Take Action
There are many ways that you can participate in this campaign and help build momentum to defeat Stephen Harper and the Conservative government.
- Download posters and other resources from this website and distribute them in your community. Our page of downloadable resources can be found here . If you are short of time and resources, focus on ridings where Conservatives have a slim majority or where they pose a threat to an incumbent.
- Use the information on this site and the sites linked from this site to create your own posters, pamphlets or creative materials to educate voters. If you think your poster would be useful to other communities, contact us and send us your poster as a file and we will post it as a resource in our downloads section.
- Submit an overview or synopsis of an issue we have missed. This is a volunteer-run site and we have not had time to cover every issue at this point and many important ones have been missed. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives book of articles “The Harper Record” is a great resource. You can find it here or check out our links page for other great sites focusing on specific issues.
- Learn about your riding and vote wisely. With a winner-take-all voting system in our country, voting for someone who doesn’t get elected doesn’t count for much more than an opinion poll. You can change this situation and it doesn’t mean waiting for proportional representation. The Conservatives will only be defeated if we vote smart and strategically. This doesn’t have to mean holding your nose to vote for someone you don’t believe in.
- Here is how to do it:
- Some very creative people across the country have come up system where votes can be traded to have their maximum impact and your vote will be counted where it matters.
- Here is how it works:
- Certain ridings have Conservative MPs who won last time by a slim majority, these ridings are known as swing ridings. There are dozens of these ridings across the country, some with the Liberals running a close second, some with the NDP and some with the Greens.
- The idea behind vote swapping is as follows: Say I am a Liberal supporter in a riding where the NDP have a strong candidate. I can trade votes with an NDP supporter in another riding where the Liberals have a good chance of winning. That way both of our votes go toward truly getting a candidate elected and reduce the chances of a Conservative majority, something no progressive voter wants.
- The more people who participate in this system, the better it will work.
- Find out if you live in a “swing riding” by clicking here
- Two online resources for vote swapping are Vote Pair and on facebook at the Anti-Harper Vote Swap .
- If you are in a riding where anyone beating the Conservative is a long shot, vote with your conscience or consider helping out the little guys by casting a vote for the Greens.
- Here is how to do it:
- If you are from Quebec or from a French-speaking area of the country, help translate these resources and make them available in French. Send us your translation and we will send you resources ready-to-print.
- Spread the word about this website. Email this site around, post our Facebook group on your Facebook profile or website. Basically, send people our way. The more people see this resource, the more useful it will become.
- Use the resources on this website to educate yourself and talk to people in your community about the issues. The better educated voters are about the issues, the better their decisions will be at the ballot box.