[Wab] Kinew, speaking at the premiers’ conference in Halifax, said practising democracy is the best way to thank those who fought to defend it. “As someone who just went through an election recently, I’m very, very mindful of the sacrifices that the veterans of our great country have made so that each and every one of us can participate in this strong democracy.”
A lot of discourse focuses on the rights of Canadians: what the government owes us. Not enough space is given to the notion of duty: what we owe to each other, our communities and our country. Mr. Kinew’s excellent notion speaks to that sense of obligation, as opposed to a sense of entitlement.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
But Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew had a much better suggestion this week as to how to honour the memory and sacrifice of veterans: voting.
“As someone who just went through an election recently, I’m very, very mindful of the sacrifices that the veterans of our great country have made so that each and every one of us can participate in this strong democracy.”
Voter turnout was a relatively health 79 per cent in the 1962 federal election, the first vote in which First Nations peoples were fully included.
As the accompanying chart shows, turnout softened somewhat over the subsequent two-and-a-half decades, but still hovered around the 75-per-cent mark, with the occasional dip.
But negative campaigns are no new innovation: Progressive Conservative leader Brian Mulroney was accused of being a traitor over his free-trade proposal in the 1988 election.
And it’s a choice, as Mr. Kinew has wisely pointed out, that honours those who fought, and too often died, to secure our democratic freedoms.
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