Municipal Elections: Ontario 2022

Last week, I participated in a Zoom-based training workshop on how to get people out to vote. This was organized by Making Voices Count in concert with the Cities for All Women Initiative, with an eye firmly on getting the vote out for the municipal elections set to conclude across Ontario on October 24th. I got persuaded to participate by people at the local community resource centre whom I've been in contact with off-and-on for years now.

I decided I want to say this publicly, because it matters. We're talking about municipal councils and school boards across Ontario. After the way the provincial elections went earlier this year, it seems more urgent now to pay attention to these things.

Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan...

Got the Labour Day Classic - Canadian Football League match between Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers being played in Regina - on the TV for background noise. I've been a Riders fan almost since I started walking, because of my upbringing.

Meanwhile, there's a three-province police search underway for two suspects in a case of multiple-homicide - 10 dead, 15 injured - that started in a First Nation and a neighbouring settler-founded community a ways north of Saskatoon. The crimes and the search they've triggered have made the news as far away from Saskatchewan as the UK (The Guardian), Germany (DW News), and Australia (ABC News) by now.

There is a severe dissonance here when I look at these two things together in the same posting...