Democracy is when people take an active interest in their communities – and vote.
Did you know the federal government’s Economist Research branch has a democracy index? And that Canada has dropped from the fifth highest ranked “democracy” to the 10th in the last few years? Taiwan has a higher score than Canada for 2021. What? The ranking for the United States of America has been going down annually since 2015. For 2021, Uruguay and Costa Rica had higher scores.
Did you know that in the province of B.C., the percentage of registered voters who bother to vote has decreased significantly in the last 20 years? Elections B.C. also keeps track of the estimates of the number of eligible voters. About four per cent of eligible voters were not even registered to vote in 2020.
If we don’t vote and don’t take an interest in our nation’s government, our democracy erodes.
Elections B.C. estimates that for the 1991 provincial election, 70.56 per cent of those who were eligible to vote actually voted. Moving to 2020, the estimate is that across the province, only 51.76 per cent of those eligible to vote actually voted.
Personally, I think the violence on our streets and the drug crisis are related to the loss of community and interest in community that is reflected in the low voter turnout. Can we do better?
Heather Phillips
Sooke
ALSO READ: Boosting 2022 local election turnout in B.C. unlikely
editor@sookenewsmirror.com
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