Move over voter fatigue: apathy may be the name of the 2021 federal election

We’ve dealt with a lot of elections in Saskatchewan in the last 22 months.

First, there was the October 2019 federal election. Then, the October 2020 provincial election.

That was followed by the municipal elections, which were held in November 2020.

Now, we’re turning our attention to Sept. 20, 2021. The date of Canada’s snap, fall election, as announced by Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau Sunday.

All these dates, elections, polls, campaign signs, campaign slogans, headlines, advertisements — they may get a little overwhelming at times.

But if it’s not voter fatigue voters are facing this time around, how would we categorize what we’re going through right now? Voter apathy.

David McGrane is currently a professor of political science at the University of Saskatchewan. He also ran as a candidate for the Saskatchewan NDP in that October 2020 election. He defined the term in a Monday interview with 650 CKOM.

“Voter apathy is essentially (that) people are apathetic and don’t want to come out to the polls — don’t want to come out and vote,” he explained.

McGrane said there are other reasons for the lowering voter turnout. He said the competitiveness of the election, the ease of voting and throwing the pandemic into the mix, all adds up to fewer people hitting the polls.

“This time around, that could be a possibility,” he said. “You’ll be looking at more mail-in ballots … more people in advance polls.

“So the election itself may be a bit less (busy) because of that.”

McGrane said he’s interested in seeing the election roll out. He said we’re looking at a majority or a minority situation for the Liberal Party.

“Are they able to sort of get those extra seats needed for a majority? Or are we looking at, unfortunately, something that’s sort of similar to what we have right now. It’s not impossible that we’ll have a full election and we end up with a House of Commons looking fairly similar to what we have right now,” he said.

“In that case, everybody might say to themselves, ‘Why did we have the election?’”

When asked if the scales will be tipped in favour of any party thanks to the pandemic, he said it’s another storyline he hopes to follow.

“It’s probably going to be a bit varied,” he said. “What you’d be looking for is seeing how different parties react in different places. Maybe you can do more door-to-door in Saskatchewan, but less in Quebec.”

McGrane said his experience in the 2020 election was full of stress, with the normal election day-to-day, to also dealing with the pandemic.

“It really adds another layer of complexity for the local candidate,” he said.

With elections tied to getting out and meeting constituents, talking about their problems and looking for solutions, McGrane said the pandemic just adds that extra layer of stress to Sept. 20.