In less than two weeks, the province of Ontario will have municipal elections. Here in Toronto, there are 65 candidates running for mayor, (19 others dropped out). In my area, there’s also eleven candidates for councillor and seven for school board trustee. With so many candidates, how do you choose?
Maybe it becomes a Paradox of Choice [and here]: the more choices you have, the less likely you are to make a choice. And if you do make a choice, it tends to be based on irrelevant criteria such as how a candidate looks rather than, for example, their economic policies.
Deciding on which candidate you should vote for can be like deciding on which photographer you should hire for an upcoming photo assignment.
Trying to choose between several photographers with whom you have no experience is the same as trying to choose between candidates who have no political history. Of the total 83 candidates in my area, only four have a political history. So what to do?
Go to the photographers’ (or candidates’) web sites. Read the information and view the pictures. Is there enough information to answer your questions? Do you trust that information? Look at the “About Us” page: is there a photo of the person? What does that picture say to you?
But what if all the photographers’ (or candidates’) web sites are more or less the same?
If you can’t decide on which photographer (or candidate) to select, you could check their numbers. This is where the two often go in opposite directions.
When it comes to choosing a politician, folks will often vote for the candidate who promises the most. They look for the candidate who promises more transit, more social services, more arts funding, more business investment, more housing, more parks, etc. But people forget that when a politician promises more, there’s a catch. More always costs more.
When it comes to choosing a photographer, folks will often vote for the photographer who charges the least. But people forget that when a photographer charges less, there’s a catch. Less always delivers less.
We know nothing is free. Yet many people still expect economic magic to happen.
