What's even the point?: Thoughts on the 2025 federal election

April 21, 2025

Happy election season, everybody.

With projections (not polls, we'll get to that later) looking like it's probably going to be a Mark Carnage Majority, I would say we have avoided the worst outcome. Even with that being true, I can't help but feel a little disillusioned with the whole thing. What I have learned from this election season so far, first and foremost, is that the vast majority of Canadians have no idea how our electoral system works. And who can blame them? There is a massive amount of mis- and disinformation floating around out there, and it's easy for lots of people, especially disenfranchised people, to get the wrong idea.

Lack of knowledge about our electoral system

Having knocked on hundreds if not thousands of doors over the past few months, I have learned that a (potentially vast) majority of Canadians are not familiar with our political system; that is the system in which we vote for candidates at the riding level, and the party that wins the most seats governs + their leader gets the prime ministership. People have gotten confused, surprised, and even downright angry when I informed them that Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre would not be options on their ballot. While I understand that the PM has a lot of power, I do wonder about the effects of so many voters seemingly voting each year without knowing who they're voting for. Just something to chew on.

The parties seem to be aware of the general lack of political knowledge among the electorate, because they're taking advantage of it. Conservatives are pushing Trump-style conspiracy theories suggesting that the election might be rigged. Liberals are, at the very least, being misleading about the nature of strategic voting, suggesting that voting for Liberals is necessary even in ridings where NDP, Bloc, or Green candidates are likelier to beat the Conservatives. In my riding, it is possible that LIBERAL votes will lead to the vote being split. When I point this out to Liberal supporters, they overwhelmingly get angry at me and suggest I am shilling for the Conservatives (I would never).

The local race: Hamilton Centre

At the local level, I am cautiously and anxiously optimistic that Matthew Green will win re-election. NDP support tends to be EXTREMELY strong in this riding (only the NDP has held this seat since it was created), and I've noticed that these goddamn smart voting websites tend to undercount NDP support. Perhaps most importantly, websites like 338 and Smart Voting are showing the NDP as the frontrunner, hopefully allowing people to feel ok about voting for Matthew (even though the Tories stand no chance in this riding and strategic voting is therefore unnecessary). After what was quite a crushing loss in the provincial election for Sarah Jama, this is going to be the last stand of Hamilton leftist organizing for a while. That being said, I know that one election loss, even it does happen, will not kill the momentum and working class solidarity we have here in Hamilton.