Atwood talks politics at Frye Fest

Margaret Atwood shared her thoughts on the upcoming election at the Northrup Frye Literary Festival in Moncton on Friday, telling reporters that it's crucial that people cast their ballots on Monday.

'Let me put it this way unless there's democracy, forget the whole thing.' Margaret Atwood

She said peoplewill be voting on whether they believe their government should be accountable, referring to the formerConservative government being found in contempt of Parliament in March, which paved the way for the end of the Harper minority government.

"How much simpler can I make this," said Atwood."Do you wish to vote for a blank cheque whereby government can do whatever they like and nobody will be able to either know what they're doing or stop what they're doing?"

Atwood said she's old enough to remember what happens when governments refuse to answer to their citizens.

"Now in my world that would be called a dictatorship.What would it be called in your world?"

Atwood calleditan abuse of power,comparing it to the plots in two of her novels.

"And you don't want any kind of government in which either the government or the corporations are the same thing,as they are in Oryx and Crake... in which the government and the religion are the same thing as they are in The Handmaid's Tale, " she explained.

Atwood is known for her politicalcandour during election campaigns. During the 2008 election she wrote a stinging editorial in The Globe and Mail, against a Harper majority and earlier this week published a similar article in The Toronto Star.

"Let me put it this way unless there's democracy, forget the whole thing," she said.

Atwood, who was a student ofFrye,will deliver the Antonine Maillet-Northrop Frye lecture entitled 'Mythology and Me: The Late 1950s at Victoria College' on Saturday evening at the Capitol Theatre.