Sure, the parties have different platforms and leaders, but do you really believe anyone would make a difference in the number of Ontarians without a family doctor, or the quality of education or the state of our roads?
At the risk of showing my age, this was a Seinfeld election: totally and abjectly about nothing. Or, as my friend journalist David Moscrop said on x.com, an election that could have been an email. No wonder people didn’t bother showing up.
It didn’t take long for the call to arrive. Most polling stations in the province closed at 9 p.m. and CBC gave the win to Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives less than nine minutes later. It was the party’s third consecutive majority with 80 of the province’s 124 seats.
Voter turnout was low, as expected. Just 45.4 per cent, close to 2022’s historic low of 44.06 per cent.
Locally, I’m pleased to see that former councillor and mayoral candidate Catherine McKenney won Ottawa Centre for the NDP. Liberal Tyler Watt winning in Nepean after Tory Lisa MacLeod chose not to run again, is another bit of good news.
But overall, we’re at the point where no matter who’s in charge, nothing significant can improve or be made worse. We’re choosing between mildly different flavours of same-same. Ford joked two days before voting day that he wanted to be “premier forever” and I don’t even think we’d notice. Except for beer and plonk getting marginally more convenient and less costly to obtain, I guess.
I know the parties have different platforms and leaders, but do you really believe anyone would make a difference in the number of Ontarians without a family doctor, or the quality of education or the state of our roads? Housing and the crying lack of affordability? The number of unhoused people has grown by 25 per cent since 2022 and nobody has a credible plan to help people find a place to live they can afford. All the serious problems we’re facing appear either too big or too small for provincial politicians.
Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe released a video (filmed in a stationary LRT car; I could crack such a cruel joke) saying uploading this system to Metrolinx, as the Conservatives under Doug Ford are promising to do, would save “billions in transit costs and freeing up resources to ensure greater sustainability for OC Transpo.”
It would also mean people in Toronto would make decisions about Ottawa transit, and I am not fully convinced that would be an improvement. Personally, I would flip this whole thing on its head and instead of giving more responsibility to the provincial government I’d get rid of it altogether.
No, really. Our current federal system came together in the 1860s as an answer to imperatives of that time, among which an overwhelmingly rural population and the scary Civil War south of the border that Canadian constitutional framers believed was in part due to states having too much power. So we got a stronger central government with provinces responsible for local affairs and not much else. Cities, to this day, do not have constitutional status in Canada.
Which is weird given that it’s where the overwhelming majority of us now live. And the threat coming from the United States is completely different. Why are we keeping the same constitutional order? What powers do provinces have that couldn’t be handled as well if not better by the other two levels? Wouldn’t that be a fantastic way to get rid of interprovincial trade barriers and increase our productivity?
Low voter turnout in Ottawa and elsewhere in the province is a sign that electors understand there is little point arguing over which team handles provincial affairs.
We’re at a critical juncture in the history of the country when we have to think long and hard about what we can do not just to seek markets elsewhere in the world but to grow our economy enough to afford the social safety net and other programs we care about. We need a system of government that helps us do that.
Not elections that make no difference.
Brigitte Pellerin (they/them) is an Ottawa writer.
