May 2013

Note: The Catch 22 Campaign officially ended with the May 2011 federal election. Pondering the 2015 election but haven't come to any conclusions. 

This was my Liberal Party leadership ballot. I did not have a second choice. 

I've been keeping a running list of articles, op-eds, emails, blog posts related to Joyce Murray's bid for Liberal Party of Canada leadership. It's not definitive but it's current. I did not write the headlines. 

Check out a new project:

‘One Big Campaign’ - continuing the fight against Harper Cons.

With every passing week of Stephen Harper’s destruction of the fabric of our country, more and more Canadians are following the development of the new, dynamic project, the Campaign to Build ‘One Big Campaign’ (CBOBC).

CBOBC is non-partisan and has been created by a small group of concerned, independent Canadians to help progressive organizations stop – or at least slow – the damaging advances of the Conservative Party and its irresponsible corporate partners. CBOBC will form partnerships with progressive groups and develop big campaigns to challenge Harper and others that abuse their power.The new group was launched by Nick Fillmore, one of the central organizers of the Catch 22 Campaign.  

CBOBC’s first project is a very active and edgy Facebook page that is facilitating debate on the most important issues facing the country. Visit their page by clicking here:

http://www.facebook.com/CampaignToBuildOneBigCampaign

and, after you’ve had a look around, click on "Like "– under the On-to-Ottawa Trek, so that you too can take part in the discussions. You can see CBOBC's "mission statement" here.

March 26, 2012

The New Democratic Party's leadership race is over. The membership have spoken and elected Thomas Mulcair as the next leader. Mulcair's main challenge is to defeat Stephen Harper in the next election and position the NDP to form a new government. He must build on the NDP's 2011 electoral success by holding on to Quebec and expanding support in the rest of Canada. 

Mulcair brings a number of strengths to Stornaway and Parliament Hill:

• previous Cabinet experience
• previous NDP (co)-Deputy House leader
• well-known "native son" of Quebec and fully bilingual
• excellent public speaker in both official languages
• detailed understanding of the environment file
• widespread support from the labour movement
• demonstrated ability to build a positive, ideas-based campaign team
• superior ability to think on his feet
• willingness to carry on Ed Broadbent/Jack Layton's push for proportional representation to address Canada's "democratic deficit"

There are also a number of concerns in the progressive movement about some of Mulcair's policy positions and leadership style. Many of these criticisms were in the form of "sound-bites" which will stick unless he's able to pro-actively address them head on and expand his base. Issues of leadership style will be quickly demonstrated by the ways in which Mulcair builds his team and communicates with the party's rank and file. 

On policy, Mulcair can use his "honeymoon" to exchange views on these differences (or perceived differences) and to seek common ground with natural NDP allies who, as he said in his victory speech, are so important to the 2015 formula for success. 

Gary Shaul

March 14, 2012

I am currently in the process of researching the financial reports of the Con candidates in all the ridings identified by the National Post in which complaints were made about either fraudulent or nuisance calls.

I also did a quick look at the financials for all the other registered Third Party campaigns in Canada. Guess what? Catch 22 was the only registered Third Party to use auto-dialing to deliver our message.
That means that all other auto-dialing (or phone bank) initiatives were conducted by either local party campaigns or central party campaigns. If the robocalling was outsourced to a Third Party, they did not register which is illegal if they spent more than $500. In the case of Guelph, we know that they did not list RackNine as a service provider. They did use two other survey/research suppliers.

See my latest blog post - Robocalling: One way to produce an "enemies" list for an overview of how the robo-calling process works.

Gary

May 3, 2011

See our initial look at the results below. We will be issuing an editorial on the weekend. A detailed report will be pulled together over the next few weeks. If you have any comments on the campaign, please email them to catch22campaign AT gmail DOT com.

Riding level results for the 2011 election are available at Elections Canada. 

The Catch 22 Campaign is registered as a Third Party with Elections Canada and is independent of all political parties, campaigns and candidates.

Key Info: Target Ridings; Campaign FAQ; Tips for new members

Catch 22's first look at the election...

May 3, 2011

This is a high level summary of campaign results in ridings identified by the Catch 22 campaign. Over the coming weekend, we'll publish an editorial. Then in a few weeks we'll put out a more detailed look at our campaign - strengths and weaknesses, what worked and what didn't etc. Once that is done, the campaign will be wrapped up.

Obviously, we did not get the overall results we were looking for. With less than a 2% increase in the popular vote, Harper was successful at boosting his seat count by 25 and forming a "majority" with the support of less than 40% of voters.

Here are a few stats from our campaign.

Number of ridings on Catch 22 list - 60

Number of first place finishes for opposition in C22 identified ridings - 15 (including 2 "too close to call ridings" won by opposition)

• Number of Conservatives defeated from Catch 22 list - 4 (Surrey North, Saanich-Gulf Islands, Beauport-Limiloi, Pontiac)
• Number of opposition ridings successfully defended - 11 (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, Welland, Malpeque, Burnaby-Douglas, New Westminister-Coquitlam, Edmonton-Strathcona, London Fanshawe, Western Arctic, Guelph, Kingston and the Islands, Random-Burin-St. Georges)

Number of second place finishes - 34

Number of third place finishes for Catch 22 candidates - 8 (Huron Bruce, Miramichi, Fredericton, Edmonton Centre, Brant, St. John, Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean, Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Riviere du Loup)

Number of "too close to call" ridings won by the Conservatives - 3 (Essex, Kenora, Nunavut)

Number of ridings where recommendations were flat out wrong - 2 (Newton North Delta where the C22 recommended Liberal incumbent (31.5) was defeated by the NDP (33.4%) with Con right behind (31.3%). Both the Cons and NDP were within 10% of the Lib incumbent in 2008. Catch 22 should have stayed out of this one. In Montmagny-L'Islet— Kamouraska—Rivière-du Loup - the NDP beat the the Con by just 9 votes. We recommended the Bloc candidate to defeat the Con. after the Cons took it from the Bloc in a 2009 by-election. More on Quebec in the detailed report.

Sincerely

Catch 22 team