TORONTO (The Skwib) — They may wear toques instead of berets and scarf down high-octane Tim Horton’s coffee instead of smoking Turkish cigarettes, but a new poll shows 79 percent of Canadians are in as serious an existential crisis as most French novelists about to write a bleak philosophical roman ennui.
“A bit of uncertainty is healthy, but a crippling lack of meaning and purpose can really screw up your political system,” says Martin Angst, Director of the Void Institute for Philosophical Research.
According to the survey, a whopping 72 percent of Canadians who are undecided or who have said they will not vote in the next federal election have said they “don’t see the point”. A further six percent say the “meaningless” of the vote drives them to despair. One percent say they are heavy industrial magnets. The latter group are likely not existentialists, but absurdists.
“It is clear from these poll results that Canadians must accept that existence is prior to essence,” says Angst. “In other words, if they want meaningful choices they will have to make the choices themselves.”
And if Canadians don’t like the candidates available on the ballot?
Angst just shrugs.