A Vote of Influence

Back in 1990, I was the Chief Financial Officer for two campaigns in the Kingston area (city and township).  During the election, one candidate attracted close to 1500 votes (5.4% of the vote) and the other candidate received over 2,000 votes (6.9% of the vote). Several candidates received over 10% of the popular vote (the best was 13%).

Some time after that, I remember going to an FCP meeting where our leader at the time, Don Pennell, told those gathered that the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party had contacted him about getting together for a chat.  They indeed met and the PCs asked Don, "what it would take to make us (the FCP) to go away".  Don said that he proposed many policies and they didn't see a problem with any of them, except, of course, the abortion issue.

Why is this an important story?  It's important because it shows that if people were to just vote for their fundamental principles, instead of worrying about "wasting their vote", they actually can have more influence over the political establishment than they would otherwise have in just "settling" for the mainstream political parties and compromising their beliefs as well.

I can guarantee you that the FCP's vote would multiply ten-fold and more if the people who believe in what the FCP stands for would actually get out and vote that way.  And if that happened, we'd be getting another phone call from the Conservatives...or at the very least, they would have to start to adopt socially conservative policies if they wanted to pick up more our votes.

Therefore, far from wasting a vote with the Family Coalition Party, it's actually the exact opposite.  It's a vote that counts and it's a vote of influence.

But that's not true by voting for the Progressives conservatives:  if you vote PC, you're voting for the same kind of "conservatism" that we've had to endure for decades.  Nothing gets better. It just gets worse.

Therefore, don't waste your vote by being a "yes-man" to the social liberals of the Ontario PC Party. 

Invest in influencing them to change.  Vote FCP.