Cheng-Chung Yu, MBA, CPA, CA, CFA, CFP
Published in 2014
The Merriam-Webster dictionary has the following definitions for the word democracy:
a: government by the people; especially: rule of the majority;
b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.
In a democratic nation, every citizen has the right to vote. Government officials are voted in and elected by you, the citizens. Such democratic system and process help ensure the government is built on the will and power you vest upon it. Its role is to work for and on your behalf as it derives its ultimate authority from you. You as a voter have choices, choices as to which candidates you want to represent and work for you, which platforms and ideas you like better, and which parties and leaders you want to lead the nation. In a democratic country, there are typically at least two political parties competing for your choices and votes. The party that garners the most votes becomes the ruling party and takes the governing role. The opposition parties in the meantime would serve their watching, criticizing and supervising roles. In a sense, the democratic political system is not too different from the free, market-based economy with open competition among participants. The players or political parties are competing for your votes with their best leaderships, organizations, platforms, ideas, policies and capabilities. Government does serve an important role to provide public goods and services that result in public benefits and functions that the private sector existing alone cannot otherwise fulfill.
As a citizen, you have the right to vote. Your vote helps to contribute and shape election results. Don’t take this right and privilege lightly; your vote equals your choice, your voice, and your contribution to the democratic society. It is through your seemingly simple action of voting and the collective participation of all citizens that decides who runs your country and how. If you vote, you become relevant in the political process; you become a factor to consider when politicians make decisions on policies, actions and resource allocations. One vote in the grand scheme of overall collectivity and results may seem to be trivial and not important. It is important to recognize, however, that if everyone had the same mindset, a democracy would not work well. Going to the extreme, this would mean that politicians are elected only by very few people’s votes and will, as opposed to by many and the great majority. Then the whole purpose and goodwill of democracy is self-defeated and we would become closer to be living in a tyranny.
Excuses not to vote are plenty. A single vote or two are neither important nor relevant to the election result. Politicians are all the same; who cares which one is elected. I don’t have the time to vote or to study the different platforms of the various political parties or candidates. I have other priorities. I need to worry about my daily bread first. I am simply not interested in politics. I don’t know where the polling station is. Our family is at odds as to who is to vote for whom. There are certainly many more reasons beyond imagination. But again, think deeper, think more, think about the society you live in, and think about the greater sum of all and not just yourself!
Historically, the Canadian voting percentage is about seventy percent, which means there are still three out of every ten who have all their individual reasons or excuses not to come out to vote. Not too long ago, in fact, in just the recent 2008 federal election, we saw one of the lowest voter turnouts of fifty-nine percent. For the more enthusiastic, much higher voter turnout of seventy-nine percent, we need to go as far back as the 1958 federal election. In an Elections Canada’s working paper of “The Electoral Participation of Ethnocultural Communities” by Livianna Tossutti in 2007, the analytical reviews of the electoral participation of ethnocultural communities in Canada were examined. Unfortunately, we see voters of Chinese ethnicity really have something to catch up. The Chinese voting percentage is typically lagging behind the national average by about 10% to 20%. The eligible voters of European origin or native-born Canadians, on the other hand, are setting good examples of how to be a good citizen by participating and voting.
Anyhow, no matter which race, identity or origin you want to categorize yourself in, next time when you ask what the country can do for you, ask yourself this first: what you can do for the country. Go out and vote, please. Remember: it is simple; after all, democracy starts with your participation!