Flip a Damn Coin Next Time
The Montreal mayorial election took place this weekend, and it was an embarrassment. Like 4% of the other residents around here, I voted for Projet Montreal, a fringe party interested in rebuilding public transit. The two major candidates were levelled with rather credible accusations of corruption, and I decided not to have any of their hucksterish explanations. The voting process was simple and orderly, and not at all a crass display of organizational ineptitude as I expected. I entered a bright basement where an elderly lady barked carte d’identité s’il vous plait at everyone. The small rectangular room churned with busy volunteers. I was shown to the booth, where I filled in three circles with a Sharpie pen, and placed the voting paper inside an oddly shaped piece of black cardboard. The paper stuck out at the edges. I took it to an attendant, who started to feed my paper into a slot, but realized she had the paper the wrong side up causing her to look at who I’d voted for. The process seemed convoluted without being confusing, but I left feeling better and not particularly inconvenienced. I later learned that only the 35% of the city’s residents voted that day, which caused me a bit of depression and the idle eating of cookies.
I have no great love for Projet Montreal, but at least they have a campaign which appears to have been assembled by means other than focus groups and polling. Politicians are all too willing to promise the moon and the stars for a vote. Tremblay and Bourque had almost nothing to say except that everything would be beautiful and beautified and beautificient, and that the other guy is a cud-chewing buffoon. Would it have killed either of these perverts to put forth a realistic overview of where they think the city will be in five or ten years, economically, culturally, demographically, and maybe with some goals? Or to discuss what role Montreal hopes to play in as a major Canadian city in the decades to come? On the world stage as a World City? Some vision, perhaps, beyond the purview of borough merger shenanigans, and recovering from your past political gaffes?
Not to mention, well, Tremblay and Bourque are just so loathsome, aren’t they? Did you hear any of their shouting-match debates, and the depths of the name-calling that took place? Can you even tell them apart? If shown unlabeled photos, would you be able to determine who was who? Is it any surprise voter turnout is 35% when you may as well flip a coin and hope the winner doesn’t turn out to be a pederast or something?
Sigh. Feelings of temptation towards activism. The urge to become a letter-writing crank. The need to drink. All are being entertained.
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