Do you have a headache? Nausea? The urge to remove your eyes with a salad fork? Then you’ve got Canadian election fever!
Right this second, Stephen Harper is amassing a pile of neatly folded sweater vests, ready for battle. Michael Ignatieff is doubling his morning series of eyebrow reps. Jack Layton is constructing a kitchen table where he will have homegrown discussions with real Canadian families. And Elizabeth May and Gilles Duceppe are getting mentioned in this passage because they get equal time during election campaigns.
Perhaps this will be your first vote because you’ve turned 18, recently become a Canadian citizen, or you plug your ears and go “la la la la la” as soon as you hear the word “election.”
Well, have no fear: You’ll get by with my handy-dandy Guide To Voting In Canada.
Who can vote?
To vote in a Canadian election, you must be:
- Tall enough to reach the top of a cardboard box on a table and have no fear of gymnasiums.
- Able to say the following sentence whenever required, usually while sitting at a bar: “If you don’t vote, you’ve got no right to complain.”
Who am I voting for?
You’re voting for an MP, or Manipulative Person. They have been selected by their respective parties based on their ability to mention your name, employ clichés, and touch voters’ elbows in a compassionate manner.
For example: “At the end of the day, John, you can tell I care because I’m touching your elbow.”
What can I expect?
You may be one of those people who assumes an election is no time to expect a high-minded policy discussion. You are what political scientists like to call “correct.”
What you can expect are attack ads like this: “Stephen Harper enjoys apple pie. As in, ‘American as apple pie.’ Is Harper in the pockets of U.S. dessert makers? Well, nobody said he isn’t.”
Also, expect ads about Ignatieff where a narrator describes him as an “intellectual” in the same tone of voice somebody would normally say “groin lesion.”
Why should I vote?
Because not voting when people in Arab countries are dying for it is like standing in front of a homeless person and dumping your pizza into the garbage can because the slices “all taste the same.”
Besides, if you are going to suffer – and you are – you might as well have something to show for it. Nobody escapes Canadian election fever.
