Toronto Centre: Greens Gone Wild

Help Make History!
Toronto Centre by-election offers a once in a life time opportunity for the Green Party. The campaign has incredible momentum -- raising $22,500 in three days within the riding. Get involved in one of the most exciting Green campaigns ever -- the perfect practice for the upcoming federal election.

And as you'll see below the riding offers a "perfect storm" of factors -- that make it one of the most exciting ridings the Greens have ever campaigned in.

Keep coming back to this blog -- it will be updated daily with new info about the campaign.

For the blog on what the campaign needs in terms of stuff see http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/3800

To see the campaign office launch see http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/3799

Background
Four federal by-elections have been called for March 17 (St Patrick’s Day). It’s an auspicious omen – having these on the “greenest” day of the year. The four ridings are: Toronto Centre (Ontario), Willowdale in Toronto, Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchhill River in Northern Saskatchewan, Vancouver Quadra in British Columbia.

Chris Tindal is the GPC candidate in Toronto Centre.

In the October 10, 2007 Ontario provincial election the Green Party won 9.7% in Toronto Centre. Mike McLean was the candidate and his campaign spent less than $400.

Help Make History in Toronto Centre!!
Chris’ campaign will spend more than $40,000. So it’s going to be an amazing campaign.

Chris' campaign office launched Tuesday, January 29 and it was a huge success -- I'll post about it separately. But over just three days (Jan 28, 29 and 30) Chris ' campaign has seen EDAs commit to canvassing/voter IDing/and doing the GOTV on election day for more than 40 polls -- and the campaign has raised more than $22,500 in the three days! So the campaign has incredible momentum.

Positioning Evaluation
Liberal: Bob Rae
The by-election was triggered when Bill Graham stepped down. Bob Rae is the Liberal candidate. He brings significant baggage with him as the former NDP premier of Ontario – in fact it was this baggage that guaranteed he would not win the leadership of the Liberal Party.

In 1990 the NDP was elected promising to implement legislation that would guarantee equality for gays and lesbians in every piece of Ontario legislation. This omnibus bill was defeated by Rae’s own caucus. The gay community has never forgotten this. The betrayal of the gay community by Rae can be a significant Achilles heel in the riding that has the largest gay voter population in all of Canada.

Anyone who dislikes Rae as NDP can be convinced not to vote Liberal. In fact Liberals who don’t like Rae could 1) stay at home; 2) vote for another party out of protest.

Conservative: Don Meredith
The Conservative Party fired its candidate Mark Warner in late October because he was too progressive. He prided himself in being an old Progressive Conservative. The Conservatives didn’t want a candidate talking about progressive social issues and displaying progressive social values in Canada’s main media center just prior to a federal election. By firing Warner a lot of former Progressive Conservatives who would have voted for Mark are being freed up.

The current Conservative candidate, Don Meredith does not live in the riding and represents the more social conservative wing of the Conservative Party. His candidacy will not play well in Toronto-Center with its largely “Red Tory” conservatives.

NDP: El-Farouk Khaki
The NDP have never won this riding, and in the last two elections have only achieved 27%. A recent Harris-Decima poll had the GPC leading the NDP in Ontario and tied in the 416 area, El-Farouk is in some ways a strong candidate for the NDP, but he’s also a partisan, his website currently boasts of taking out “Rosedale Bob.”

Opportunity
Many former Bill Graham Liberals are not prepared to support just any Liberal, and are not comfortable with Bob Rae. Progressive Conservatives feel party-less, betrayed and are searching for a home. NDP supporters are growing tired of their party’s over-charged partisanship and lack of realistic solutions. In other words, Toronto Centre is a great opportunity.

There is also an opportunity to target specific messages to different ridings. For example, we will leaflet the gay community reminding voters that the GPC was the first federal party to ever support equal marriage and contrast that with Rae betraying the gay community on June 9, 1994, when 12 NDP members of Bob Rae’s caucus voted against Bill 167 that would have introduced equality for gays and lesbians in dozens of pieces of legislation including introducing gay marriage in Ontario.

Because of these, the Toronto Centre by-election offers a unique opportunity to highlight how the Green Party is competitive not only with leaders and deputy leaders but anywhere. It also offers the opportunity to do better than expected against a former Premier.

Adopt Five Polls
As a result we’re using Toronto Centre as a dry run for the federal election, testing out new tactics and techniques. The riding is serving as a campaign school for all GTA & Southern Ontario ridings.

