Why Vote?

The provincial election is around the corner and I don't think I've ever been this excited to exercise my democratic right to vote. I feel the party that has been in power has only hurt the people of this province-since the first day they were elected 4 years ago and threw themselves a grandiose party on the taxpayer's dime. Since then I've only watched my power and water bills grow, school funding cut for my daughter (and all other children of this province) forcing her into combined grade classes in elementary school, the ax of the well established and successful reading recovery program which has resulted in my daughter now taking the piss-poor substitute program that sees her not learning from a specialized teacher, but other children, road repairs that have been horrid patch jobs that must be done over and over again, outright fraud of certain MLAs in how they spend the taxpayer dollar, overcrowded ERs rooms, where people wait for DAYS to be seen because all the beds are taken by the elderly that should be in long time care beds that don't exist...the list goes on and on.

Yet I hear from alot of people my age and younger they don't see the value in their vote, the "what's the point-all the parties are crooked" idea that results in ambivalence towards provincial politics (and all politics in general). I argue that voting in the local and provincial elections is even more important that voting in the federal election as the results of the provincial election will more directly impact us taxpayers in the next four years than any federal election has in recent memory.

In my own riding we have an MLA who has won the past two elections. While she is a nice person and has managed to avoid the mud-slinging that pervades the party she belongs to, it is time for a new face with new ideas. She takes credit for starting the ball rolling on a proposed high school for my area, but this idea has been pushed by the parents of the community for many years, and I truly feel it was a more politically charged strategic move that has driven the political support for the new high school. Regardless, that is the one positive thing that has come out of the last four years. That said I hope to welcome a new MLA to the role in the next couple of weeks, one that will work hard to continue to push for the new high school, will support revisions to the power company monopoly of this province, bring back the outsourcing of road repairs and take a hard look at the existing out of date grade school curriculum and the disservice it does to our children's futures. I implore all voting citizens of Nova Scotia, to exercise their right to vote on October 8th-if you don't you really have no right to complain after the election is over!