The First Part of Chapter 22: I Choose...

Election Day, which was on Monday, January 16, arrived at last. It was a clear and cold day in most of the country, and would be remembered as the coldest day that year. Eunice, who was wearing thickly insulated boots, long johns, jeans, a thick undershirt, a wool sweater, two pairs of mittens, a light jacket and a heavy overcoat, walked to the polling station. She had made up her mind: she wanted Cameron Duff as Prime Minister, and thus would be voting that way. It was his general likeability, but more specifically it was his idea of eliminating payroll taxes; that was what really turned her on. Imagine, no more EI contributions or Canada Pension Plan premiums! This would be a boost to her convenience store, and would allow her to save on payroll; if those promises were fulfilled, she might consider giving Jared a raise. There were other plusses to be said of Duff, of course: among them was his policy of changing the inflation-targeting policy of the Bank of Canada to aim for price stability rather than an inflation rate of 2 per cent.

Mario was with Eunice at the polling station, and he watched his wife vote. When she was done, he walked into the polling booth; he was voting for Patrick Wakefield, as he liked the idea of expanded public transportation systems; it would be nice to get a subway in this city, he thought. The New Democrats’ environmental policy was also very similar to that of the Liberals; the New Democrats were essentially a cleaner version of the Liberals, and while he essentially agreed with Meach on most major points, there was still the patronage scandal to consider. The scandal was a very poor business, in his opinion, and he knew from conversations with his friends, his wife’s friends, and polls that this opinion was widely shared.

Hyram stood at the polling booth in a church basement on Finch Avenue, and drew an x in the box next to the conservative candidate, Fiona O’Brien, who he happened to know personally. He preferred their economic policies at this time; Duff’s campaign promise to get rid of most of the payroll tax was a good idea in his mind. He knew the payroll tax was highly visible; after all, it appears on almost all pay-stubs, and he knew this was a deciding factor for him and plenty of other people. That Duff was highly articulate certainly helped, and Meach had looked increasingly distracted from early in the campaign onwards. He dismissed the New Democrat, Patrick Wakefield, out of hand due to his trade policy, which called for protection of domestic workers against foreign competition that he said was needed in a “changing world”, whatever that meant. He, being a wealthy person, was more concerned about the government’s monetary and financial policies. It was for this reason that the elimination of payroll taxes appealed to him, and it was for this reason that targeting price stability rather than an inflation rate of 2% also appealed to him.

Patricia cast her vote in a desire to see her Member of Parliament, a liberal, re-elected, because she liked what Bruce Meach had been doing as Prime Minister; he had handled the recession well, he was conventionally Canadian abroad, which meant he was low-key, and he had managed to keep the deficit under control, which from what Clarissa had said, was a most remarkable achievement. He had not pleased all of his critics, of course: some people accused him of not doing enough; others accused him of doing too much; still others accused him of doing both of the preceding at the same time, which is a most remarkable accomplishment. Given these people were mostly opposition politicians from the New Democrats, the Bloc Québecois and the Conservatives, it was not a very credible accusation, and had a tone of political shrillness.

Belinda stood at the polling booth, and put an x next to the liberal candidate, Supreet Singha. She was something of a conservationist herself, and in addition to gossip, she enjoyed hiking and fishing, so the idea of setting aside the Atlantic waters for a wildlife sanctuary gave her a warm and fuzzy feeling inside when she thought about it. The New Democrats also had good policies, but Belinda saw little practical difference between them and the Liberals as far as her interests went; both of them promised funding for the expansion of rapid transit systems across the country, and although the New Democrats had promised that for more cities, both they and the Liberals had promised that this city would get a subway system like Montréal or Toronto, which would be nice on a freezing cold day like today. Why was the election being held on what was sure to be the coldest day of the year? It was minus twenty outside; I might die were it not for my coat, heavy sweaters, thick mittens, toque and long johns, she thought.

Mary stood at the polling booth at a school near her home in Kitchener and put an x next to the New Democratic candidate, Nigel Trawdeed. She, like many others across the country and in her riding, did not like the way that their previously elected Member of Parliament, Christopher Relk, had behaved. That he had retired after having served out only a year of his term, which should have lasted two years given the minority Parliament, was one thing. That he had done so after enthusiastically promising to serve as the people of Kitchener-Waterloo, as he had eloquently put it in a memorable speech during the last campaign, was quite another. It was still something else when he referred to his constituents as “the rubes back home”, as heard in a bugged room by an Ottawa Citizen reporter. Were it a mere isolated incident, she might have ignored it and voted for the Liberals again (who were represented here by Davis Breilach in the election campaign), to send a foot soldier for the larger Liberal cause, which admittedly seemed to change, but whatever; now, however, she was going to vote for someone else. The Liberals had grown too corrupt, too complacent, and had taken their support for granted too often, and she had heard of several other stories about the Liberals making disparaging comments about their constituents when they thought nobody was listening. It wasn’t just that; the New Democrats had promised money to build a light rail network in Waterloo Region, where there was presently a line under construction; they had promised a fundamental change in direction to the way we get around, and in Kitchener-Waterloo, this was going to happen with light rail service from Cambridge to Elmira, as was promised by Patrick Wakefield. The Liberals, in their conventional idea borrowing, had promised something similar, but the New Democrats had promised double the money in a partnership with the provincial government. That would mean bigger stations, better stations, more busses, and more and larger trains, she thought, and it would also mean less driving around, which she hated; getting behind the wheel always agitated her. The possibility of being responsible for the death of some helpless animal, or, heaven forbid, a person at nearly a moment’s notice unnerved her. She had never developed the good reflexes needed to react to sudden changes either, so she had had several close misses in the past, each of which made her tremble to think about them.

The Conservatives had promised to cut red tape, and this kind of thing appealed to people like David; they had promised, for instance, to streamline the bureaucracy by making job responsibilities clearer, while not making any major departmental changes, which he thought were done for the sake of it, or else to please the powers that be. “Streamlining bureaucracy” evidently meant that some of the civil service would be laid off or sent to work in other departments that were understaffed, which was a good thing, he thought. Without knowing the specifics, there was always bound to be some department overstaffed, while another was understaffed. There was also the issue of the scandal; the Liberals had become corrupt, Meach had become too distracted from running the country and the very real diplomatic impasse with the Germans––he had called the European Union “as dead as the dodo” in an emotional outburst to the German Foreign Minister––in August, which had done nothing to enhance the Canadian image abroad. It did harm to international credibility to have an increasingly unstable person running the country. It was true that his government had balanced the budget after the recessionary splurge, but that was more the work of the Minister of Finance. For these reasons, behind the voting screen, David voted for the Conservatives.

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