41st General Election Post Mortem Meeting

August 10, 2014, Eastern Sense Restaurant

200 Marycroft Ave
Woodbridge, ON L4L 5X9
Canada
Eastern Sense Chinese Restaurant
easternsense.ca
+1 905-264-1688

Agenda

10:00 Opening & Welcome
10:15-11:45 Campaign Overview, Plan, Budget, Results, General Discussion
12:00-13:00 Lunch (Provided by the Party)
13:15-14:30 More Discussion, Platform, Signs, Booklets, Detailed Platform, Candidate Selection,
  Nomination Process, Media, All Candidate Meetings, New Candidate Guide, Requirement for 2 candidates from Constituency Associations(CA), Should there be one CA per region?
  Weekly Conference Calls, Candidate Contact List, Full Slate Group,
  Candidate Profiles, Email Aliases, Regional Coordinator Support - What was missing?
14:30-14:45 Break
14:45-16:00 Plans Going Forward, Virtual Provincial Pub night, November 2nd Convention, Executive Positions, By-elections, Party colour change?, “Improve Ontario” launch? FB and website, 42 General Election.
16:00 Close Meeting

Expenditures Vs. Budget

The following shows the costs to July 21/14 for the Election Campaign compared to the budget. assumed 85 candidates. We had 73 candidates.

Description	Cost	Budget
30,000 Platforms	3,459	3,500
330 Lawn Signs (16"x24") with wire stakes	2,592	2,500
144 Lawn Signs (16"x24") with wire stakes	1,131	0
105 Street Signs (32"x48")	3,441	2,600
210 Posts for Street signs (wooden)		300
Shipping Platforms and Signs	282	1,400
Facebook Advertising	1,356.82	0
Travel to collect signatures, deliver materials		1,000
Bank Charges (PayPal Fees for campaign contributions)	181	0
Candidate Support/Transfers (Note 1)	527	0
Contingency (10%)		1,100
Subtotal	11,613	12,000
Nomination Support (Toronto Centre)	40	4,000
CFO Support (envelopes, ink cartridges, toll free costs)	157	1,500
Subtotal additional expenses	197	5,500
Total Expenses		17,900
Total Campaign Donations	13,537.50

Notes:

1. Candidate Support includes $200 for All Candidates Meeting in Nippising, $299 for web site in Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry, and $28 travel expense in Toronto Centre.  These will show as Transfers to the candidates' campaigns.
2. Some additional expenses still pending, to be updated as needed (approx. $1800)
3. Expenses do not include Approx. $1300 of advertising.

Attendees

Rob Brooks, Igor Bily, Karl Boelling, Jean-Serge Brisson, Neal Donnelly, Paolo Fabrizio, Will & Wendy Kadonoff, Bhekuzulu Khumalo, Angie Liao, Jim McIntosh, Phillip Richards, Allen Small, Fred Stelpstra, Nunzio Venuto, Charles Zach, Mark Wojo Wrzesniewski

Allen Small

Purpose: an honest appraisal of our efforts leading up to and including the writ period. We lost so there is room for improvement. Why did we lose? Recommendations for future. Should not lose sight of the fact we did improve since last election 2011 and before - important to understand why?

5 candidates in 2003 (1991 votes) 25 candidates in 2007 (9249), 51 candidates in 2011 (19387), to 74* nominated in 2014 (39201) most ever votes.

Candidates increased by 45% and all things being equal our vote count should have increased 45% - but it went up 100% - something caused this, we need to understand why?

My guess –

1. Protest vote (declined ballots) vote was highest in years.
2. Social networks - Facebook/twitter – evidence (see 2007-11) #’s

Facebook has had enormous impact on party and liberty movement –

• I started FB in 2008 and started blogging in 2009
• Party FB group helped spread our message and organize for 2011 election; we doubled our candidates, doubled our vote total.
• Ran paid Facebook ads since late Feb. 2013 – ramped up during the writ period - ~$1400 during the election
• FB stats show our ads reached over 30K on some days. FB ads are ongoing.

My own campaign

I had zero time to do door-to-door campaigning

• 2-minutes Free time on Rogers TV and CBC Radio and TV
• 2-minutes Free time CMR 101.3 FM- Canadian Multicultural Radio’s Tamil Programming, Thamil FM
• 2 interviews on SUN TV Anthony Furey, Paige McPherson
• 2 interviews on radio CFRA Ottawa Nick Vandergradt and
• CFPL in London Andrew Lawton Show
• 1 TVO interview on YouTube
• 4 all candidates debates - in Uxbridge for Durham cand. Conner Toye, on Rogers TV, in Markham-Unionville for Unionville Rate Payers and for Chinese Community

Party Support

First part of writ until May 22 – persuading and securing candidates – getting my own nomination

Weekly provincial Q&A teleconferences for candidates on Uberconference.

Sign posting day in GTA and removal and sign deliveries to Ottawa, and GTA region

FB ads needed feeding – time consuming – create/post/buy

Emails and FB messages – I received and often had to redirect the info@libertarian emails – many for candidates that did not post profiles so media sent to info or called Jim on the Party’s phone.

