While Elections Canada might have been prepared to hold a snap election, Canadians certainly are not in a place for one at the moment.
Recently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party has been accused of several financial scandals and conflicts of interest (including the WE Charity scandal), and Conservatives are pressing hard for concrete consequences.
A motion introduced by the Conservatives and backed by the Bloc Quebecois would have sparked an investigation into these Liberal affairs.
This motion was designed to set up an “anti-corruption” committee that would take a deeper look into the Liberal’s questionable affairs by gaining access to the party’s financial records. While the confidence vote that ensued may have been the right move in different circumstances, it was much too risky given the current state of the pandemic.
There are too many socio-economic issues related to COVID-19 that need fixing before Canadians should be forced to focus their energy on who will be their next prime minister.
Canada continues to suffer from the unemployment rate that shot up during May to an all-time high of 13.7 per cent when the COVID-19 outbreaks began—a number Canada hasn’t seen since the 2008 recession.
Despite Canada slowly recovering every month, there are still millions of people unemployed (9 per cent of employable Canadians, to be exact) and the nation still has a long way to go before it can statistically go back to the way it was pre-pandemic.
Despite sacrificing our economy, COVID-19 continues to spike repeatedly across the country at a rate that has led us into the (premature) second wave we have all been waiting for.
Unfortunately, this second wave has been presented by experts as having the potential to be worse than the first with its major rise in case numbers, and Canada having surpassed 10,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Additionally, even though some are following the health guidelines set by federal and provincial governments and are trying to do their part to prevent the spread of COVID-19, radical anti-precautionists have taken root in virtually every community in Canada. This means the country still has a way to go in order to recover.
These unprecedented times call for a united Canada in order to fight the pandemic and a crippled economy isn’t helping.
Canadians are facing mass unemployment, eviction notices, and an inability to pay their bills or put food on the table. These problems are national, and the solutions require a unity and focus on from the citizens that cannot be sustained if combined with the effort that is required to engage in an election.
Millions of Canadians are either struggling to find a job or struggling to recover from a case of COVID-19. If a snap election were to occur, in-person voting and campaign rallying would likely cause a spike in COVID-19 that nobody wants to see.
Running an election requires people to work together. There is only so much you can do in an office working on campaigns when there are ever stricter health guidelines to follow—likely resulting in inevitable delays and frustrations for voters.
Even when all the recommended safety precautions are taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the statistical chance of transmission will work against you—otherwise, Ottawa residents in particular would still be able to enjoy gyms, indoor restaurants and movie theatres.
Instead of focusing on partisan politics and opposing the current government because you’re a member of the opposing party, we must all work together to defeat the pandemic-related issues facing Canada today—and understand that an election is not in the best interest of any Canadian.
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
