About two months after I moved to town a Provincial By-Election was called in the riding just North of mine, Kitchener-Waterloo. Then I started hearing rumours that one of the board members for Reception House, where I work, was expected to win the NDP nomination. Could the situation be any more perfect?
A few days after Catherine Fife won the nomination I called her office to offer my services as a foot canvasser for her campaign. The person on the other end of the line seemed excited that an experienced political canvasser was volunteering their time.
On the first night I volunteered I had the opportunity to canvass with Catherine and four other volunteers in an apartment building.I had never canvassed with a candidate before and was excited to watch her in action. Throughout the campaign I had opportunities to canvass with a diverse group of NDP supporters, ranging from a couple of MPPs from Northern Ontario, people coming in from other ridings to offer their support and with new friends from Kitchener.
As time went on the campaign grew dramatically. An original staff of five seemed to almost double and there always seemed to be at least twenty volunteers filling some role at any given time. One evening after an all-candidates debate I was invited to attend an after party with some other volunteers. I was discouraged to learn that some of they young people who I thought were fellow volunteers were actually filling roles as poll cats who apparently assist in the office and canvass. It was disappointing to know that people were being paid to do the same job that I had volunteered for, especially when you encountered individuals who were not acting in their roles effectively.
The week of the by-election was a busy one for me. I had committed to canvassing, was holding a charity BBQ at work, and I was rehearsing for an upcoming swing dance performance.
On the day of the By-Election, September 7th I was assigned to both inside and outside scrutineer in a small poll where Catherine only had ten confirmed supporters. Later in the evening I was also asked to scrutineer the vote count. I did not expect Catherine to win in the poll given the low level of confirmed support in the poll.
When I started volunteering for the campaign I was really unsure of how Catherine would be received as the riding had never elected an NDP MP or MPP, and provincially the riding had been held by a conservative for almost two decades. However, talking to people canvassing Catherine had a lot of support and the day before the election the Waterloo Record predicted that Fife would win.
Despite the low level of committed NDP voters in my poll Catherine did take the most votes, and won by a much larger margin in the by-election as a whole. This brings more legitimacy to my claim that I have never worked on a losing election campaign.
The victory party was epic :)
