Oh Canada! The true north strong and free!

In case any of my readers reside in an alternate universe (and can I visit?) Canada had a major Federal Election yesterday. Now just in case you are now wildly screaming or perhaps your jaw is immediately embarked upon the act of yawning, may I reassure you all I am not going to blither on about politics. I shall, instead, be blithering on about the whole thing of voting from my side of the voting table, being that I have been involved in facilitating the voting process for the last 9 elections, both provincial and federal.
It's a huge commitment to put yourself forward to do this. I'm not saying that to garner any back-patting murmurs of congratulation but to point out it's not a job for slackers. This is a serious undertaking you are engaging in. And the hours are abysmal - 3 eleven hr days for the advanced polls and 16 hrs for the Election itself, where you must also be responsible for the counting of the votes cast after the long and often dreary or - certainly in yesterday's case - extremely busy day.
But I believe strongly in the process which I think many take for granted in our free land. How privileged we are.
The thing that struck me the most about yesterday was that it was so busy. It makes me hopeful that our good citizens are actually engaging in the responsibility in the governance of our country. However, the fact that so few young people do not vote and blow it off as not worth the effort saddens me. If only they realized the power they have to change our world. We certainly would have a government more committed to environmental concerns. And, may I hopefully dream, the Arts.
 This is the other side of living in a Democratic society, you are free to exercise the right to vote or not.
So for those of you who DID exercise this right, thank you. And despite the outcome, that you are happy about or hugely disappointed in, may I hope you will still be true to your beliefs, encourage the positive and be mindful of the environment we all share.

The painting: " Esoteric Dreams " by Eugene Ivanov. I chose this because it made me think of how the media can color our voting choice. Often we float along and have no stronger idea of what is happening politically except for those 5 min sound bytes from all these odd folks who have something to do with running our land.