Community Matters: Whatever you do this Saturday, make sure you vote

I’m not able to vote in this year’s election; that disappoints me.

But I hope you will vote.

I left before the mail ballots were ready (Oct. 2) and don't get back until just after the election (Oct. 23). I did my best to find a way, as the municipal election has the most impact on our day-to-day lives.

I hope my disappointment is your opportunity to get out an vote this Saturday (Oct. 20). There are lots of important historical reasons why we should vote.

I am not going to talk about those.

I want to help encourage you to vote.

Too often I encounter conversations with friends, family and colleagues who confuse which level of government has what responsibility. The result is people choose to not vote instead of learning what power each level of government has on our day-to-day lives.

It’s easy to get them mixed up — I get it. Many think the local government has the least impact on them.

I disagree.

Every day we use infrastructure or services that were approved by our local council and developed by the city government. Think about how often you use water, flush the toilet, drive on a road, walk on a sidewalk, take the bus and play in a park.

Those are local responsibilities:

1. Roads

2. Water and sewer systems

3. RCMP and Kamloops Fire and Rescue

4. Parks and recreation facilities

5. Public transportation (the cost is split with the provincial government)

City administration and politicians are also our advocate for both the provincial and federal governments for funding to support social services.

This means the city doesn’t provide income assistance, operate affordable housing or even run mental health and addiction programming, but it has a huge role to play in lobbying the other governments for the services and funding to support all residents in the community.

We need to think of them as another voice for us. This voice has more power than my voice alone.  

These nine voices may not always agree on issues and will have to debate seemingly ridiculous issues (like how many dogs you can own at one time) but have the power to receive over $30 million in affordable housing funding to support middle-income earners to our homeless, obtain infrastructure funding to offset municipal funds required to build important public infrastructure (such as the Tournament Capital Centre and the John Tod Centre) and receive additional funding to improve transit hours and accessible bus stops.

There is so much they can do that my single voice cannot for the things I enjoy and appreciate about our community.

I know it is daunting to see the long list of candidates on the ballot and wonder who to vote for but have a conversation with your family, friends, and/or colleagues about candidates. (Read about them here.)

Make time for this on Saturday.

Grab your coffee and hit the polls, go for a walk and pop in along the way. However you do it, you’ll have got there using a piece of municipal infrastructure that a city council before this one decided it was important to create.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said: “Our lives begin to end when we are silent about things that matter.”

Jen Casorso is a columnist for KamloopsMatters who, in her day job, is building a community well-being/social change practice for Urban Matters CCC. You can follow her on Twitter @jencasorso or connect via [email protected].