@allan Right? It's wild. I can't recall ever seeing something like this from a sitting politician, let alone a party leader.
Voter distribution means the PCs would likely beat the NDP if they remain tied, but this announcement will probably mark a big shift. People who would have voted Liberal, but who aren't party loyalists may shift their vote.
Have we seen a strategy like this before in Canadian politics? Wynne has admitted defeat efore the election and is now urging Ontarians to elect as many Liberal MPPs as possible to ensure whoever wins has a minority government.
I have experience with a political organization using the corporate surveillance tools to contact their constituents. The responses I get include "But everybody uses it!", "That tracking service is so valuable to us", "It's free!" or "We can't afford to run our own" or "We don't have the expertise to run our own" and more...
I think you've identified the problem: lack of representation. Every party except the #ABNDP is under-represented in the legislature, and the ABNDP majority of seats has 100% of the power with only 40% of the votes -- 60% of the population gets no say in what the ABNDP decides to ram through. The #NDP across the country has a policy of implementing #ProportionalRepresentation, but every time they get in power they break that election promise.
eg. #cdnpoli on my current GNUsocial instance https://gs.jonkman.ca/tag/cdnpoli and on an older instance http://s.russwurm.org/tag/cdnpoli or even a foreign site like https://gnusocial.de/tag/cdnpoli -- this actually illustrates the problem with #hashtags; they only propagate to instances where someone is subscribed to the person posting. A !grouptag will go to all instances where anyone has subscribed to the !grouptag, whether they're subscribed to the person posting or not.
Kennedy's, being an Irish pub and restaurant, is starting its St. Patrick's Day celebrations two days early! There will be singing and dancing by Sandy MacDonald and the Doyle Irish Dancers, while we try to conduct the serious business of politics.
Oh, and the "fiscally conservative" part means having a fully-costed policy platform. No magic money, no handwaving. The Green Party is usually the first party to publish its platform, with full accounting for sources of revenue.
I've seen the policy sausage being made, and participated in the sausage-making. Yes, the grass-roots members can introduce motions, which get turned into policy at bi-annual general conventions. But that's true for other parties as well. Perhaps not in members introducing motions, but certainly members voting on party policies. The best way to be influential in government is to participate in a party to craft the policies that become legislation.