This summer I was reflecting on the fact that five years ago at this time I started canvassing the streets of Ahuntsic, running for federal election. Indeed, five years ago I was the Green Party candidate for that riding. People sometimes ask me about that and I decided to share why I did it and what I learned doing it.

In 2019 my two children were in highschool and for a while every Friday they quit school and joined groups of students on climate strikes. Rain or shine, they would walk the streets hoping to capture the attention of society about their concerns for the future. They often felt that the efforts were not successful and their appeals unheaded. It touched and moved me, and I wanted to do something to help. I thought that channeling their energy towards political action might be the cure and came up with a plan. I thought: “I will run for the Green Party and involve that activist group into the democratic political process, in order to channel their energy into a concrete set of actions that can have a solid impact”. I figured that this could be a good vehicle for making their voices heard. That seemed pretty cool. Of course it was not cool. It turned out to be much cooler in my mind then in theirs - politics and politicians are not cool.

I had no illusions of ever winning the elections. I chose to run against an unbeatable candidate, a minister of the current government, who keeps on winning elections by bigger margins every term. I figured that running against a candidate that attracted a lot of attention would potentially also attract attention to our campaign. I also felt pretty comfortable running on a single issue - the young generation’s concern for the environment. Nobody could hold that against me because of other political allegiance; nobody is against youth and the environment.

That was the first reason. The second reason is that I care a lot about democracy. It is this fragile flame in the world that has flickered back to life a bit more than 200 hundred years ago after almost two millennia of dormancy. Hands-on learning is the best learning, and I decided I would figure out how the electoral system works, how you participate, organize, and run for election. It would be didactic for me, my family and the hordes of young folks that would join us. Maybe we could create the spark of a real movement for massive youth political involvement. I like big dreams. I did learn how to run for an election in Canada, what are all the rules and systems, and that is valuable to me.

The third reason is that I knew this would be a great learning experience for me. I like talking to people. I like shaking hands and having conversations with people I just met. Establish rapport. As a young man I worked in multiple service jobs and I loved contact with the public. I used to give music concerts in small bars and clubs in Montreal. I like presenting ideas and constructively debating with people holding differing points of view. I figured the elections would be a great experience for me to work on public speaking skills and general human relations qualities. I saw how the experience would enrich me and how the polishing of communication skills would be beneficial to any professional activity. On that account I was totally correct. I knocked on thousands of doors, spoke to hundreds of people in the streets and parks. I participated in public debates against the minister and the other candidates. I was interviewed by local newspapers. That was a lot of fun.

This is how it turned out. I fundraised up to the maximum that does not require significant accounting and reporting processes (10k). This allowed me to open an electoral office and put up some signs. It turned out that the youth I was hoping to involve were mostly determined not to be politicized in any way, but my son joined me on a lot of door to door expeditions. We built a nice routine that we improved based on the reactions we received. We did meet a group of young people that were required to do volunteer work by their school and agreed to fulfill their obligations by joining me on door to door routes in the evening, or by making phone calls from the electoral office. Friends joined in and volunteered. I participated in debates in colleges and retirement homes. According to the numbers, I did all right. The political wisdom says that a regular candidate, someone unknown to the population (i.e. not a known artist or media figure) can account for up to 5% of the vote. In the Ahuntsic riding the Green party got just over 6% of the votes, up from 2% in the previous elections. In the areas around my electoral office where I concentrated my efforts between 12% and 15% of the population voted for us, where in the previous elections the results for the same polls were between 3% and 4%.

Who knows? Maybe one day I will run for a strong party with the intention of winning. But not anytime soon - I am very busy working on your websites and applications.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahuntsic-Cartierville_(electoral_district)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2019_Canadian_federal_election/Ahuntsic-Cartierville

 2019 results

2015 results