It also offers an exceptional opportunity for ridings to help their campaign teams prepare for the federal election. EDAs (Electoral District Associations) are adopting a number of polls in Toronto Centre – so for instance – Trinity Spadina, Toronto Danforth, Haldimand—Norfolk are take specific polls. So their team will canvass the polls they take, do voter ID (identification), do literature drops and on election day do GOTV (get out the vote).

At the campaign school in Kitchener-Waterloo (Feb 19-20) green candidates, campaign managers and their teams from across Ontario committed more than 1,000 hours of campaigning and canvassing time to Chris’ riding! So look out Bob Rae – here we come.

See the Honour Roll towards the bottom of this post listing all the EDAs that have already adopted polls in Toronto-Centre.

Greens Gone Wild!
At the KW campaign school Jason Hammond, who is the volunteer coordinator for Chris Tindal’s campaign launched Greens Gone Wild. This initiative will bring university students into Chris riding to campaign during reading week. See details at http://www.greensgonewild.ca

Experience in London North Centre (LNC)
The LNC campaign spent $88,000; had 10 full time volunteers working for six weeks; generated 10,000 hours of volunteer time; and was the highest ever funded campaign in Canadian Green Party history. We used the virtual phone bank in the first time. Since the application has improved significantly. We had a house that we rented for two months to allow weekend canvassers to crash and full time volunteers to have a room of their own.

One important thing to note is that of the 10,000 volunteer hours on the campaign – half of those came from the 10 full time volunteers. So anyone who wants to move Toronto Centre for the remainder of the campaign and help out – this would be fantastic! Contact either Jason Hammond or Jeff Brownridge (see contact info below).

Lessons from Bruce Grey Owen Sound
There are only two campaign in Green Party of Canada history that have had fully funded campaigns: Saanich Gulf Islands in 2004 where GPC Deputy Leader Andrew Lewis’ campaign spent $79,000 and he won more than 10,000 votes and 17% of the vote placing fourth in a tight four way race. The second fully funded campaign was London North Centre where Elizabeth’s campaign spent $88,000 and won just under 10,000 votes and 26% of the votes for a second place finish.

But in Bruce Grey Owen Sound, Shane Jolley won 15,000 votes and 33% of all votes cast. It’s important to note: he was not the leader of the party. He was not the Deputy Leader of the Party and he didn’t have a fully funded campaign. (in the end Shane’s campaign probably spent $50,000).

So anywhere that we have a great candidate, weak opponents, and a unique situation we have results that really surprise the media and pundits.

What you Can do to Help
1. Drop by the Campaign Office 538 Parliament Street, between Carlton and Wellesley. All welcome. (see Google map link below or event on Facebook)

See google map at http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=538+Parlia...

The new office number is (416) 703-3827

2. Get Your Riding Campaign Team Involved in the campaign – get your riding/EDA to commit to adopt 5-10 polls.

The Honour Roll
The following EDAs have adopted polls to canvass in Toronto Centre, and are using this by-election as practical campaign school. If you're in one of these ridings and want to get involved your contact person is listed in brackets:

Toronto-Danforth 10 polls (Mary Anne Grainger: apropost@ca.inter.net)
Trinity Spadina 10 polls (Shaun Merritt: shaunpierre@gmail.com)
St. Pauls 5 polls (Scott Boniferro: scott.boniferro@greenparty.ca)
Kitchener-Waterloo 5 polls (Cathy MacLellan: cathy@votecathy.ca)
New Market Aurora 5 polls (Glen Hubbers: ghubbers@hubeng.com)
Barrie 5 polls (Erich Jacoby-Hawkins: erich@livinggreen.info)

If your EDA wants to take on 5-10 polls call Jason Hammond at the campaign office or email him at jason@christindal.ca

3. Adopt a personal poll which you’ll canvass/voter ID and GOTV.

The Honour Roll
Jim Harris
Gabriel Draven
Liz Couture -- will campaign all of March break!!

Contact Info
General Inquiries and Campaign Office: 538 Parliament Street, between Carlton and Wellesley 416.323.9700

General email: contact@christindal.ca

Campaign Manager: Jeff Brownridge, 416-998-6941; jeff@christindal.ca

Office Manager: Laura Salvas ctcampaign@gmail.com

Volunteer Coordinator: Jason Hammond; jason@christindal.ca

Media Inquires: media@christindal.ca

Chris Tindal’s Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2303204601