It was a day where I witnessed history during an unprecedented election.
Thoughts on this year’s federal election
By Jerrison Oracion, Senior Columnist
September 20, 2021, was another important day in Canadian history as the entire country went to the voting stations to make a very important decision that will determine the future of the country as COVID continues. It is also to some voters an opinion poll on whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should have called an election while the pandemic is still happening. It was a day where I witnessed history during an unprecedented election.
During the campaign, I was volunteering for Ron McKinnon, my local MP and Liberal Party Candidate in Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam. My job was knocking on doors and putting brochures on doorknobs to get everyone to get out and vote as well as working in the campaign office and eating a lot of snacks. The interesting thing about the riding during the election this year is that the campaign offices of the three major candidates were nearby each other as well as near a polling station. The day began with me going to the house of a volunteer and finding out that I was going to the Westwood Plateau area to remind people that the Federal Election was happening that day.
During most of the day, I went to a few townhouses as well as go back and forth between places that I went to earlier during the campaign. I had to run a lot, go up hills, and go up steps as quickly as possible to get as many voters as possible to vote for McKinnon. In the afternoon, I asked voters if they voted already as the polls were about to close in the Atlantic provinces. Next, I went back to my house to watch the results of the election on CTV News.
While both CTV and CBC news’s coverage of the election had diverse panels, the set design at CBC made it look like Rosemary Barton was about to host The National by herself again. Interestingly, two key people in the SNC-Lavalin scandal participated in election coverage with former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould on CTV and Trudeau’s former Principal Secretary Gerald Butts on CBC. Though CBC was number one on election night, CTV called the results first with the Liberal Party winning a minority government and the House of Commons seat layout remaining the same.
The result of the election was that Trudeau must work with the other parties to get through the pandemic; this might mean a coalition with the NDP provided they are willing to work with him. This also meant that Trudeau should not have called an election which would have allowed him to focus more on the pandemic and immediately addressing the situation in Afghanistan.
Finally, I walked to Samz Pub for a campaign party where I later found out that McKinnon was re-elected by at least 4000 votes. We celebrated by eating chicken wings and nachos as well as a bit of cake. We were about to eat the cake until McKinnon had to answer a long phone call before we finally ate it.
It was an exciting day to go through and the door-knocking helped McKinnon to go back to the House of Commons. Now that the election is done, let’s get back to what we were doing and get through the pandemic.
