If one were to try and put categorize last week’s provincial election into a literary genre, ‘suspense thriller’ would be the furthest thing to come to mind.
Heading into the night any political pundit with even a shred of credibility predicted a Conservative majority and that’s exactly what Ontario got-and then some with 83 blue seats showing at the end of the night. Hastings-Lennox and Addington was among those with a plot line as predictable as a children’s Disney film-in this case Conservative Ric Bresee played the role of the good guy in the story, all but assured to win before the movie even began.
Ignoring political colours for a moment, the residents of Hastings-Lennox and Addington have reason for optimism when it comes to their new Member of Provincial Parliament. Bresee comes with political experience and has worked with the province before, albeit as a mayor/warden. He’s proven capable of leading a municipality and there’s good reason to expect he’ll continue to serve the region well, doing so now from Queen’s Park. He also has the added bonus of being a member of a party that was just given an overwhelming mandate from the rest of the province.
While looking ahead to the next four years we’d be remiss if we didn’t look back on the last four, and then some, when it comes to talking out retiring MPP Daryl Kramp. His political colours may have been Conservative blue and though he was certainly loyal to his party, he mastered the art of serving all constituents, not just those who supported him. While that may seem like a simple strategy for anyone interested in staying in office, in today’s political scene we see more and more politicians who are more than willing to divide party lines rather than serve their riding. Though Kramp’s name wasn’t on the ballot this time around, the support shown for Bresee is no doubt in part in thanks to the job Kramp did. Bresee was quick to point out how much the endorsement from the retiring MPP meant to his campaign.
As we close the book on the 2022 provincial election one thing that can’t be ignored is the voters-or rather the lack thereof. Data shows just over 43 per cent of those eligible to cast a vote actually made the effort to do so-an all time low for the province. What that means will surely be analyzed in the coming weeks. On theory could be so much was made about Doug Ford’s impending majority win that anyone who wanted him gone figured it wasn’t worth making the trip to a voting station. Or perhaps enough people were satisfied with how things were going they felt content to assume things would stay the same. Or it’s possible that none of the choices were appealing enough to get people off the couch.
No matter the reason the numbers were a disappointment-democracy works best when more people get involved. We can only hope interest is greater in the next election-that being municipal-which is just a few short months away in October.
-Adam Prudhomme