A copy of my first facebook note in a long time:

Okay so my profile picture is not the best picture of me which has ever been taken, as I am yelling to someone off to the side of the photo, and I may not be one of these 'youth' who are voting, as our signs stipulate, BUT I believe in the message being portrayed. All over the world there are people currently fighting and dying for the right to democratic governance, the right to have a say in the rule of their nation. I heard a statistic the other day that today Canada is 69th in the world in terms of peacekeeping. We have denied UN requests to send peacekeepers to the Congo four times. As well, although Canada aided in instigating the Millennium Development Goals, we have ceased to make any attempt to fulfilled this commitment. This is not the Canada I feel like I live in, this tight-fisted, uncharitable, corporate run country. Something must change, I want to see the Canada I was taught to believe in.

There is one way we can change this, by starting to hold our government accountable for it's actions, by asserting our democratic right to vote. Currently, if the Canadian government does something citizens disapprove of, it is irrelevant, what are we going to do about it? In 2006, 64.7% of the population voted. In 2008, it was 59.1%.

Are you disillusioned by the Democratic process in North America? Do something about it. Are you sick of rhetoric? Do something about it. It doesn't have to be this way, change is possible, and the best way we can instigate change at this moment in history is to vote. I don't care how you vote, so long as you exercise this right.

The following is a quote from one of my hero's, Tony Benn:

"Keeping people hopeless and pessimistic - see I think there are two ways in which people are controlled - first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them. An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern...People in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don’t vote. They always say that that everyone should vote but I think that if the poor in Britain or the United States turned out and voted for people that represented their interests there would be a real democratic revolution"