What a night for Canada.
Putting aside the federal election results for just one moment, let’s clap for the most important element Canada gained over these past 78 days since the writ dropped: a widespread political engagement among people of all ages and walks of life.
Your ideal government might not look like a liberal majority with Justin Trudeau at its helm, but your ideal democracy should look something like 3.6 million voters turning out for the advance polls, a 71 per cent increase from 2011, and at least 68.49 per cent voter turnout nationwide according to an unofficial report from Elections Canada.
During his victory speech in Montreal on election night, Trudeau said there would be much talk in the coming days about the campaign and about himself and there will be many people with many different opinions about why the Liberals were successful.
In 2011, the Liberal party under Michael Ignatieff won a mere 34 seats, the lowest in the party’s history, while Stephen Harper won his third election and first majority government with 166 seats.
Four years later, Trudeau attributed the 184-seat Liberal majority to the simple humanistic act of engagement.
“Well, for three years we had a very old fashioned strategy,” Trudeau said during his victory speech. “We met with, and talked with, as many Canadians as we could, and we listened. We won this election because we listened...You built this platform. You built this movement.”
For months my Facebook and Twitter feeds have been filled with ideas and dialogues about what the ideal Canada should look like.
It turns out not everyone has the same opinion about what exactly the answer to that question is, and that’s okay.
At its core, these interactions were Canadians talking to Canadians about Canada and that’s what politics should be.
No matter how you feel about the results of the federal election, the greatest element Canada is set to lose after the election is the very same political engagement that inspired a nation to get out and vote.
For some, it was the change they so desperately wanted and for others it was the change they so desperately feared.
Both are correct and necessary for a democracy to work (for a country where the people are truly “united” in thinking probably does not offer the freedom to think at all).
Now that the election is over, I don’t want the conversation to stop.
If Trudeau has truly built a successful election platform based on talking and listening to the people, perhaps we the people should continue talking so the government can attempt to listen.
It’s worth a try, isn’t it?
