Slow start to local campaigns on Terry Fox Day

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This article was published 04/08/2015 (3744 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SOME campaigns dispatched volunteers to start pounding in lawn signs. Some were busy making storefront offices habitable. But many campaigns, even major ones, were still dormant Monday, without offices, phone numbers or any obvious signs of life.

It was a spotty start to the marathon, 79-day race, and it wasn’t just candidates struggling to get organized. Elections Canada has few returning offices open, which means candidates can’t drop off nomination papers.

“My papers are ready, but I’ve got nowhere to hand them in,” said Steven Fletcher, Conservative MP for Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingly, who is running for re-election.

According to Elections Canada’s website, five of the Manitoba’s 14 ridings are still without official returning officers, let alone offices. The agency has said it will have offices open in most ridings this week.

Fletcher said he’s also having trouble getting through to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which requires 48-hours notice before political candidates begin making calls during an election period.

Fletcher, whose riding isn’t being targeted by the NDP or the Liberals, spent Monday getting piles of lawn signs organized and his Portage Avenue office ready. He said he’ll likely spend some time campaigning with fellow Conservative candidates in tough races, including Jim Bell, who is running against former provincial NDP cabinet minister MaryAnn Mihychuk in Kildonan-St. Paul, and Gordon Giesbrecht, who is running in Winnipeg South.

A half-dozen other major campaigns contacted by the Free Press seemed to have taken Terry Fox Day off.

Mihychuk, whose Main Street office has been open for months, said little changed Sunday except she began to put up her lawn signs — 100 on Sunday and another 100 Monday. And she said there were more calls and visits to the campaign office from voters wanting signs or to volunteer. She said one worry is voters will get used to the signs over the next 11 weeks and they’ll lose their impact.

“We’ll have to be creative and reinvigorate the campaign through this long period,” said Mihychuk.

Mihychuk, whose team was at work with her in her office Monday, said she’s finding about a third of the voters she meets at the door are undecided, and many are not home.

In addition to getting their campaign machinery rolling, local candidates are expected to spend much of the week wooing voters at Folklorama pavilions.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca