish.

Depending on the type of business you’re in, starting up for one day of work is a huge pain in the keister.  Shutting things down and restarting them on Wednesday eats up a chunk of productive time and the boss would rather not do that… and a three day weekend is nice.

So what kind of idiot would schedule anything important on June 30^th? 

Well Steve Harper for one.  4 by-elections are slated for today.

You have to wonder how many people will bother to show up to vote today, what with Canada Day being a semi fixed holiday so some people get the 30^th, some get the 1^st, and not to mention that this weekend marks the more or less official start to the summer so many people will have this week (and possibly more) booked off for vacation time.  I know I did when I had the luxury of being able to book my time off.

So why schedule the by-elections for today and not last Monday for example?

I’m figuring there are two main reasons.  Number One, it guarantees low turnout at the polls and low turnout is usually a good thing for the incumbent party when it comes to elections in general and especially by-elections.  And Number Two he figures the Harper Party “get out the vote” machine will outperform the other parties’ efforts and prevent any surprises.

Now I’ve seen a fair amount of complaints that this will affect Fort McMurray more than the other ridings, but I think the people saying this don’t work in heavy industry.  Fort Mac is 24/7 and they don’t shut off for a one day holiday in the oil fields, it’s just way too expensive.

I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

But that doesn’t mean the people working in other jobs around Fort Mac may not be affected, but probably not that much more than anywhere else that has a by-election today.

I guess the bottom line is the Party that likes to claim they’re for this, that, and the other thing aren’t really all that in favour of Democracy.  At least not in Canada anyway.

Too often I keep coming back to this point.  Our Democracy is far too important to trust to a bunch of ninnies in Ottawa and yet by and large we are more than willing to let those same ninnies run roughshod over our Democracy.

If you want change, you need to do something and voting is about the simplest thing you can do to cause it to happen.  I’m willing to bet that too many people are going to be more interested in getting to the camp grounds or the cottage than to make sure their voice is heard. 

A shame isn’t it?

Well, that’s about it for me today.  I don’t get to vote today, so I’ll watch a little World Cup and get some errands done.  I’ll enjoy today as best I can since I’m back to work tomorrow.

Enjoy your Canada Day whenever it happens!  I’ll have a beer for you.

Oh, and if today is By-Election Day in your neck of the woods, get your butt out there and vote!

Cheers!

BC