Targets: Peter Kent and Julian Fantino

Unseat Harper member Pam Allard is focussing on Peter Kent and Julian Fantino in the Adopt-a-Riding initiative.

I am proposing a new adopt-a-riding initiative to cover the ridings of Vaughan and Thornhill in the GTA. In Vaughan, Julian Fantino was elected in last November's by-election by around 1,000 votes. Liberal candidate Mario Ferri has the best chance of defeating Fantino, and in light of this week's news about questionable federal funding for a health centre there, Fantino may be even more vulnerable. Thornhill, which is adjacent to Vaughan, is currently held by Con. Peter Kent and is being challenged by Lib. Karen Mock. Please check out these links for more information about these crucial ridings:

Thornhill

Fantino

Advertising with York Media to cover both ridings would cost us $1443. The ad would run in the Vaughan Citizen, The Thornhill Liberal and in the Markham Economist Sun, reaching over a very large populated area.

If you would like to support this campaign please donate at Unseat Harper and message me that you want your donation to be used towards this ad campaign. It is important that Canadians Defending Democracy have an accurate record of donations to our ads. As this is advocacy, tax receipts cannot be issued and as a third party advertiser donations in excess of $200. aggregate in the 6 months prior to the election must be reported to Elections Canada.

Time is short. So is money, I know. But if you can help, please consider it.

Target: John Baird

There are lots of great grassroots groups out there working to save Canada from Evul Stevul. One of my faves -- and one of the oldest -- is Unseat Harper. They've been working to get ordinary people -- not the bloggers and Tweeters and political junkies -- thinking about whether they trust Harper.

They've raised dough for newspaper and Internet ads. And now they working on a new idea -- Adopt-A-Riding. Individual members are taking on targetted ridings where the Con is vulnerable, doing some media research, and pleading for money. The latest target is John Baird and they are already way more than half-way to their (modest) goal of $595.

Got a few bucks? Like to see the back end of Foghorn Baird disappearing into the fog? Donate.

ADDED: If you do donate, send a FB message to Pam Allard to let her know that the dough is for the Baird ad.

To my virtual roomie. . .

It's not you.

It's the election.

I've been invited to contribute to the blog at Unseat Harper.

After struggling with the mysteries of WordPress* (or as JJ calls it, 'WeirdPress') I produced this, Democracy's Future.

I will probably put a version of it up here tomorrow.

*@dBO: Man, the struggling brought back unhappy memories of 'WTF? I knew how to do this yesterday. Why is it all changed? Why does this have to be so fucking complicated?' Etc. You remember. Fun times.

Ready to Rumble?

If you are one of those 'nobodies' who desperately want an election in Canada, here are some non-party ways to get involved.

One of them is Catch 22 Harper Conservatives campaign.

Our strategy is to focus our efforts in those Conservative-held ridings where voters have the best chance of defeating the incumbent. We are in the process adding additional ridings as it becomes clear where we can best focus our campaign. For details about the criteria we considered in selecting these ridings see "Riding Selection".

Catch 22 has begun to identify opposition-held ridings that are vulnerable to a Conservative take-over. On Feb 28, we added our first defensive campaign - Edmonton-Strathcona. [Linda Duncan, NDP]

Each riding has a group that you can join to discuss the local campaign, and a riding profile with MP information, demographic data, election results, news, maps, links and more! If you are unsure of your riding, you can search by postal code at Elections Canada.

Check the Riding Selection to see if your riding, or one near you, is on the list. In Ontario, I'm gratified to see that four cabinet ministers are targetted: Diane Finley, John Baird, Peter Kent, and Julian Fantino.

Then there's another group that began -- and continues -- as a Facebook group, Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper, aka CRUSH. You might remember them as that 'radical anti-Stephen Harper group'. Membership has been hovering in the 5,900+ range for months, but lately and unaccountably *cough*, zoomed up to more than 6,100. There is also a website now.

And there's another one, launched recently, called Leadnow.

Leadnow brings generations of Canadians together to take action for our future and hold politicians accountable.

Leadnow was founded in 2010 by a group of young people who care about a wide range of issues and wanted to create a new way for people to participate effectively in our democracy.

Our founding objectives are to deepen our democracy, strengthen our communities, advance social justice, extend economic opportunity and protect our planet. We'll build an independent community that works together to help set the political agenda, take effective action on important issues, and shift elections.

We're inspired by a new model of political and movement organizing that uses technology as a tool to help people organize themselves and strengthen their voice. This model was pioneered by organizations like MoveOn (USA), GetUp (Australia), 38 Degrees (UK), and Avaaz (Global), mobilizing over 10 million people around the world. We hope to bring some of the best of these organizing techniques to Canada, while we adapt them to suit Canada's unique character.

Ooooh, 'shift elections'. I like that.

And finally, a video producing entity called Enough Harper, where I snaffled this HarperGraph,'Conservative Priorities', today.



Enough Harper also has a YouTube channel, with two videos, both of which have appeared here. (I saw another vid there this morning -- reason for starting this post -- but it's gone now.)

Anyway, here's one of the earlier ones.



Time to act. Or at least donate. Or support. Or something.

Let's take our Canada back.