Letters

A vote is worth more than a hill of buttons

July 25, 2025   ·   0 Comments

How much pull does a lapel pin have?

I don’t mean the pop culture-style enamel pins that are making something of a comeback these days as people look for more artistic ways to pay tribute to their hobbies, passions, and fandoms. Rather, I’m referring to those often-round plastic numbers with metal backing that can be churned out by the hundreds, or pressed one at a time by a fully-manual punching machine that hasn’t changed much since they their advent in the late Victorian era.

“Not much,” you might answer. But, go to any flea market, or an antique store that gravitates more towards the tchotchkes of our lives than grand, beautiful pieces of furniture, you’ll likely find baskets and bins of disused pins commemorating everything from a campaign waged by a municipal politician time has nearly forgot, to promotion of new spin on a venerable caffeinated pop, to pun-tastic numbers with slogans and jokes that you can only read if you get right up in the wearer’s face.

Yet, I remember a time when buttons alone were able to sway an entire election.

Back when I was in Grade 6, an exciting Federal election was taking place and our teachers – our school’s two Grade 6 classes were a strange, brief exercise in “team teaching” – were thoroughly bitten by the political bug.

Almost as soon as the writ was dropped, we students were divided into groups to represent each of the political parties that were represented on our local ballot. Within the group, we appointed “party leaders” from amongst ourselves, and these lucky winners were tasked with emulating the party leaders of the time rather than flying their own flag. (I wonder if Jean Chretien, Preston Manning, Gilles Duceppe, Alexa McDonough, and Jean Charest ever had an inkling how walking a few steps in their respective shoes was a make-or-break moment in a student’s social standing in this very specific microcosm)

Then, the local candidates representing each party visited our class to make the case on why our in-class vote should go their way.

Each of them made their pitches with passion and conviction and gave us a lot to think about before “polls opened” later that afternoon.

Who won our in-class vote? It wasn’t the Liberals, Reform, BQ, NDP, or Progressive Conservatives. It was the Christian Heritage Party that won the day – and it wasn’t a statement on whether our class leaned left or right, or where our religious convictions lay. Instead, it all came down to the clever local CHP candidate who, in addition to speaking with us, brought bags and bags of party swag for us with him.

And there it was – an election that came down to a hill of beans, er, buttons.

It was not, of course, the most sophisticated way to gauge the pulse of students with even the slightest of political inclinations, but we were young, unsophisticated, and living in an era where Beanie Babies and POGs were traded like currency, so kudos to the CHP candidate for “getting” his electorate and introduced a new trading token into our schoolyard economy!

While everyone likes swag to some degree, I think it’s pretty clear that the youth of today are far more sophisticated and politically savvy today than we were back when the 1997 Federal Election unfurled across the country.

Today’s youth are more tuned in to the issues that matter than ever before. While some might be more susceptible to A.I. and so-called fake news than others, by and large, have, in my observation, not only a firm grasp on the issues that matter but no shortage of great ideas to foster the change they want to see in the world.

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