People aren’t stupid. This is a very, very hard concept for community leaders to get their minds around. I’m talking about newspaper editors, civic group heads, general mucky-mucks, and of course politicians in general. You know, the folks who run the town. Or county. Or province. Most days, many of our “leaders’’ figure they know best. They want to tell us what is best. They want to do what is best for us. And if we don’t listen, agree or follow in their footsteps, well, a pox upon us. Following our latest provincial election, once again we have most people staying home. They didn’t vote. Predictably, “leaders’’ are cluck-clucking how sad this is. Sad? Personally, this is proof common sense in common people is alive and well in Alberta. Everybody who stayed home already knew who was going to win. Everybody who stayed home is quite happy with Steady Eddie. Everybody who stayed home has better things to do than vote. Simple as that. Pretty smart people out there, I think. I compare voting to being a volunteer. Don’t get me wrong. I vote and I volunteer. In fact, I’ve volunteered my feet off ever since Grade Five I think. I sold Boy Scout stuff door-to-door. I worked in school car washes. I organized dances. I swept the snow off our neighbourhood hockey rink. All that was just for openers. Since those years, I’ve volunteered in Lions, Chamber of Commerce, worked the rodeos and bingos, done town clean-ups, worked the church do’s and in general, volunteered at so many clubs and activities I can’t even remember them. I have to tell you, I’ve watched the Boy Scout leaders take trips with our fund raising money. I’ve been kicked off the ice by the big kids who laughed at us little guys for cleaning the ice. I’ve taken crap from bingo players. I’ve listened to people who didn’t like some twiggling little thing we did to try to make a community better. I never regret any of it. Many times I wondered why the heck I was doing all the work, and the other 95 per cent of the people not volunteering were all having fun. So, I would take a break. Then somebody would ask a favour, or I would see a need. Next thing you know, I’m back in the trenches! When it’s the right time, I am sure all those stay-at-home voters will come out of hiding. Right now, in Alberta, and especially in our Northern ridings, few people see any need to vote. They all know where we are going, who is going to be in office, and who they think is best for the job. They aren’t dumb at all. No sirree.

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