former Green Party interim leader presents a 20-point plan to reform Canadian democracy

On April 28, Canadians will vote in the country’s 45th parliament. Few people know both sides of that process quite like Jo-Ann Roberts. As a journalist and radio host, she covered politics for nearly 40 years before leaving the CBC in 2014. She later served as the interim leader of the Green Party of Canada and the deputy leader of the Green Party of Nova Scotia.

On the eve of another general election, Roberts is out with a 20-point plan to reform Canadian democracy as we know it. Her new book — Storm the Ballot Box: An Insider’s Guide to a Voting Revolution — is part memoir and part manifesto.

“This book aims to get Canadians to vote, no matter who they vote for,” she writes.

“I’m writing this book for my grandchildren. I want them to know democracy is worth fighting for.”

“If you’re politically curious and you’re wondering why people don’t vote, or maybe [why] you don’t vote, and you wonder if you should vote, I highly recommend you give this a read,” she said.

You could say Roberts caught the political bug early. She was 12 years old when she watched the 1968 Liberal leadership convention on TV with her dad.

“It was like watching a hockey game, something else my dad and I did together. And I remember thinking, ‘This is cool,’” she said.

“By the end of that convention, I’d fallen prey to Trudeaumania. It didn’t make me a lifelong Liberal, but it did make me a lifetime voter.”

Roberts grew up in small-town New Brunswick. As the daughter of a United Church minister, she remembers people stopping her father at the grocery store all the time for a quick chat, often about politics.

“And I remember thinking, this is really important to grown-ups. They take this seriously,” she said.

Her own political awakening would come much later. Her nearly four-decade-long career in journalism ended in 2014 following a 10-year stint hosting All Points West, CBC Radio’s afternoon program, heard everywhere in B.C. except in Metro Vancouver. Roberts decided to run for office as a Green Party candidate in the 2015 federal election.

“It was a Stop Harper campaign, for those of you who remember it. And one of the reasons I ran was I had been working for the CBC, and Stephen Harper wanted to get rid of it, so I thought, I’ve got to do something about it,” she said.

She placed second in her Victoria riding, a result she blames on strategic voting.

“I had people come up to me and say, ‘I would have voted for you, but I had to stop Stephen Harper, so I voted NDP.’ I mean, even now, it kind of makes me mad to think that is really bad logic,” she said.

“My 23,666 votes were more than 131 MPs who did get elected, and that was a hard pill to swallow.”

The moral of the story for Roberts is that you should vote your conscience and support the candidate you want.

“Occasionally, in a very tight race, you do have to think about what your vote will mean. But in the majority of Canadian ridings, voting strategically makes very little sense. But yeah, I learned that lesson the hard way,” she said.

Roberts argues that strategic voting is fed by the constant bombardment of polls throughout the campaign season.

“There’s been more public polling done in this election than we’ve ever seen,” she said.

Roberts says we should ask ourselves some critical questions when considering any poll – such as how was it done, who conducted it, when and where it was done, what the sample size was, the margin of error, and where you can get a copy of the entire survey.

“These pollsters are pretty accurate, but I don’t think anyone has taken a look at how accurate they were, or how much of what they said has predicted the future.”

Storm the Ballot Box packs a lot of information into its 178 pages. Ultimately, Roberts just wants to get people excited about voting again, maybe for the first time. She says increasing voter engagement can be as simple as talking to your kids about politics and letting them know why it’s important. She also wants to see the voting age lowered from 18 to 16.

“I wish we would have a robust conversation about this, because we’re losing a generation if you don’t vote. Research shows if you don’t vote in the first election you’re eligible for, you’re unlikely to vote in any other election.”

“My advice is, take your kids to the polls with you on April 28 and let them see what it’s like to go and stand in the lineup,” she said.

As Canadians prepare to vote, she hopes the book also reminds us of this incredible privilege.

“It doesn’t have to be drudgery, like ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve got to go vote’ as if it’s the worst thing in the world, like having a root canal. It needs to be, ‘Wow, I get to go vote.’”

“We are fortunate that we still have a country where we’re free to vote, where our vote really will be counted, even if it’s a protest vote.”

“Staying away sends no message to the politicians; it sends a message to me that our system is broken,” she said.

Storm the Ballot Box: An Insider’s Guide to a Voting Revolution is available from Nimbus Publishing.