Forget about political parties. They all have their individual axes to grind and seem locked into their own inflexible dogma. Why not vote for the best candidate in all elections!

Party politics and majority governments ensure that individual candidates have little say on issues as they are forced to support their parties in all discussions and votes. We, in turn, have little representation in the political arenas as our voices get silenced by the policies parties adopt from their influential leaders.

In my opinion, minority governments are the only way to get political parties away from their vested interests and to provide a variety of ideas and opinions about how issues should be decided.

We are all aware of the great disparity in our society between the haves and the have-nots, or even the have-lesses. The coalition of NDP and Liberals at the federal level has resulted in dental care for many who don’t have it, more investment in health care and day care for less affluent families, and many other social benefits. None of this would have happened with a majority government.

As for the incredible public debt that our governments have created, I can see no alternatives if we want the social services that most of us require. Public debt is a worldwide phenomenon, especially as a result of the monetary and social costs of Covid, which vastly increased public costs. If we wish to reduce this debt, perhaps we need to reduce the much higher subsidies we give to industry rather than reducing the much lower subsidies we provide for health care, food production, and other services that sustain us.

Here on Salt Spring, we have been fortunate to have had a very bright, responsive representative in Adam Olsen. I voted for him because of him not because he was a Green party representative. Similarly, I will now vote for the NDP’s Sarah Riddell, who I believe will give us the same high quality representation that Adam did. Let’s vote for the candidate, not the party.