Editorials - July 25, 2025
Saturation point
The Longest Ballot Committee has been busy signing up candidates to protest Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system since 2021. Its first attempt resulted in 21 candidates running for the federal election in St. Boniface-Saint Vital riding in Manitoba - a traditional Liberal seat, which they held. The last election featured 91 candidates vying for Pierre Poilievre’s seat in Carleton, which he lost. The committee has set a goal of 200 candidates in the by-election of Battle River-Crowfoot in Alberta where Damien Kurek resigned to allow Poilievre the opportunity to win back his seat in a Conservative stronghold. As of this writing, 152 candidates, 147 independents, had thrown their hats in the ring.
Poilievre has taken to social media to call for his own electoral reform, so that candidates need to have more signatures for nomination, nominees can only nominate one candidate and each official agent can only represent one candidate. The other serious candidates are also calling for the committee to stand down, and allow democracy to reign.
Whether you agree or disagree with the need for electoral reform, this form of protest is dangerous to the democratic process. Protests, pickets, marches and sit-ins bring awareness through inconvenience to the public that lasts a predetermined period of time (usually), and the public’s life goes back to normal afterwards. With the long ballot, voters are confused, especially since the vast majority of the candidates don’t participate in debates or interviews and counts are delayed.
Citizens then have to live with the outcome for possibly the next four or five years - an election that doesn’t truly represent the voters. – DS
A leader and his art
In this newspaper, Keith Roulston can be seen as everything to everyone. A community leader. A creative visionary. The keeper of the flame of local journalism. Local champion. This week, residents will have a chance to see him not as the first thing you think about when you think of him, but as something about which he is truly passionate.
Among the wilderness of co-founding The Citizen and The Rural Voice, spearheading community initiatives, and as co-founder of the Blyth Festival itself (in addition to being its general manager and president of its board of directors for many years), Keith has written plays. Keith has penned some of the most comprehensive love letters to this community that the Blyth Festival has ever produced, which is meaningful for a theatre so focused on that very idea. His understanding of our rural way of life and the people who live it is on a level that few can reach and even fewer can understand. It’s that grasp on the local psyche and setting that has made his writing uniquely special and, often, prophetic as the world continues to change.
This week, Powers and Gloria opens on the Memorial Hall stage. It premiered 20 years earlier, but its themes are just as resonant now as they were then: power struggles among the generations, the changes brought on by globalization, threats to the local economy and the importance of accepting all community members for who they are.
Keith is about as uniquely a Huron County voice as there is in our world today and, while you think you know it from reading generations of editorials, columns and stories, don’t miss the opportunity to hear it from a new perspective. His words are sure to stay with you. – SL
Bowing to pressure
The recent announcement that CBS will be ending The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has left many viewers feeling a sense of unease. At a moment when political discourse in America feels increasingly fraught and fragile, the timing of this cancellation strikes a particularly sour note.
Late-night talk shows like Colbert’s have long served as a vital space for political satire and critique. Their blend of humour and insight has offered audiences a way to process the chaos of the news cycle with both levity and critical thought. To see such a show suddenly sidelined feels less like a natural transition and more like a major loss.
Social media platforms, for all their immediacy and reach, lack the editorial rigour and consistent quality that a show like Late Show delivers. While memes and viral posts can spark conversation, they rarely replace the nuanced, well-crafted comedy and interviews that Colbert and his team produce. With his departure, audiences will be left with fewer options for political humour that challenges power.
The timing and unceremonious nature of the cancellation raises troubling questions about the state of the industry and the political priorities at play. At a time when many fear that the United States is drifting toward autocracy, the loss of this respected platform cannot be ignored. Canada watches all this with concern. We are reminded that free expression and robust satire are pillars of a healthy democracy, essential for holding power to account. When silenced, public discourse suffers.
The end of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is more than just the end of a television program, it’s a shift in how political commentary is consumed and valued, one that may leave us all poorer for it. – SBS