What Can I Do?

Donald Trump's win has been upsetting to a lot of Canadians as well as Americans. It's okay to feel bad, I always try to tell my four-year-old, and if you just need some time to feel bad, that's okay too.

It isn't like I can do anything anyway. I worry for the future of the United States and I worry for how that will affect Canada and the rest of the world, but I don't have a say in how they run things there.

I do have a tiny fractional say in how we run things here, though. If the idea of someone winning an election based on racist rhetoric doesn't appeal to you, and if you are Canadian, there is definitely something to do.

I'm going to be sending the following to Justin Trudeau, my prime minister:

To the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau

I imagine you felt a range of difficult emotions as a result of Donald Trump's win, and I imagine you don't want the same thing to happen in Canada. I wonder if you think that it could happen here, or worry that it will happen here. I wonder if you are going to do anything about it.

In 2000 Canadians derided the United States for electing a somewhat clownish neo-conservative president. But before he was even out of office we followed suit and elected our own somewhat more respectable neo-conservative to slash and burn our democracy.

About the same amount of time after Donald Trump's election you'll be coming near the to the end of your second term as prime minister, and who will your opponent be? The leadership candidate for the Conservative party I see the most press coverage of is Canada's somewhat more respectable Donald Trump.

During the last election the Liberal party, the NDP and the Green Party all promised election reform and between the three took over 60% of the vote. In May of this year a poll showed 56% of Canadians favour election reform.

I don't want my daughters to spend their teenage years and young adulthood under the reign of racist demogaguery because 35% or 36% of Canadians vote for it.

Will you carry out your promise to Canadians and make sure that if a racist candidate wants 4 years of autocratic rule, they need to at least get half the country on board first?

I look forward to your reply,
Humbabella

But, you know, I'll probably sign it with my human-being name.

I'm also going to write to Maryam Monsef, the Minister of Democratic Institutions who is responsible for elections Canada and would likely be the one to introduce such legislation. I'm also going to write to my own Member of Parliament pushing them to press for this, then I will visit the office of my Member of Parliament in person and see if I can meet them in person to express my concerns.

That's what I'm doing for now.

Do the same, tell everyone you know how important this is. There is only one way to be sure we don't elect Donald Trump North here, and it's by allowing the 60% Canadians who don't want that to override the 40% who do.