Time consuming: Answering questions from candidates related to media queries etc. – research – writing

I got the most emails on First Nations

My recommendations to Stop – Start – Continue

1. Qualifying or Endorsing candidates – each candidate requires the support of 1 member of exec committee or 2 ordinary members going forward.
2. All candidates must accept terms of candidacy including posting rudimentary profile info – disclosing campaign plans to Campaign Director etc.
3. Embarrassing moments:
   1. Tamara Johnson’s full page ad resulted in backlash from Aboriginal supporters;
   2. 2 candidates try for nomination in the same riding;
   3. Almost deregistered because none of our CAs had nominated candidates by the day before nominations closed. Managed to get two done. Should have a CA in each region by 2018 election and focus on getting CA Candidates on the ballot.
4. Stop – ad hoc election responsibilities – “the Party”
5. Redefine some of the duties of Officers of the exec comm. – during Nov. 2 Convention or by 2017 AGM
6. Continue Facebook page ads – build “likes”
7. Use Facebook groups to organize and message members.
8. Create a communications team for Website refreshment, Facebook ads/email answers – contact info etc. – “Improve Ontario” – third party site
9. Create teams in each region with sign posting responsibility during elections
10. Rent long term storage space for party materials/signs etc. somewhere in GTA
11. Hold monthly UberConference Virtual Provincial Monthly night for party coherence and transfer of knowledge ideas, membership/candidate recruitment.
12. Followup meeting online Wed. Sept. 3 First Virtual Pub Night on Uberconference.
13. Change Party colour to coincide with Feds.
14. Consider Platform changes for next election.
15. Liberty Now is a way to spread the world between elections. “Liberty Now Toronto” in anticipation of rolling out to other locations. November 1/14 preceding our Convention on November 2.

Experience from Candidates

Nunzio Venuto – Davenport – 6th election, prepared cheat sheet after first all candidates meeting. Regional Coordinator – Used Quiz/business card, very useful. Paperwork not too difficult. 4-5 hours door to door to collect signatures,

Angie Liao – Did not run, just provided money

Phillip Richards – 1st time candidate, lots of behind the scenes work. Concerned about collecting signatures, but found it helped to explain this was his first time.

Karl Boelling – Markham-Oakridges. Collected signatures, Rogers TV, but not much else. Got most votes anyway in 2011 and 2007 (big riding).

Will Kardonoff – not candidate, helped Kal Gohry in Halton – signs, pamphlets. Only 6 signs (lost 1). Could use bigger signs.

Wendy Kardonoff – Distributing Why Liberty books, posting on FB, talk to friends, attending pub nights.

Jean-Serge Brisson – Ottawa South, against Dalton. Promoted alternative to Hudak’s 100,000 job cuts. Instead pay them $50,000 to stay home. Mars bars – bail-out by government. More conservatives liked him.

Fred Stelpstra – Kingston, joined Party recently

Neal Donnelly – Regional Coordinator – Recruited candidates in 9 out of 10 ridings, and then let them run their own campaign. Got on one of three All Candidates meetings. Get their attention, use humour. We are sales people, selling our Party. Fiscally conservative  Fiscally Responsible. Lots of calls for signs, could have used more. Needed more for Sean’s riding. Shared some. Used Facebook and has 100 followers.

Charles Zach – Burlington, long time conservative riding. Excluded from 3 All Candidate meetings. Burlington Post paper (socialist) gave him fair coverage. Ran an active campaign distributing pamphlets door-to-door. Enjoyed talking to people, found another gun nut. Could have used more signs, for himself and others in the area. Held a big sign up on Boulevard. Had his own Facebook page, updated regularly. Firemen told him the union told them to vote Liberal. People migrating from Toronto to suburbs is changing the complexion/voting in suburbs.

Igor Billy – Richmond Hill. New member rookie candidate. Not active during campaign, too busy working. Participated in 3 debates. Good coverage in local press. Audience appreciates it when you answer the questions, instead of avoiding it and spouting their platform. One woman commented that we have too much liberty. He asked which one she wanted to take away. Several comments about “Green” signs,

Paolo Fabrizio – Vaughan. Been in Vaughan too long, excluded from nothing. Put out more (200) signs. Spent hours with one voter who thought he was a Green candidate, because of signs. Need to have a new colour. Discouraged by the results. Beat by paper Green candidate. Didn’t call anyone – we need to do more follow-up, to recruit members and donors.

Mark Wrzesniewski – Etobicoke Lakeshore. Many young people knew Ron Paul, but not us. Several people told him they voted for him. He plans to make presentations to various groups in his community to explain libertarianism.

Rob Brooks, Campaign Director

• Tremendous success – 100% increase with 48% more candidates.
• 39,000 votes is enough to elect a candidate if in one riding.
• 197 members lead to 130 potential candidates
• Election date was unknown – made it difficult to plan
• Most members wanted to run in their home riding.
• Set objective to get 1500 members (by next election?) average $100 each = $150,000
• Outreach – we all need to find new people
• With more people and money we can do better
• Everybody doing a little job resulted in a great job. Signs and pamphlets were ready well in advance, thanks to Jeff McLarty.
• We could have used more lawn and street signs. Need teams to plan and place street signs (after studying the by-laws). We ordered more signs during the election. Best money a party can spend is on signs.
• Very competitive election. We might have got many more votes if Hudac hadn’t threatened the unions.
• Need to focus on recruiting, since we have 4 years until the next election.