Don’t just complain, do something

Dear Editor:

I had to laugh at the irony of Ms. Stewart's letter in (November 9’s) edition, in which she basically accused the paper of having an anti-Conservative bias (i.e., Mr. Pyrcz's and Mr. MacKenzie's partisan columns). If she is so concerned that we are being overrun with Liberal and NDP propoganda, why didn't she take the opportunity to write a few notes herself? I was disappointed that although she so clearly pigeonholed herself as a Conservative, she neither identified which issues were important to her nor expounded upon them, giving us her point of view.

But at least she picked up a pen to say something. How many of us out there are always complaining about any number of issues, from unemployment to the military to climate change, but don't use their democratic right to make a difference? We live in a country where we are free to not only give our opinion on any subject, but to do something about it. Many people around the world would and have died for the rights we daily neglect. I always hear people saying that they have no voice, that one vote doesn't matter. Really? Then make it matter.

There are many ways that you can influence public opinion other than casting a single vote on election day: write to your MLA or MP; write to the editor of a newspaper; start a petition; canvas your neighbors. The bottom line is this: put pressure on your elected politicians to do what they were put there for. I don't care what party they belong to, or what they said during the election campaign. Lobby groups spend billions of dollars to influence our elected officials to vote for what they want all the time. I would suggest that only a person of high moral character is able to keep focused on his or her mandate in the face of this pressure, and that integrity is a much more rare virtue than you might suppose.

One final point: we are not robots, and we are not destined to all think alike. We've all heard the political rhetoric of what makes us Canadians. But there are many regions in Canada, many races, many histories, many religions, many worldviews. If you were to take a cross-section of all of them, you might be surprised how different we are. My point is this: think for yourself. If you have traditionally sympathized with the views of one political party over the others, and your party has a policy that you don't agree with, don't change your opinion just because they say so. You have the right and the power to influence opinion and policy, so do it.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Gee

Lawrencetown