Phone Banks & Canvassing

So it turns out that volunteering for a political campaign is pretty much exactly what you’d expect it to be. I spent a few hours with both Adam Vaughan’s campaign (federal) and Olivia Chow’s campaign (mayoral), with the majority of time spent canvassing, and some time spent doing the phone bank. Here’s what I experienced:

Phone banks are awkward! I’m sure there are some people that have no problem with it but for myself, who doesn’t make phone calls unless I absolutely have to, calling strangers is beyond weird. Basically someone logs you onto the Liberal database of voters for the area, and it says the person’s name, phone number and anyone else who lives at that house. You have a script to read if they answer which basically goes like, “ Hello, _________. My name is _________, and I’m a volunteer for Adam Vaughan’s election campaign. Adam Vaughan has done x, y and z. We were wondering who you would be voting for in the federal election?” Then there are all kinds of boxes to check off depending on their answer. Aside from direct answers to the question (Liberal, NDP, Conservative, etc.), there are also boxes for non-citizen, language barrier, deceased, moved, etc. Most of the time, people don’t answer. I found that the majority of people who did answer no longer lived in the area. This is because the data is from the last federal election, making it 3 years old. You would think people wouldn’t mind being asked quickly who they’re voting for, but we’re so used to people calling to try and sell us things that we immediately have our guard up. All I could think about was how anytime someone like this called our house my dad would answer the phone, say “Merry Christmas” and hang up. It didn’t matter what time of the year it was.

As for canvassing, I thought it was a lot more enjoyable. You have a group of people, it’s sunny and you’re walking around. The problem with the sunshine is that no one is home. At first it’s nerve wracking to knock on people’s doors, but after a few doors you just want someone to answer. Most people are nice enough to let you talk, some are interested in what’s going on, and some are eager to vote for your candidate. I definitely saw a lot of people who were unaware of the federal campaign or when it was taking place, often mixing it up with the provincial campaign. There were also some language issues, both on the phone and canvassing. Some people just didn’t have a good enough grasp on English to communicate. The one thing that surprised me was how many young people came out to help with Olivia’s campaign. The mayoral campaign definitely has way more volunteers and way more money invested into it (can spend up to $1 million). It’s also much further away, so a lot of people were undecided.

The one thing that I found a little weird was that they have lists of all the houses and who lives there. Part of the knocking on doors was asking who they were voting for, but the other part was asking who they were. To enter it into their system they wanted to know exactly which person was voting for whom. I thought this would bother people, but no one seemed to mind. I guess we’re all used to this kind of information being available. For Olivia’s campaign, everyone I talked to was undecided or eagerly supported her. Olivia herself was very pleasant and enthusiastic. She came by to get us pumped before heading out to another event. She is very serious about bringing positive change to the city.

Interestingly, for the Adam Vaughan campaign, they said they were doing the canvassing because the party decides how much money to invest based on their odds of winning. For example, if the door to door canvassing revealed that Adam only has 10% of the potential vote, then they would reduce their spending in the district. They said that the election was too soon (one month), to change people’s minds. I think this makes sense when there is a full federal election, but I’m not sure I understand it for a special by-election. I suppose the Liberal party doesn’t want to waste money if it has no chance of winning. It will be an interesting election for sure considering most citizens love Adam Vaughan and what he did as a councillor, but they usually vote NDP. We will have to see!

P.s. I'm hiding in the back of this picture somewhere...