Voting is an important act of civic engagement

On municipal election day, remember that a healthy democracy relies on engagement, starting with the important act of casting a ballot.

Thestar.com
Oct. 24, 2022

The late Jim Travers, a hugely admired Star columnist, was once asked for the biggest lessons his years as a foreign correspondent had produced.

His answer was instructive. What he had observed, Travers said, was how thin the veneer of civil society could be, how vulnerable were the democratic institutions that supported it, and how difficult it was -- once those institutions and democracy had failed -- to recover and rebuild.

It is municipal election day across Ontario and -- as with all our levels of governance, but especially so at this one -- there are worrying signs of democracy in retreat.

City Hall is the level of government closest to the people, with the biggest impact on their daily lives.

Yet recent voter turnout has been dismal and, this time around, even the number of candidates willing to run for office in Toronto has fallen.

The trends are alarming.

In 2018, just 41 per cent of those eligible turned out to vote in Toronto, a sorry showing produced in part by Premier Doug Ford’s slashing of the size of council in the run-up to that year’s municipal election.

But the malaise goes beyond one politician settling old scores and beyond municipal politics.

Across Canada, there is increased distrust of many institutions and vitriolic contempt for almost all politicians. Just as there is rising contempt for expertise, for facts, for news media, for those with different views.

That sort of distrust and contempt can have baleful consequences, as events around the world make clear. We are not immune.

Declining to vote, declining to participate is to forget something significant and risk something dangerous.

Throughout most of human history, citizens had no voice in the management and direction of their societies. That voice -- in the form of democracy -- did not just happen, was not bestowed. It was hard and slowly won.

Functioning democracy is built on many institutions -- constitutions, courts and the rule of law, fair and free elections, political parties that put partisan interests behind the public good, a healthy and critical media.

Most of all, healthy democracy requires participation, and not just on voting day.

It requires ongoing vigilance and acceptance of some basic principles and responsibilities.