David Israelson
Special to Niagara Now/The Lake Report

The candidate I backed in the April 28 federal election didn’t win, but I’m glad about the election results anyway.

I’m sorry our candidate lost, of course. I think she would have been an excellent Member of Parliament. But I’m grateful for the way our entire election transpired, not just because the party and the leader I supported won.

I’m also happy because this was an election that worked, more or less, the way elections are supposed to work. It was a reasonably clean campaign; we, the voters, had important issues put before us. And we were offered real choices about how we want to meet the deep challenges we face, for the very survival of Canada.

In these days of so-called “populist” politics, that’s actually a lot to be thankful for.

Some people will say the system is still flawed, that we should have some sort of weighted voting system that takes into account the proportion of Canadians who did not want Mark Carney to lead a Liberal government as prime minister.

Maybe so. But this is a debate for future elections. We all went into this one knowing what the system is now, and our voting system, whatever its shortcomings, worked the way it is supposed to work.

Significant voter turnout

According to Elections Canada, voter turnout in the Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake riding was 66.7 per cent, with 60,590 of 90,766 registered electors casting ballots. This is not a super-high turnout, but it’s respectable.

The national turnout was the highest in a federal election since 1993. Canadians were engaged.

Residents who answered their doors to canvassers certainly were. They were anxious to talk about what was on their minds, especially protecting Canadian sovereignty and how to make life more affordable.

The riding’s voters also had the opportunity to hear all the main candidates debate. Those candidates, Liberal Andrea Kaiser, Conservative (and winner) Tony Baldinelli and New Democrat Shannon Mitchell all took part in a debate that was televised and available online.

This is important. It’s in sharp contrast to elections in many other countries — you know which ones — where one side tries to shut the other down by either ignoring them or insulting them.

Listening and pulling together

This is significant for local residents and all Canadians. We’re in the early stages of the biggest political fight most of us have ever seen in this country; if we’re going to win, we need to listen to each other and pull together.

That doesn’t mean we all need to agree on every detail of how to take on Donald Trump, tariffs, trade and threats. Challenging each other’s ideas is what having a Parliament with a government and an opposition is for — debating and letting the strongest ideas prevail.

In Niagara-on-the-Lake, I think we can draw a few lessons from this election.

First, even in a crisis, which is what we’re in now with the United States, it’s OK, and even essential, to question what’s the best way forward.

What’s more important is to hear everyone’s ideas and then, rather than argue endlessly and dither, to come up with the best way forward. That’s what everyone is counting on Prime Minister Carney to do now.

Secondly, maybe we can apply what we’ve seen in this election to our politics at other levels of government.

Too often, we’ve seen our provincial, regional and local governments trample over views that many people hold strongly — about protecting green space, about appropriate development. Our representatives need to listen to us after they’re elected, not just when they’re running.

Win or lose, in a democracy, our voices should be heard. In our riding, I think that happened even though my candidate didn’t win.

Let’s hope it happens again in our community.

David Israelson is a writer and non-practising lawyer who lives in Niagara-on-the-Lake.