Peggy Revell
FORT FRANCES—It’s been a positive first week of campaigning according to all four candidates vying for the Thunder Bay-Rainy River seat.
“In all the campaigns I’ve been involved with, and it’s hard to know how many there really are in total, this has been the most positive in terms of people coming to me and offering support,” said incumbent Liberal candidate Ken Boshcoff.
“From the Manitoba border to Pigeon river, it’s been fantastic,” he enthused.
The last federal election, held in January, 2006, saw Boshcoff hold onto his seat in Ottawa after capturing 13,520 votes (35.13 percent).
For this campaign, Boshcoff said the biggest difference so far has been the number of people coming forward to volunteer, to take lawn signs, and make donations compared to previous ones, with it being like night and day.
He estimated this week has seen four times the level of support when compared to Week One of his previous election campaign.
Prior to this week, Boshcoff was expecting to head back to Ottawa, but now has spent the first week setting up an office and getting his campaign team together. He also was in Thunder Bay last Thursday as Liberal leader Stephane Dion touched down briefly to greet supporters.
“The first week has gone very, very well,” echoed NDP candidate John Rafferty. “I’m not completely exhausted yet but, of course, there’s still four weeks to go.
“We’ve had an office in Thunder Bay open for sometime, so we didn’t experience all of this sort of last-minute start-up things that most campaigns go through because we hit the ground running on the first day and keep moving upwards,” he added.
During the last election, Rafferty pulled in 12,862 votes, placing him less than two percentage points behind Boshcoff.
What’s different about this campaign so far, said Rafferty, is the “buzz.”
“It’s what people are saying to their neighbours, their friends, their co-workers,” he remarked.
The reception at the doorway has been fabulous, he noted, adding he’s been told by many people (oddly even those saying they aren’t voting for him) that he has the opportunity to win the riding.
“Of course, we can never be overconfident,” Rafferty stressed. “You still have to work just as hard as you ever have and that’s the example that I hope I show to people: that they’ll have an MP who works as hard as you see him working right now.”
Meanwhile, the first week has been one of ups and downs and getting over hurdles for Conservative candidate Richard Neumann.
“The reception that we’re getting out there is extremely positive,” he said. “It’s been very positive, more than I thought. People do seem very perceptive to what we have to say.”
“It’s amazing how polite people are, even if they disagree with you,” he added.
Neumann didn’t run in the 2006 election, when his predecessor, David Leskowski, garnered 27.24 percent of the total vote. But he is no stranger to the federal campaign trail, having ran as a Progressive Conservative candidate prior to the merger between the Progressive Conservatives and former Canadian Alliance.
During that past election, Neumann said he saw many
Conservative voters knowing they had very little chance of winning.
“You could say everything you wanted to say about everybody’s vote counting, and get people out there to vote and that type of stuff, but folks knew that with that Conservative vote split the way it was, it was just not feasible for us to take any of the ridings here, and that has completely changed now,” he stressed.
“So there is a real sense of urgency, a sense that we have an opportunity that doesn’t necessarily come along all the time, and there’s a real sense that we’re in a heck of a race here, and I agree with that. So it’s far more exciting.”
Sometimes people don’t realize all the things that go on behind the scene in a campaign, added Neumann, including setting up campaign offices and organizing all the things the offices need, like phones, faxes, and computers.
In fact, Neumann said he was campaigning out of his own basement before his Thunder Bay office was set up.
While setting up his office here in Fort Frances this past weekend, they also had the luck of getting the keys to the place right as the rain started to pour Saturday evening—while all their signs, computers, and office materials were sitting in the back of pick-up trucks.
“The other thing that you see with this is the first week of campaign, you really get to see people coming together, your team coming together, and you really get to see everybody start to pull for the same cause,” Neumann continued.
“As a candidate, it’s always a sobering reminder of the responsibility that you have to these people because they’re putting their own lives on hold for you and what they believe in.”
For local Green Party candidate Russ Aegard, the first week has been going pretty good so far.
“We’re getting our campaign going here, we’re starting to put some signs up, and just starting to do all the logistics of the campaigns with all the debate requests and calendars,” he noted. “Being a full-time teacher, I try as much as I can but sometimes it’s difficult having a full-time job and you’re trying to juggle this, too.”
