My Take: By Gordon Lambie

I’m open to the idea that there is more than one way to do most jobs, but when it comes to politics, you have to at least show up.
Particularly in rural ridings, where so much of life is about the relationships people have with one another, and the real concerns come up more at a church supper or the local craft fair than they do in televised leadership debates, someone who puts their name forward to serve as a representative needs to be as present as possible in the community.
The pandemic obviously makes traditional campaigning weird right now, but when a candidate does nothing more than put their name on the ballot, then I get serious doubts about their effectiveness as a voice for the people whose votes they are asking for, regardless of how I might feel about their party’s national platform.