You can help reach tens of thousands of voters about PR
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- Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00
- Written by editor
Help us win proportional representation with the one thing more powerful than the media
Thank you so much to those of you who have chipped in so far for materials to give to voters and to launch another blast of social media advertising in BC.
As a grassroots citizens campaign, it's hard to overstate what we're up against.
Again this week, the BC media was full of influential columnists railing against proportional representation and the referendum.
Did you know? Almost every media outlet covering the referendum in BC is owned by one of three corporations.
Black Press and Glacier media own almost every community newspaper in BC. Postmedia owns the Vancouver Sun and the Province.
All three of the main political columnists for these papers are opposed to proportional representation - resulting in a steady stream of anti-PR fear-mongering and rhetoric in newspapers from Vancouver to Fort St. John.
But we don't have long to do it. Can you help us reach more voters this summer?
This week, we have some exciting news. Fair Vote Canada BC may be able to hire two summer students in Vancouver!
If we can make this happen, the students will be working under the supervision of our single BC staff - the On-the-Ground Organizer that your generous support in January made possible.
With your support, we can hire these students and multiply the impact of our outreach and organizing work.
We'd like to pay our two young people something more than the minimum wage for crucial work to help us win proportional representation. We all know how hard it is to live in Canada's most expensive city.
So in addition to needing to raise the money for over 25,000 flyers for our volunteers to give to voters this summer, more social media ads to increase Vote Pledge signers across BC, and translation into Mandarin and Cantonese - your generous support will now also help us hire two students to hit the ground running!
Personal contact - those 1-1 conversations - are probably the one thing more powerful than the media at influencing voter opinions.
I'll close with an email I received this week from one of our volunteer leaders in the interior of BC, written after a long day collecting Vote Pledges in a small town:
"Sweet moment at the end of our day, getting tired and cold, there were 3 young women and a dog, who kept getting himself wrapped around our PR table legs. I hadn't engaged with them, cause they were just hanging in the same place, and more or less oblivious to us.
One of the women had bare legs, and it was cold. I asked her if she was cold, and she said, yeah, but yesterday she had layers on and was too hot. Then I asked her if she knew about the referendum and I gave her and her friends some printed info. The one with the dog was sitting on the ground reading it intently, then looked up at me and said, 'THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT'! Then they all signed the pledge."
With your help, we can win this.
Sincerely,
Anita Nickerson
Acting ED, Fair Vote Canada
ORIGINAL REQUEST
You can help reach BC voters in the critical 120 days ahead!
British Columbians are getting ready to vote in a referendum on proportional representation this fall, and the next few months are critical!
With the BC NDP government and the BC Greens in favour of PR, it's the best chance we've ever had to make a big breakthrough for proportional representation in Canada, but it's still a David-and-Goliath battle to make history in BC.
We need your help now to make sure our volunteers are equipped with the materials they need when they're talking to voters.
And - we need to reach tens of thousands more voters on social media to build local teams and get out the vote!
Eight referendums to date in Canada, New Zealand and the UK have taught us that we must reach voters with basic information about why proportional representation is important, and we must reach them early.
Once a voter's opinion has formed, it's hard to change. Personal conversations matter. Our materials may be the first information voters get.
With mainstream media columnists already reaching millions of BC voters with negative messages, and the BC Liberal Party planning to spend its million dollar per-vote subsidy cheque on trying to defeat PR, we just can't afford to to wait.
With your generous support, we can reach voters over the next 120 days: At their door. At the market. On the street. And yes - even at barbeques!
Can you chip in for materials and social media ads now?
With your generous support, we will be able to:
1) Send out tens of thousands of flyers to volunteers across BC this spring and summer who are doing the work to reach fellow citizens. We already have a first big order ready to go for over 25,000 flyers for our teams - that depends on the success of this fundraiser!
We're scaling up. On April 21, Fair Vote Canada BC held a Day of Action - reaching voters in 25 communities and earning coverage in local media. From a giant banner on an overpass to collecting vote pledges and having hundreds of conversations, we're doing the work now to build the people-powered movement to win.
2) Run another wave of social media ads to collect Vote Pledges.
In February, many of you chipped in for a social media ad campaign in BC. With your support, it was an amazing success! Our ads were shown 275,000 times and were seen by at least 90,000 people - resulting in a wave of new signers on the BC Vote Pledge.
New signers means new volunteers - and citizens we can call when it's time to get out the vote! With your help, we can grow again this spring - and social media is one of the best ways to do it!
3) Translate materials on PR to reach a key audience.
Did you know that in Metro Vancouver - a primary battleground in this referendum - 360,000 residents speak Mandarin or Cantonese? In Richmond alone, 11% don't speak French or English. In January, thanks to your generous support, we were able to hire an on-the-ground Vancouver Organizer. He's leading teams to knock on doors in Vancouver - but we've been hearing for months now how important it is that we have materials translated and printed in other languages, too! It's time to make that happen.
This referendum could be close.
Powerful professional lobbyists and strategists behind the campaigns of Rob Ford and Stephen Harper are actively growing the NO campaign. If past experience is any indicator, they're polling and crafting messages right now to scare voters in the crucial weeks before the vote.
When those opponent ads hit the airwaves, will BC voters already have something in their hands from citizens campaigning for PR in their communities?
Nothing would send a louder message to the federal parties than a win for proportional representation in BC.
Thanks so much for your generous support of the campaign to Make Every Vote Count!
Sincerely,
Anita Nickerson
Acting Executive Director, Fair Vote Canada
P.S. Fair Vote Canada is a founder and partner in a large alliance of groups called Vote PR BC that will seek to be the official proponent for proportional representation. You can hear the alliance's Facebook Live event from May 2 here.
Fair Vote Canada / Représentation équitable au Canada
283 Danforth Avenue #408Toronto, ON M4K 1N2
Canada