This is Aegard’s third time running federally, having garnered 1,193 votes, or 3.09 percent, back in 2006.
“We’re getting more people into our volunteer bank. We also have a bigger budget this year than we’ve ever had before, although we don’t have nowhere near the budget that the other parties have,” said Aegard.
“We’re starting to get a lot of phone calls due to the fact that we’ve gotten a lot of good press in the past week regarding the national debates and how we were being excluded in stuff like that,” he added.
While all four candidates are enthusiastic about the campaign, there’s still the issue of apathy among voters to deal with.
“I’ve spent a lot of the summer knocking on doors in various parts of Thunder Bay and communities, and in communities where the turnout was poor in the last election,” said Rafferty. “So I hope that what’s happening is that by me knocking on doors, talking to people, people will get interested and get out to vote.”
And while he knows that not all the doors he knocks on will have people voting for him, he hopes they do get out and vote.
“I’m hoping that people get fired up about this election, particularly people in Northern Ontario because it doesn’t have to be the way it is here, and people need to understand that their vote does make a difference,” Rafferty stressed. “They can make a choice, and they can make a change.”
Aegard said voter apathy partly stems from the current first-past-the-post system—one where a minority can hold the majority of power.
“That doesn’t sit well with a lot of people and, of course, if you don’t feel like you have a lot of power, you’re not even going to bother to vote,” he reasoned. “And I think that’s where a lot of the problems stem from.
“So one thing the Green Party is looking towards is electoral reform and making sure that every vote counts, and that’s what makes young people to get out there and get energized.”
Another way Aegard said the Green Party is countering political apathy is by focusing on being a party that tries to bring everyone to the table.
“We recognize that other parties have their strengths and we need to work together to build a progressive Canada, and we can’t be so adversarial as the attitude now is in our Parliament,” he remarked.
This has been seen from the broad support by people across party lines for the inclusion of the Green leader Elizabeth May in the televised debates, he said.
While Neumann said he hasn’t noticed apathy about the election from people while he’s out on the campaign trail, he does recognize the undercurrent is there. With the number of elections over the course of the last five years, including a provincial one, he said it makes sense to a degree.
But it’s also an issue that comes up with every election, he added.
“Folks generally start the [election] process with some trepidation, not really paying attention and that sort of thing, but generally the closer and closer you get to the election date, the more people do stop and they do think about how they’re going to cast that vote,” he said.
Neumann is confident that with the differences between the Conservatives and other parties this election, voter turnout will remain at the least where it has traditionally.
“I believe very strongly in getting people involved,” said Boshcoff when it comes to countering apathy. “Consequently, my campaign has people from nine to 90 working on it, and to me it’s very important that people feel a part of the process so I’ve always been welcoming to people who want to get involved for the first time.
“That’s why I set my office up right away here in the Fort.”
This presence is something Boshcoff plans to continue on with for the rest of the campaign.
“I’m in the district frequently, and I intend to be here frequently during the campaign because I believe everybody in the riding is entitled to equal representation, period,” he stressed. “I’ve never stopped working since the last election, I’ve been here so many times that I can’t keep track anymore.
“So people know that I’m available and that I’m working as hard as humanly possible.”
For Neumann, the rest of the week means scheduling where he will be for the rest of the campaign, including spending a third of his time in the Rainy River District and Atikokan area.
“What we’re looking at now is where our support is, and where we have the best opportunities for growth, and we’re developing our schedule around that,” he explained. “People are going to feel more comfortable with voting for me once they’ve had a chance to get to know me a little better.”
As for Aegard, his goal for the rest of the campaign is to get out there to meet the public and “try to breath some life into the politics of Canada” while encouraging people to vote—even if it’s not for him.
“The plan for this week is to finally get the majority of our signs out, to start getting onto the more involved business of getting out there and knocking on door,” he said. “I just want people to take that responsibility seriously and realize that the vote does matter.”
Rafferty, meanwhile, is still trekking across the riding, talking to people and knocking on doors.
“There’s a lot of travel for me this week, I’ll be all across the riding and back a couple of times,” he said. “So it’s just one of those things. You put k’s [kilometres] on the car.”
(Fort Frances Times)
