Peggy Revell
FORT FRANCES—With millions of Canadians using modern online communication tools, it’s no surprise that all four local candidates have an online presence during this election campaign.
“Certainly this is the first election that I think electronically is going to make a difference,” said NDP candidate John Rafferty, who, alongside the three other candidates, has set up accounts and sites on the popular social networking website “Facebook” that millions of Canadians are members of.
“I hope that the new voters, voters who have just turned 18 or perhaps young people who haven’t voted before and are really involved in that part of the media, electronic media and Facebook, in particular, that they follow and that they click and that they get involved that way,” Rafferty noted.
“I believe that you go to those means of communication that people want to use,” replied incumbent Liberal candidate Ken Boshcoff when asked about his campaign’s use of Facebook.
“So if young people want to use one mode, we will do it, and I will try to reach people on any means possible because that is the job of the member of Parliament,” he added. “Not only to reach out, but to receive input.
“I believe the Facebook opportunities are there to grow, so I’m really looking forward to the expansion of that and inviting people to join.”
Since the election campaign began last week, Conservative candidate Richard Neumann’s election team has been looking into how they can improve their online presence through his candidate website and using the tools on websites like Facebook.
“The team that I’ve got doing that, I’m very confident that we’re going to be out there,” Neumann said.
“One thing I have found is that when you get the message out electronically, when you get it out to folks in that manner, it’s not static. It’s not like picking up a newspaper,” he stressed. “When it comes to the electronic media, it has a life of its own.
“Generally I believe the statistics are something along the line of: if they like what they hear, they’re going to five other people. If they don’t like what they hear, they’re going to 10 other people.
“So the opportunity is there and it’s something that we’re learning to come to grips with,” Neumann remarked. “We’re certainly optimistic that we’re going to be far ahead this election than we have been in the past in that regard, but we’ve got places to go.
“We’ve got people that still need to get their feet wet in how to employ those assets for the campaign,” he admitted.
While not much of a Facebook user himself, Green Party candidate Russ Aegard sees the website as a way to help organize the campaign.
“It’s a great way to send a message to everybody quickly for volunteering,” he noted. “Instead of phoning 15 different people, you can send an update to your 15 members and boom, it saves a lot of time, especially when time is such commodity for us on the campaign trail.
“I’m also a teacher so a lot of my students are getting to that age, 16 or 17, and I’ve noticed that a couple of them have started to join my pages and it’s kind of neat to see that that’s one way that they can get involved politically, even thought they can’t vote yet, but they can still get involved,” Aegard added.
“My problem with [online campaigning] is the limitations it has . . . not everybody has a computer, not everybody has the Internet or access to Internet, so it’s more of just a tool to augment the campaign itself,” he continued. “Nothing beats old-fashioned meeting people, shaking hands, talking to them, calling them, and that sort of thing.”
(Fort Frances Times)
