Election Time Again

Last time we held a municipal election, I still worked at city hall and could meet the candidates as soon as they registered. I also attended the candidate forums to hear their platforms. Sadly, any candidate forums I’m aware of this year were scheduled for Wednesday evenings when I’m busy teaching a Creative Writing class at Red River College. (More on that in another post.) I will need to work a little harder to discover where the various candidates stand and how much experience they might bring to that big oval table in our council chambers.

I hope you’ll take the time to attend a forum or research the candidates and their positions so you can make an informed decision. Remember, you can vote for up to six councilors. If you’re unsure, you don’t need to check six. Better to vote for fewer councilors than to randomly select the name of someone about whom you know nothing.

However you make your selections, I do hope you vote and that you’re grateful for the privilege. This world still has far too many places where voting is not a given—or worse, where you’re forced to vote but the ballot features only one candidate’s name.

I felt tickled to receive some winning votes myself last month, in another arena entirely. You may recall hearing about, or maybe you’ve read, my novel Rose Among Thornes. This book has ties to the Portage la Prairie area and I’m so pleased to tell you it won a couple of Word Awards on September 17. With its theme of the Japanese Canadian internments during World War II, “Rose” won The Word Guild’s Debra Feiguth Award for Social Justice. For this particular award, organizers contact the winner ahead of time so they can use a virtual acceptance speech. Since it took me only about ten takes to achieve an acceptable video, I’m grateful it wasn’t live!

Debra Fieguth was a gifted journalist whose freelance work appeared in many Canadian Christian publications, including Faith Today magazine. She authored two books and co-authored several more. Her death in 2016 was mourned by many, including hundreds of refugees, immigrants and international students whom she helped, befriended, or welcomed into her home. I can’t imagine a better award to win.

But then The Word Guild floored me. “Rose” also came away with the award for best book cover, out of 13 nominations. I can’t take any of the credit since the cover was designed by Hannah Linder. You can see more of Hannah’s excellent work on her website, HERE.

If all that isn’t enough, judges shocked me again by declaring the other novel I released last year, The Last Piece, winner in the best contemporary fiction category. Since this story begins in the 1930s and works its way to the present day, I wasn’t even certain it would qualify as contemporary.

Did you know that YOU are part of this success? Writing this blog post every week forces me to keep practicing and growing in my craft. Each time you choose to read one, it’s like a vote of confidence and I thank you.

But, while exciting and encouraging, there’s something about winning that can also feel intimidating. “What will be expected of me now?” is a question commonly asked. “Will I measure up? Can I follow through? What if I disappoint?”

As long as you don’t allow them to paralyze you, those are good questions, whether running for office or running for recognition. Trust that those who voted you in had valid reasons to do so. Then work hard, listen well, and do your best. 

Canada Goes to the Polls

I’ll admit up front that what I’m about to suggest is far-fetched, but would you play along for a minute? Imagine with me that our federal government discovered it had collected two hundred and sixty million dollars too much in taxes. (That’s not the far-fetched part.)

To remedy the problem, it offered a ten-thousand-dollar cash rebate for each and every Canadian over the age of eighteen. No strings attached. All you needed to do was show up at a nearby location, show your identification, and claim your cash.

Would you?

Now imagine the ten grand was available only to white male Canadians. Would you raise a stink? Would you support others who raised a stink?

It seems highly unlikely any of us would shrug off our right to participate, doesn’t it? Yet, in our last federal election (when voter participation was up from previous years), over eight hundred thousand eligible voters chose not to vote. That’s 31.7 percent. It’s almost as though these folks are willingly handing their ten grand over to someone else.

Maybe my analogy is flawed, but here’s the thing. The right to vote was fought for, long and hard, for many of us. It took decades for women, little by little, to gain ground. Baby steps involved voting in municipal elections and eligibility to serve on school and library boards.

In Great Britain, rats were let loose into suffrage meetings, while rotten eggs and fish were pelted at the women. Horrible stories of imprisonment, of women chaining themselves to fences, going on hunger strikes, and enduring force-feeding are not difficult to find. Yet, a century later, we accept our voting rights as the norm.

