The B.C. election has brought in some interesting results, leading to talk of the need to work together to address the serious issues facing our province.
This would be great to see. We need collaboration when we are facing so many unbelievably tough challenges from a health care system unable to cope with shifting demographics and health care workers unable to keep up with demand alongside high levels of addiction and homelessness. All of this under the shadow of a climate crisis and unsustainable consumption levels threatening the loss of the very wilderness our country and our province are known for.
There are no easy answers, anyone who tells you differently is fooling themselves.
While there may not be a decisive victory in B.C., one thing the election showed was the power of each and every vote. The Cariboo-Chilcotin was not one of the closer ridings, but there were some with thin margins, still too close to call with any certainty.
Yet B.C. voter turnout numbers in recent years have been low, with less than 54 per cent of registered voters taking the time to mark a ballot in 2020.
On the bright side, this election saw record turnouts at advance polls as the election got underway, which brings hope more people are engaging in the process and hopefully educating themselves on the issues. Though only just over 57 per cent turned out in the end, according to preliminary reports. Perhaps some voters were dealing with flooding and got sidetracked.
With so many electoral areas in the province being so close, it shows how every vote can count, and many underrepresented groups could have a huge impact on the outcome of our elections.
Not so long ago, Nelson Mandela was renowned around the world for the sacrifice he gave in order to eventually have the right to vote in a free and democratic election. South Africa's discriminatory racial segregation known as Apartheid denied the majority of the country's citizens the right to vote for the government in the country they lived in because they were not white.
Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist who spent 27 years in prison for the right to vote. In Canada, white women gained the right to vote in 1917, Chinese-Canadians gained the right to vote in B.C. in 1947, and Indigenous Canadians gained the right to vote in provincial elections in 1949, according to British Columbia, an Untold History. We are lucky to have this right to have our say, even if our system is far from perfect.
Here is hoping you exercised your right on Oct. 19 and we can all now move forward, together.
