I Vote for Love!

September 2026

You know those carnival rides where you're strapped in standing up and they slowly start to spin, but as they pick up speed you feel yourself being pressed harder and harder against the walls of the ride then, Fuck me!, it suddenly and dramatically tilts this way then that way, all while the centrifugal force has you absolutely plastered against the sides and your cheeks are flapping like a dog hanging its head out the window of a car doing 80? That's how my September felt (hence no newsletter since August!). How was yours? Were you able to catch your breath at any point, or did it just keep getting faster, busier, nuttier, more dramatic?

Personally (and politically), I don't know anyone who had a mellow September. Unfortunately, politically (and probably even personally because I'm such a political person), October (and into November) looks like it's gonna be just as full-on as September. Oi! I encourage us all to remember to take deep breaths, intentional screen breaks, long walks (and maybe some anti-anxiety meds) as we navigate the next month or so.

Whether you're following politics or not, we are all political people because the outcomes of politics affect every one of us. As Prime Minister Mark Carney famously said: "If we're not at the table, we're on the menu." Let's spend the next few months at the table, doing what we can to make the tone of the conversation more loving, more inclusive, more just. Let's spend the next few months not allowing the monsters to gobble up everything we believe in, everything and everyone we love.

Love Heals

While I'd rather stick my head under a pillow and avoid the news, the news happens no matter whether we're listening or not. But when we listen to the news enough to be informed (but not so much as to be traumatized), we have the opportunity to help shape the news, or at least prevent the absolute worst people from complete control.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is in the news a lot, and, I've gotta admit, I am feeling pretty grateful for him most days. He is The Man for This Moment. He is exactly who we need leading Canada while the fucking orange menace tries desperately to fuck with us all. And, while I truly believe this could/should be our golden opportunity to decisively step away from the extractive systems that got us in this mess in the first place and embrace a Green New Deal situation, the fact is that we are still deeply embedded in capitalism (ugh) and our Canadian banker boy understands this system better than anyone.

When I listen to PM Carney addressing how he plans to address the threats from the clowns below, it breaks my heart and makes me sick to my stomach to hear him talk about investing our tax dollars in the military, AI, mining, shipping LNG across our suffering seas, and "Building Canada Strong" in a way that will definitely trample Indigenous rights and further fuel climate chaos, even while I know he's fighting fire with fire. It is devastating that we have been pushed into this situation. It makes my head explode thinking about it. Fortunately, it is the lovely daily interactions with the lovely people in my life that serves as medicine and gives me strength to keep advocating for a better world. Love heals. Love makes us stronger.

Duelling realities.

While I, personally, as a means of warding off invasion, would advocate for Canadians lining up at the border, offering plates of their regional sweet treats (everything from Nanaimo bars to Figgy duff) to our would-be foes, I don't think humans are quite at this stage of global negotiation yet. However, I refuse to accept that building up our military and pillaging the planet is our only option in these troubled times. This version of reality makes no sense to me, and I imagine it makes little sense to most people who are just trying to live their lives in peace. So, while our governments are doing the only things they seem to know how to do, I choose to believe that most of us, intentionally or not, are working hard to create a reality based on trust and kindness, care and love. I choose to believe this not just because it's what gives me strength to keep challenging our governments (yup, I'm still writing letters to politicians), but also because there is an abundance of evidence of our fellow humans doing just this - living lives based on trust and kindness, care and love.

Of course there are plenty of assholes doing asshole things everywhere (in the course of 24 hours we were hit with the news of the 7 Cornell rapists, and the white supremacists showing up at T'kemlups te Secwépemc to name just a few) and they are difficult to ignore, but they cannot be our main focus if we want to maintain sanity and strength. We cannot close our eyes to the atrocities these people commit, but we should constantly remind ourselves (and each other) that they do not constitute the whole picture.

Voting as a Valentine

This quote by my cousin Rebecca makes the rounds every election season (and it seems to be election season everywhere just now). I agree that we are rarely in a position to confess our love for a candidate at the polls (except in the case of Zohran Mamdani - swoon), but perhaps our votes are actually a Valentine to our immigrant neighbours, our queer friends, our kids, our planet. When we cast our votes (and we owe it to everyone to vote!), we are confessing our love for our fellow humans whose rights are at stake. Voting is both a chess move and a Valentine.

In November 2024, 70+million Americans voted for a convicted felon who boasted about raping women (WTAF). A staggering 36% of those eligible to vote in that US election chose not to, presumably because they felt that Democrats are not perfect (they're definitely not). This was not only not a Valentine, it was a massive Fuck You to everyone whose rights were under threat. We've spent the past two years seeing the horrific effects of these voting choices on immigrants, trans folk, women, and so many others whose basic human rights have been ripped from them. We've spent the past two years watching these voting choices result in global chaos that will last for years to come. Every person who voted Republican or chose not to vote at all skipped the Valentine and sent a Fuck You letter to the rest of the world. It was the lamest chess move ever.

Here in BC we are having concurrent municipal and provincial elections in mid-October. I've been voting since I was 18, and I've had my hopes dashed too many times to believe that any of my preferred candidates will set the world right if elected (though Zohran seems to have the magic touch to make everything better - swoon). But I have faith that my preferred candidates will do everything they can to make things a little bit better within the confines of our messed up system and a world that has been increasingly crushed by capitalism. I have faith that my preferred candidates for school trustee (don't forget to vote for school trustees!) will uphold policies of inclusion while other candidates are campaigning on their plans to exclude queer families from the school communities. In the provincial, municipal and school board races, we have candidates hoping they can make life a little easier for everyone, and we have candidates who, should they win, will make life infinitely harder for Indigenous folk, queer folk, poor folk... We know how this story goes, and so we must vote for the candidates who will do less harm and maybe even a little good. This October I will vote for the love of our queer families, our unhoused neighbours, our immigrant friends, our children, our planet. I will vote for love.