Here's The VOTES Election Strategy

As we have stated, we are very serious about defeating politicians who continue to support reverting to the general vote at the next election.

We believe we elect politicians to serve us…not themselves.

In the unlikely event of a general vote, we will form a political party whose prime objective will be returning to Ward voting and to defeat politicians responsible for the change as the only purpose of the general vote is to guarantee election and the exorbitant salaries, expense allowances, honoraria and perks to the incumbents until they die or retire.

In a general vote election, politicians will not be able to hide behind our lack of daily press in Oshawa or expensive campaign financing of the Development Industry and others who contribute to their campaigns.

Politicians are also looking to hide behind inadequate public knowledge of their voting records.

To insure an informed public, we shall continue to publish this blog throughout this term of council and expect it to grow to be the prime political news source with an ever expanding readership. We intend to keep the public informed.

We also intend to field a slate of candidates all of whom will be determined to return ward elections to Oshawa. We may invite some present council members who have proven to be firm supporters of ward elections to run under our banner. We will be inviting requests from prospective candidates from the public to join our movement. Interviews will be conducted to select appropriate candidates from across the city.

The plan is to pool our financial election resources and run a common advertising campaign, colour coded election signs, and common election brochures. We shall develop an election platform and invite voters to support our common platform. We are working on developing election strategies to allow the public to easily recognize and identify our candidates on the election ballot.

While we support Mayor Gray’s leadership on most issues in Oshawa, we are not supportive of his votes to implement the general vote despite his statement that he believes ward voting to be best for Oshawa. Oshawa people expect our politicians to vote for what they know to be best for Oshawa and feel voting otherwise is a sellout to the trust we placed in them with our votes. The only vote we expect and can support from our politicians is to do what they believe is right and best for Oshawa…despite any other variables that might intervene. Otherwise, Oshawa’s long-term health is at risk.

In recognition that the Mayor’s race is the most effective way to get our message out during the election campaign, we shall run our chief spokesperson against the Mayor. This is the only race that is guaranteed significant press and exposure at public meetings where the public “face-time” will allow us opportunity to get significant exposure for our message about the injustice of a return to the general vote. We will also publicly concentrate on naming the supporters of the change that we want to defeat in these public forums to undermine their vote.

In the Mayor’s race, we shall work on the significant public anger the unwieldy general vote ballot will arouse and channel that energy behind our candidates and against the politicians who voted to revert to the general vote.

We are very serious about this. We will not let Oshawa die with a return to the General Vote.

Oshawa---you have never seen a campaign like this in the history of Canadian Municipal Politics.

As Oshawa’s motto goes---“Prepare to be amazed!”