Make Your Voice Heard on December 12th
The holidays are upon us and Canadians are busy hanging decorations, singing festive songs and campaigning for electoral reform! We’re taking it to the streets – of social media – this Saturday with Fair Vote Canada’s first ever nation-wide grassroots campaign, and we want you to join! People from all across Canada will be mailing a holiday card to Justin Trudeau asking him for a National Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform, and posting a photo of themselves with the card to social media. We want Trudeau’s mailbox and social media feeds to be flooded with the faces of Canadians trying to make their votes count and voices heard.
If this sounds familiar, you’re probably thinking of the separate, but related, initiative to send holiday cards through the FVC website: 8,000 cards and counting have been sent already! We want to build on that momentum and bring the movement to social media in a way that’s fun for everyone to participate in.
We’ll all be using the hashtag #MakeYourVoiceHeard and tagging @JustinTrudeau to make sure he doesn’t miss the action. You can also mail a card to your local Liberal MP and tag them on social media too!
The best part is that Canadians won’t be alone in demanding democratic reform on December 12th. Make Votes Matter (the FVC counterpart in the United Kingdom), has also asked their supporters to send a holiday card to their MP demanding Proportional Representation. The UK is the only country in Europe – and one of only three major democratic developed countries (ahem, Canada and the US) – to use First Past the Post for general elections. As in Canada, First Past the Post in the UK has routinely led to false majorities, strategic voting and wasted votes. The 2019 UK election that gave Boris Johnson a majority government with only 43.6% of the vote was widely seen as a stunning example of how first-past-the-post fails to elect governments that truly represent the will of the people.
With calls for democratic reform becoming louder on both sides of the Atlantic, advocates for proportional representation have reason to be cheerful about the prospects of change.
That’s all from the Fair Vote Toronto team this year! We’d like to thank everyone for reading, responding and engaging with our initiatives and newsletters. Stay safe, healthy and hopeful this holiday season!
How to participate:
Taking part in our December 12th campaign is easy!
- Find a holiday card around your house.
- Write a message to Justin Trudeau, asking him for a Citizen’s Assembly on electoral reform (if your MP is a Liberal, you can send them one too).
- Address the card to The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Office of the Prime Minister, 80 Wellington Street, Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2 and mail it – no postage required!
- Take a photo of yourself with the card (in the act of mailing it, writing it, or just holding it up) and on December 12th post your photo to Twitter, Instagram, and/or Facebook with the hashtag #MakeYourVoiceHeard and tag @JustinTrudeau (and @fairvotecanada if you have space).
Don’t have a social media account? Just send your picture to of****@fa******.ca and we’ll share it for you!
What does the power of song have to do with Proportional Representation?
Find out next Wednesday, December 16 at 7pm! Tony Turner, Canadian singer-songwriter, will join us to share his journey from local folk singer to singing activist for various social and political causes. Tony will outline his affinity for proportional representation, reflect on the power of song to unite forces advocating for change, and demonstrate how each of us can contribute our unique talents to the fight for a better democracy.
Pierre Trudeau, Canada’s 15th prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party (between 1968 and 1984), voiced his support for Proportional Representation back in 1979. At the time, Trudeau believed Canada’s political system needed to change in order to address the regional imbalances — particularly in Alberta and Quebec.
“I think we have to move in this direction because the national parties, even though they have many voters in all parts of Canada, don’t have sitting in Ottawa members of Parliament from that particular region on the government side. In the case of Mr. Clark’s government, he doesn’t have a lot of members and ministers in the house who could speak for Quebec, and in the case of our government we didn’t have a lot of members or ministers who could speak for Alberta.”
Hear Pierre Trudeau in his own words by clicking here.