This Is Our Moment

This is it.

As you probably heard over the holiday weekend, Stephen Harper officially triggered the 2015 federal election. We’re now facing the longest, most expensive, and for many of us, the most important election of our lifetimes.

Harper called the election early because he plans to drown his opponents, his critics, and the Canadian public in an unprecedented flood of election spending.

But we’ve got news for him: we’re ready.

Over the last 10 years, the Harper Conservatives have clung to power through a desperate recipe of fear-mongering and divide-and-conquer politics. But here’s the thing: every time they’ve bullied us with another attack on our democracy, on our beloved public institutions, and the planet we depend on, more and more people across Canada have recognized this threat to our core values, and we’ve hardened our resolve to do something about it.

Now that time has come.

Across Canada, the overwhelming majority want change. We’re in for the race of our lives, and it won’t be easy.

We face a broken first-past-the-post voting system with a divided opposition. We face a US-style voter suppression law that could turn hundreds of thousands away at the polls. And we face the same partisan divisions that have forced a progressive majority to watch a conservative minority erode everything great about Canada over the last 10 years.

Despite all of that, we are hopeful. This is our moment to refuse, once and for all, to let the politics of greed and fear make us into anything less than the wise, inclusive, generous country -- and people -- we know we really are.

Thanks to you, we’ve all got a real shot at beating the Conservatives on October 19.

In just a few years, the Leadnow community has grown to nearly half a million people. Tens of thousands of you have already contributed your ideas, money, and time to design, fund, and power the Vote Together campaign - the campaign that will stop the riding-by-riding vote splitting that twisted a minority of votes into a majority of seats in the last election.

Every day that Harper stretches out this election is another day Vote Together volunteers will be knocking on doors, calling our neighbours, reaching out online, organizing local conversations, and building this force for change. Harper wants a long election? We’ll give him one.

Over the next 11 weeks, we will work hard so that this election delivers what Canadians overwhelmingly want and need: change. You can get in the loop by signing the Vote Together pledge here and if you’ve already signed, help build momentum by sharing this email with your friends.  

Here’s the link: http://www.votetogether.ca/

Thanks for all you’ve done, and all you will do.

Thank you, most of all, for never losing sight of the core progressive values that make us proud Canadians -- and for standing up for them, now, when you’re needed the most.

Let’s do this.  

Amara, on behalf of the Leadnow team, and hundreds of volunteers from coast to coast to coast

PS - We’ve already made over 4300 phone calls into Conservative swing ridings, local teams are canvassing multiple times a week in 12 ridings, and over 44,000 people have pledged to vote together. Our sophisticated election website is ready to launch, and we still have 77 days to work together on high-impact actions to hold this government accountable at the ballot box. Want to learn more and get more involved? There’s a special briefing for Vote Together volunteers on Wednesday (tomorrow!) and we’d love if you joined us. Here’s the link to RSVP: http://we.leadnow.ca/volunteer_town_hall_briefing