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matter what the results of yesterday’s provincial election turn out to be – either a new party in government or the NDP in power for another four years – Thompsonites can at least rest easy knowing this: barring unforeseen circumstances, they aren’t scheduled to have to make another trip to the ballot box until 2018 and for that, they can all feel grateful.
It’s been a busy three years, electorally, for residents of the Nickel City. In October 2014, voters trudged to the polls to elect a new mayor, city councillors and School District of Mystery Lake school board trustees. About a year later, they were back at it again, this time voting in a federal election, which saw incumbent NDP MP Niki Ashton defeat Rebecca Chartrand of the Liberals in a contest that was much closer than the previous election in 2011. This week, it was time to choose who would govern us provincially for the next four years, an election that was originally scheduled to take place in 2015 but had to be pushed back because of the conflict with the federal election.
Now, finally, after 20 months or so of near constant pleas for support from politicians of various stripes at various levels with various promises of what they can do if elected, Thompsonites can finally rest easy in knowing that when someone knocks at your door in the evening, they’ll just be selling cookies, or asking if you want your lawn mowed, not grinning and shaking your hand because they really, really want to represent you in City Hall/the Legislature/Parliament for the next four or so years.
It’s not that we don’t appreciate being asked for our opinion and having the right to have a say in who makes important decisions and represents us on the world stage, or even across town where the decisions have a more immediate and noticeable impact on our quality of life and pocketbooks. It’s just that leading up to those decisions is a continual barrage of pamphlets and commercials and news articles and polls and disputed statements and attacks on character and on and on and on. When elections fall one after the other, it begins to feel like an eternal election cycle. Imagine how the Americans must feel, with elections every couple of years for various levels of government, not to mention the fact that they usually have even more candidates to vote for, like judges and sheriffs and county water commissioners. Is it any wonder that so many of them express dislike for politicians? They never get a break from them.
It’s still the better part of a year before the calendars turn to 2017, but, at this point, we can confidently say that whatever challenges next year brings, at least none of them should be an election. Heck, with more than two years of election-less peace stretching out ahead of us from now until municipal elections roll back around in October 2018, by the time we’re called upon to vote again, we might even have started missing it. But that feeling won’t last too long, in all likelihood. Four years from now, voters in Thompson and elsewhere in Manitoba will once more be breathing a long-held sigh of relief after living through another cycle of one election after another and another.
And for those masochists who just can’t get enough of politicians talking trash about each other and throwing decorum to dogs in their efforts to gain or maintain their hold on power, don’t worry. The American presidential election campaign still has more than six months to go.
