Governments, do not frustrate your citizens

By DARCE FARDY
Tue. Sep 9 – 6:03 AM
Too many Nova Scotians no longer vote. Forty per cent of us did not make the effort in the last provincial election. Fewer than half the eligible voters bothered to go to the polls in the last municipal and school board elections.

So what’s happening? Why are so many of us opting out of the political process? We know this lack of public interest is not peculiar to Nova Scotia but it is as serious or more serious here than in other parts of Canada.

This year, we are observing 250 years of democracy in Nova Scotia. I avoided using the word “celebrating,” given that so many Nova Scotians are not participating fully in our democracy. An essential role of citizens in a democracy is to decide for themselves who they want to represent them in our elected bodies. But many of us don’t seem to care, or at least don’t care enough to make our choices. Those who are elected must wonder what kind of a mandate they enjoy when so many citizens have turned their backs on the whole system.

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