In my previous post on the Ontario election, lower voter turnout was lamented. In this post I want to express concern over a trend I see of fewer volunteers coming forward. I have been working on campaigns since 2004. I’ve worked on federal, provincial and municipal campaigns and the frightening reality to me is that fewer people are coming out to volunteer and help on a campaign. I hear that Election Canada and Elections Ontario also have the same issue, not having enough people to work on elections – and these two organizations PAY for the work.
Today, as I did last week, I want to look at three Ontario PC Campaigns, Thunder Bay-Atikoken, Toronto-Danforth and Ottawa Centre. I’ll start in Thunder Bay and work south.
The Thunder Bay-Atikoken Ontario PC candidate was managed by a friend of mine, Derek Parks. I called Derek on election night after his PC Candidate, Kevin Holland won and defeated the NDP incumbent. It was the first win for the PC Party in that riding since 1985. Speaking to Derek he described a falling out of the regular PC volunteers who had rallied behind another candidate for the nomination.
Sometimes the nomination battles are fiercer and more divisive than the election. Despite winning the nomination, supporters of the failed nomination candidate did not rally behind the blue flag, it was a huge deficit for the Holland campaign to have to overcome. They did, and Derek explained how he, the Candidate and 7 others carried the campaign to election day and the victory. He said their campaign showed the power of social media. I am so proud of how Derek and Kevin won the election; I am going to enjoy reviewing how they used social media to overcome a party volunteer revolt and have Thunder Bay-Atikoken turn blue after almost 40 years.
Heading down to the GTA, our next stop is Toronto-Danforth where former Ottawa Centre candidate Colleen McCleery was carrying the flag. Colleen moved to Toronto shortly after the 2018 election and early in 2022 sought a riding to run in. She had her sights in someplace other that Toronto-Danforth (TD), but settled on TD after talking to a few people, including me. The riding President even pushed to have Colleen and I as a package deal; Colleen the candidate and me her campaign manager, as I had been 4 years earlier. Knowing how the campaign went, I feel I should have gone to be there with her. Two things kept me from that, I had committed to working in the Ottawa Centre campaign and as well my work would have frowned on the idea if I asked permission.
In TD, the NDP were the incumbent and won with a majority of the vote in 2018, the push from the PC association to Colleen and I was that the PC Candidate had the best showing the party has had for years. The thing to remember here is that in 2018 it was a vote was against Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario Liberals.
Heading into the campaign and assisting Colleen in the months leading up to the start of the election, we both knew were in trouble and that it wasn’t such a great idea to run in Toronto-Danforth. We saw multiple occasions of the Riding board not stepping up. An important fundraising event was cancelled because emails didn’t go out and tickets weren’t sold. The sign co-ordinator never put up a single sign, the social media person posted perhaps five times on twitter and multiple attempts for volunteers to canvass and for board members to donate were met with the sound of crickets.
Colleen canvassed from February to June, most days on her own and covered 18,000 homes in the riding. Her team? The campaign manager that did all he could while committed to working on a campaign for a PC MPP seeking re-election; the CFO and 2-3 other people that would come out when they could.
The riding association board let Colleen down, she was buoyed by a part-time campaign manager and 3 people that put up signs and went door to door with her. These Riding Association Boards should be ashamed of themselves. It was never a case of Colleen not doing her part, we knew the volunteers were there, even if it was only a few more – they just never cared to show up or acknowledge the request.
Heading east on the 401 and north on the 416 we get to Ottawa Centre, a riding I have run twice in and managed twice. In those four elections the 2011 election was a struggle for help, I was unknown, and it was my first campaign as a candidate. In the ’14 and ’18 elections there was a good number of volunteers so heading into ’22 I thought we would be OK and have the people to have a good campaign for our path to victory.
Somehow in this election the volunteer base dried up. All previous volunteers were contacted, some replied but most didn’t. There was now a smaller pool of volunteers to draw and the Riding Board of Directors was smaller. To follow our path to victory, we hired 7 youth to canvass evenings. They would augment the plan we had for Scott and a few other volunteers that went door to door with candidate Scott Healey.
In Ottawa though it wasn’t just Ottawa Centre, the volunteer base WAS smaller than in 2018. One of the reasons for the smaller pool of volunteers was the Conservative Leadership race. Volunteers were drawn to leadership campaigns, especially the one candidate from Ottawa.
We also noticed the drop of volunteers with the Liberal Candidate, we didn’t see their volunteers out knocking on doors, which in the past has always happened and we never ran into volunteers from the NDP and Green campaigns. When we door knocked, we didn’t see brochures from the other candidates. It was bad. In past years we always could count on 3-5 high school students on the campaign to collect hours of volunteer work, these hours were needed to graduate from High School. This election, there were none.
The core team for Scott Healey was 7 people, and from there we added 5-6 people who did some lit dropping and of course we had contracted 7 others to work for Scott.
Unlike elections in other years, our campaign and others in Ottawa were asked to send all available volunteers to one of two campaigns that were in tight battles. These two ridings typically have a good volunteer base, it seems that even in tight battle areas, volunteers no longer want to engage and help their candidate, these campaigns had t0 recruit by seconding other campaign volunteers.
As someone that works on campaigns and volunteers on others, it is concerning to me that volunteer engagement is falling. If you’re concerned about a dropping voter turnout, consider the campaign volunteers who actually help with voter engagement by delivering flyers, driving voters to the polling station, making phone calls and more. Without volunteers there will be no campaign office. Consider the impact fewer volunteers has on voter turnout.
Elections are more than just voters taking part, it’s also about campaign teams and the supporters of the candidates that give of their free time. Without volunteers our democracy suffers, the political campaign as we know it now will forever be changed if candidates can’t find volunteers and supporters.
Where now there are campaigns with no volunteers, it isn’t too far before we can’t find candidates to run. See you next week with that conversation.
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