12 June 2014

Exercising democracy

We became citizens of Canada just a week or two after the last Ontario elections and there hasn't been an election at any level of government since then. Today's Ontario election was the first time I have had the opportunity to vote in this country. It's something that's easy to take for granted, but after living here for seven years without a vote, I have come to realise how important it is to have that small role in a democracy. When I didn't have it, I felt excluded from a significant part of local, provincial and national life.


Our polling station is 10km (6 miles) away - so it's not like being in a city where you can just stroll down the road to cast your vote. I decided to make an event of it and rode my bicycle to the town hall in Hillier. It's a nice route, as much of it is along the old railway line and consequently it's fairly flat (important as this was also my first bike ride this year. Shameful, I know!).


In one short stretch of my journey I encountered three separate snapping turtles, all scraping out hollows along the edge of trail and laying eggs in the depressions.

Definitely not something I've ever seen while going to cast a vote in England!

2 comments:

Linda aka Crafty Gardener said...

years ago I could vote as a landed immigrant but when that changed I applied to become a Canadian citizen (have dual nationality now) so I could vote and also to be sure my pension claims all went through
We had a snapping turtle on the side of our road last week ... no soft spots to dig and lay eggs. In fact I have no idea how it got there. The neighbour and friend took it way back in the fields to where there was some water.

Amanda said...

Hi Linda!

I find turtles fascinating - and felt I was intruding by taking this photo, but I couldn't resist. :-)

Amanda