On January 28 1916, Manitoba women became the first in Canada to win both the right to vote and to hold provincial office. Saskatchewan and Alberta quickly followed. One reason our prairie provinces took the lead was because the farm movement supported women’s suffrage as the proper course for a democracy. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union’s determination to protect the home and to end violence against women and children strengthened the suffrage cause as well.

But none of it came without heroic effort and great sacrifice. Here in Manitoba, suffragists like Margret Benedictsson, Dr. Amelia Yeomans, Francis Marion Beynon, E. Cora Hind and Nellie McClung devoted their lives to the cause, enduring ridicule and abuse to win rights for their daughters and granddaughters. But first they needed to convince enough men, since only males could vote on the issue!

Two years later, the first women voted in a federal election. It wasn’t until 1948 that Asian Canadians could vote. And Ottawa finally extended voting rights to all Indigenous people, women and men, in 1960.

Seems appalling now, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t taking that right for granted seem equally appalling?

Elections Canada has mailed a voter information card to everyone on their list of electors. If you have not received a voter information card, it may mean you are not registered. Contact your local Elections Canada office. You can also register at the polling station on election day, but to save time, register ahead. For more information on how to register to vote, call Elections Canada at 1-800-463-6868. To vote, you must prove your identity and address.

A ballot may not look like ten thousand dollars to you, but ask someone who does not have the privilege of voting. Until we personally suffer for something, we don’t appreciate its value.

An Election Time Tradition

At my day job at city hall, we’ve been busily training voting officials how to run our polling booths to ensure the following story could never happen. Nevertheless, it’s become tradition for me to run my tale about election shenanigans in the fictional town of Quincy. Can you spot what’s unique about it?

Ziggy ‘fesses up

Adored by many, His Worship Mayor Zigfried Johnson stepped to the podium to address the citizens of Quincy one final time.

“Before my twenty-year career as your mayor draws to a close,” he said, “I have something I must tell you. Confession is never easy, but it is good for the soul. Disclosures of this nature are uncommon from a man in my position, and I sincerely hope this will not result in your becoming cynical toward my successor. Even I voted for him, and I am confident he would never stoop to the type of behavior which I am about to divulge.”

Five hundred loyal citizens held their breath, awaiting the mayor’s next words. George Xander, although voted in by an overwhelming majority this time, would never be as loved or trusted as Mayor Johnson had been. He had, after all, run against Johnson in every election held since they were college boys together and had lost every time. If not for Zigfried’s voluntary retirement, a new mayor would not even have been considered by the good people of Quincy. Just what was their beloved leader about to confess? 

Katy Johnson, his wife of forty-three years, stood by his side looking adoringly up at her Ziggy, assuring her fellow citizens that his revelation would not be of a licentious nature.

“Let me begin by taking you back to that Election Day twenty years ago,” the mayor continued. 

“Maybe you remember that I won by only one vote that first time. Never one to settle for such a close count, my worthy opponent here, Mr. Xander, demanded a recount. Of course, the election officials complied.

“Perhaps it was fate, perhaps it was something else,” the Mayor continued. “Quincy residents may remember the near tornado conditions that prevailed that day, but what you probably don’t know is that as the votes were being recounted, an assistant opened a window, causing ballots to go flying around the council chambers. Results were delayed, but after all the ballots were gathered and counted yet again, it was confirmed that I had indeed won by one vote.

“Six months later, while moving the heavy oak table in the Council Chambers, what did I discover but four uncounted ballots wedged inside a drawer in the table. Three of them were votes for my opponent, George Xander. Unless there were still more uncounted ballots hidden somewhere, George, not I, had actually won the election by one vote. Vigilantly, I searched the room for more lost ballots to no avail, then discreetly shredded the four I’d found and remained your mayor for the next twenty years.” 

With tears in his eyes, the mayor removed the chain of office from around his own neck and placed it around his successor’s. Xander humbly received the adornment and stepped up to the microphone.

“You are forgiven, my friend,” His Worship Mayor George Xander said, silently recalling the windy day he’d stood outside that council chamber window enjoying a cigarette, when two ballots had come floating his way—both votes for Johnson, and both quickly stuffed deep inside his own pocket.

Ziggy Johnson sighed and smiled, a twenty-year weight off his weary shoulders at last.

Did you notice? This is an “acrostic” story, where each sentence begins with a different letter, in alphabetical order from A-Z.