In the days of my youth, the above was an anthem of resistance, shouted in defiance of the American draft sending young men to fight and to die in Vietnam. As a Canadian, I watched from the sidelines but nonetheless admired them for their conviction and willingness to go to jail for their beliefs.
Unfortunately, applied in a different context, that declaration is a badge of dishonour.
Those who have read some of my recent blog entries will know that I feel nothing but contempt for the majority of citizens in Ontario who refused to go to the polls in our recent election, one that saw a minority responsible for a second Doug Ford majority government. And while many insist that our first-past-the post system is responsible for such a victory, I lay the blame entirely upon those who could not rouse themselves from their couch torpor to exercise a foundational element of democracy.
And I see I am not alone in this sentiment. Martin Regg Cohn warns us not to fall into the trap that has ensnared the Americans by claiming that our results are illegitimate.
The emerging narrative is that the Tories somehow won a tainted election, diminished by a dreadful electoral turnout. It goes something like this:
Doug Ford’s Tories won 83 seats? True, but it’s not a true majority, the critics counter.
They imply that Progressive Conservative victory came thanks to a record low turnout — 43.5 per cent of Ontario’s 10.7 million eligible voters cast ballots in this election. As if this low percentage is the top-line number that matters most.
As if people staying at home — in their armchairs — exercise a veto from a distance that somehow invalidates, disenfranchises or delegitimizes those of us who bothered to cast ballots in a free and fair election. As if abstention trumps participation.
Rewriting recent history to favour one's ideological leanings doesn't work, according to Regg Cohn.
The unspoken implication is that not voting must be counted as a vote of non-confidence in the winning party, losing parties, or the electoral system. That is a remarkably presumptuous attempt to read the minds of all eligible voters.
Do we dare assume that people who are entirely apathetic have a hidden preference, as opposed to simply being uninterested? Do we have grounds to presume that a significant proportion of non-voters would vote if only we changed the electoral system by bringing in proportional representation, as its advocates claim?
A 2007 Ontario referendum put paid to the notion that PR is the panacea; it was rejected, a result that many of its supporters refuse to accept ... on the grounds that there was a low turnout.
One can clearly see the problem here.
Ultimately, in my view and in my personal philosophy, it is time for people to grow up and accept the bitter truth of their own apathy instead of the sweet lie that they abstained from voting out of some kind of principled position. In other words, they need to take a good look in the mirror and see what it really reflects.
