TL:DR - I volunteered to do mind-numbing data entry work for my city council candidate and he won by only 114 votes (1.9%) you CAN make a difference!
I live in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. and last Saturday we had our municipal elections. It was an exciting time because our corrupt, incompetent Mayor Peter Kelly had decided not to run for a fourth term lest he get his ass handed to him by the favorite and eventual winner Former Liberal Member of Parliament Mike Savage.
I'm a card carrying member of the Liberal party of Canada, and as such I never really have to think about who I'm going to vote for. And in the last Municipal election both the candidates I wanted to lose only had 1 challenger, so that made the decision easy.
This time around though, I had a decision to make. As a Liberal I knew I was going to vote for Mike Savage. I'd campaigned with him back when he was first running for Parliament and knew him to be a good man, and that would make an excellent mayor. But for my councillor election there were no less than 5 candidates running, so I had a decision to make.
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I eliminated 1, the incumbent, right off the bat. Our city has been so poorly run for the last 12 years I personally feel like anyone who voted for an incumbent this year should have their head examined.
So, that left 4 candidates for my District. How was I to choose who to vote for?
I decided to send each candidate an email (or in one candidate's case a tweet using twitlonger because he didn't seem to have a public email address.)
In the email I asked questions that mattered to me and when I got all the responses back I went through them and decided who to vote for based on their answers.
The candidate I chose is named Waye Mason, here were my questions and his answers.
#1 Where do you stand on making transit service available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?
Not all of it but some main routes, for sure, like the Blue Line buses in Toronto.
#2 Route #3 of Metro Transit was recently shut down because of low ridership, if you were on council at that time would you have supported or opposed this move?
I think we need to put our resources where the riders are. I don't think Metro Transit did a good enough job putting other routes in place to service the manors. The whole system needs a redesign so we have regular routes that lead to quality terminals that allow fast transfers. I've outlined my transit and transportation vision here: http://www.wayemason.ca/...
#3 Do you think the HRM should be de-amalgamated into two separate cities, one being the rural portion and the other consisting of the urban portion?
I think we should focus on giving community councils more power over local issues. I think that could address a lot of the rural/urban issues. I also think we need tax fairness, I wrote about that here: http://www.wayemason.ca/... I am not against letting the farthest flung parts of the county go but I think it would be really really difficult to get any kind of agreement on where the suburbs and rural begins. I don't think the province would allow de-amalgamation, I think we need to focus on making it fair and work better.
#4 Do you agree with how Mayor Kelly handled the Occupy situation? If not, what would you have done differently?
No I do not. I would not have evicted them on Nov 11, I would not have promised that everything would be fine if they moved if I didn't mean it.
#5 Do you support council holding 'in-camera' sessions that are outside of the public view?
Only when absolutely necessary, such as an employment issue. The rest of the time, no. And stuff done in secret should be released to public later. For example, the Occupy material should now be released to the public. My views on open government are here: http://www.wayemason.ca/...
#6 Do you agree with how the city handled the Transit Strike? If not, what would you have done differently?
No I don't think it was well handled at all. From what we know on the outside (which is not much) it seems that ATU was willing to do a number of deals to get around the rostering issues, before and during the strike. I feel it could have been avoided. I'm sorry I'm not being more specific but we don't have access to the reports and details.
#7 How would you grade the performance of the current city council?
F - not doing anything with the Auditor Generals report after the concert scandal showed a lack of competence.
#8 If on council at the time would have have supported or opposed the measure known as 'Tax Reform' https://www.halifax.ca/...
Opposed. I would support the tax fairness I proposed. I am not in favor of a user fee and per household based tax system, which was part of one of those proposals. I think the initial proposal was flawed but council let us down by just walking away from the real issues facing HRM in terms of taxation.
Of the four candidates I contacted Waye's answers were the best I heard by far. 1 candidate's answers were OK, he ended up finishing third. One was a right wing nut job who said he was disappointed Mayor Kelly wasn't HARSHER on the Occupy protesters, a non-starter with me, and the Twitter candidate didn't respond to me at all, so I guess he didn't want my vote.
I was so impressed I donated $20 to Waye's campaign, the first donation I've ever made outside of my Liberal Party dues, AND Municipal donations AREN'T tax deductible here, so I REALLY liked his message. While I was on his site I also checked a box to volunteer for data entry.
A few days later I received an email from a gent named Mike, who was working with Waye on his campaign. We set up a time for me to swing by and get trained on the software. It was NationBuilder (I dunno if any of you have used it before) but I hate web based data entry systems, I'm a call center lifer and I've used both Web and DOS based and DOS wins every time, I can fly through those systems lickety split, whereas web it's all click ........ wait, click ........ wait, click ........ wait, ARRRGH! But I really wanted to get rid of the incumbent so I persevered.
What ensued was some of the most boring work I've ever done in my life. Basically the canvassers when they talked to a voter would gauge their support between 1-5, with 1 being a sure Waye vote and 5 being a sure vote for someone else/non-voter, etc. I must have went through a thousand sheets over the next 9 days. It was so boring at times but each time I wanted to give up I thought about how much this election meant to me. How satisfying it would be to get rid of one of the dead weights that had held my city back for SOOOOOOO LOOOOONG, and each time I focused with a determination I didn't even know I had.
When it was done and I'd gone blind looking at those canvass sheets I went out for my leaving work party with all my former co-workers. (I'd gotten a new job in early October) and when I got home I found out that Waye had won...
...by 114 votes!
114, out of 6035 cast that's a margin of only 1.9% It was the second closest result of the night.
All the work that I had done, the tedious and mind-numbing work had paid off, and helped change the direction of my district and city 180 degrees!
Now of course I know that so many others gave their time to help Waye win, and Waye himself is a campaigning machine. He's been at it for like 8/9 months now. Wish I had that guy's energy.
But, no one can ever take away from me that feeling of pride I have when I think about the small role that I played in putting him on council. With a margin that small you KNOW your work made a difference.
Now, my friends, you all have that chance as well. And it's not a city councillor you're electing. It's the leader of the free world. Think I felt good knowing I'd done my duty for the progressive cause? Imagine how good YOU can feel!
Now get out there and kick some Republican ass!