Hi all,

It’s election day (yay!), so if you are legally allowed to do so, I encourage you to make sure you vote today. The provincial government and its policies have a lot of impact to us on a daily basis from roads/infrastructure to health care to education to policies like our workplace safety training to how our local non-profits and NGOs are funded/supported.

If you would like time to go and vote during the day, I am good with that — just make sure your team lead & manager know where you are!

If you’re not sure how to vote (and are a procrastinator like me!), there are a few handy websites that summarize the various platforms of the parties:

1. I Side With — kinda fun — http://canada.isidewith.com/political-quiz
2. http://www.cbc.ca/elections/ontariovotes2014/votecompass
3. Platform overview: http://www.cbc.ca/elections/ontariovotes2014/features/view/compare-party-platforms/

In an interesting twist (perhaps it’s a sign I’ve lived here too long), I know all of the candidates in London West except one, and same is true for London North; they are all good people, so we are blessed with strong candidates from our community.

If you find that you simply can’t support a candidate/party this year (seems to be a trend and voter turnout is expected to be worse than 2011), it’s my belief that you should still go to vote and reject a ballot. I think it’s important regardless of how you vote or whether you vote to still engage in the democracy. A rejected ballot shows that you were willing to do your part but could not support a candidate. If you choose just to not show up, there’s no way to tell if it was because you were just lazy or if you couldn’t find a candidate to support.

To those of you political nerds out there, enjoy your Super Bowl tonight. :P

—
David Billson, President
rtraction
(519) 438 9064 x 5155
www.rtraction.com