Two U.S.A. and Canadian Citizens’ take in the 2024 Election

Our neighbours south of the border have a big decision to make, it’s election day in the United States.

Paul Giokas was born and raised in Saskatchewan, he grew up in Whitmore Park.

He moved to Texas in 1996 and has been there ever since.

He said things feel very divisive for the last decade.

“There’s the strong controversy,” he said.

“If you’re on the Republican side, you think it’s a no brainer to reelect Trump because of how the economy was and how the country did under him in his first term. But then, if you’re on the Democrat side, you don’t understand how anybody could vote for somebody like him.”

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He became a US citizen in November of 2018 and voted in his first presidential election in 2020, he said it was a “cool” experience.

Giokas is hosting a watch party with his friends tonight.

As for which was Texas will swing, he’s not entirely sure. He said Texas is usually very conservative, but claims a lot of people from California — a primarily Democrat state — are moving to Texas.

“There’s one senate race, which is a dead heat, between Ted Cruz and Colin Allred here in Texas,” he said. “It’s dang close. So, there’s a lot of tension regardless of what side of the aisle you’re on in Texas right now, because it could go either way in a few seats.”

Giokas said politics is politics and its usually pretty straight forward. But he said things are becoming more controversial.

“I’m 55 years old, and I remember growing up around family barbecues and politics was always a topic of discussion, and sometimes it got heated, but there was never animosity to the point where you just didn’t talk to each other after it or talk about it,” he said. “And sadly, that’s where it’s gotten.”

Giokas thinks people should listen to other viewpoints and encourages having discussions with people who don’t share the same views as you.

“How else do you learn,” he asked.

He hopes that no matter what happens, both sides come together and accept what democracy has chosen.

Kathleen Roth

Kathleen Roth is an American born, dual citizen living in Emerald Park. She’s been in Canada since 2016.

To Roth, election day is just like any other day.

“My husband and I have to curl tonight, so we’re gonna go curling and when we get home we’ll pop on the TV and see where we stand,” she said. “If we weren’t curling tonight, we would just have the TV on and we’d be flipping between Fox and CNN and see how each each station covers the election … It’s interesting to see how they both cover it differently.”

Although she’s feeling very nonchalant about election night, she cares to see who wins.

“We also understand how what happens down there affects what happens up here and and so it’s something we’re interested in, election or no election,” she said.

For Roth, she said the biggest difference between American and Canadian elections is who you vote for.

“One thing that bothers me in Canada is I don’t get to directly vote for the person who’s going to run the country, like you do in the states,” she said. “Voting in the US, I got to choose between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. I have trouble wrapping my head around voting for the party versus the person.”

Roth moved to Canada in 2016 during the Trump/Clinton election. She said it was very hard being an American living in Canada.

“Everywhere I went, everybody wanted to know what I thought of Donald Trump,” she said. “And I finally figured out that it wasn’t that they wanted to know what I thought. They wanted to start the conversation so they could tell me what they thought.”

It eventually got to a point where she refused to answer.

“I would tell my friends in the States, ‘People in Canada, look at American elections like a spectator sport,’” she said. “I’ve come to find out it is truly because it’s so much more interesting and exciting than Canadian elections.”

Listen to 980 CJME and 650 CKOM’s live presidential election coverage starting at 6 p.m.

— with files from 980 CJME’s Lisa Schick