The government has fallen! The government has fallen!

My utmost apologies for my lack of blogging but currently I'm in the midst of finals. But this just means that after finals are over, I'll have a lot more time to post. Anyway, back to my catch-up post.

And so as Chicken Licken predicted, the government has fallen. Of course, no one believed him after a chunk of the Peace Tower conked him on the head. But then again, he did run around screaming that the government was falling when in fact, he should have said that the Parliament buildings were falling.

But does it really matter that the plucky little clucker was right? I think a lot of people were fed up with what what happening on "the hill". This includes myself of course but at the same time I didn't want an election.

This was mostly because I wondered who was going to actually go vote. I mean, in the middle of January there are lots of people who are snowed in and don't want to make the trek to the polling station. What about those Snowbirds who migrate down to Florida for the winter? What about the growing sense of apathy among young people?

Why should I be worried? Why should you be worried? Well if we look at our numbers for the last election, it's kind of scary. Apparently the voter turnout for the 2004 election was the lowest it has ever been since Confederation. When was Confederation you might ask? For those of you who can't remember what you did in Socials 10, Canada became a country in 1867. That's 138 years people, for those of who can't remember what you did in Math 8. It's almost as if your great-grandfather built a bridge on his property and when you finally inherited the place you decided to chop up the bridge for firewood because you were too lazy to a) chop up brush wood b) install a gas fireplace or c) put on a friggin sweater.

But there are ways that you can vote without going to the polling stations on January 23. Canada had the first Internet election in North America. So this is a possibility perhaps for some ridings, even with the security issues. You can also vote by mail if you don't want to leave your house on election day. I believe you can also vote early whether you're an absentee voter or not.

So, when the time comes and we're all sick of those ads and posters and campaign signs please go out and vote. Because otherwise, you're not allowed to complain. At least, that's the way I see it. If you don't exercise your democratic right and then you complain about who was elected, you better go cry in the corner because no one is going to care about your whining.