Join the new world

"The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it."

My friends, thank you for all taking some time out of your evening to read this speech which will be outlining my intentions to seek a Congressional seat this election.

The quote above is one made by former United States President Woodrow Wilson. It describes the sentiment I carry and the optimism I yield in chasing after this exciting venture. In Canada we exist in a political realm which is carefully and collectively guarded by an unspoken, unformulated, unofficial legion of the ancients. It has been pointed out time and time again, that many aspects of Canadian politics are stalled and stagnate. We have new members who often come and find themselves disappointed to be part of not an innovative experiment, but rather a second world that can be as controlled and regulated as the one we are all mutual members of.

My intention is not, nor do I wish, to win this election off the backs of bashing the old guard and the stability that exists within our nation. Not only would that be irresponsible in this pivotal time, it would not be living true to my own beliefs. We owe so much credit to the people who forged new paths, created new ways and built new bridges prior to this date. Indeed, I'm not quite speaking from the perspective of a brand spanking new member myself.

My campaign is not about cliques, nor groups, nor parties, nor factions, nor coalitions. My campaign is one of ideas and communication. My campaign is not one of forsaking the paths already built, but expanding them, enlarging them. Harvesting new ideas and growing them into new infrastructure and new prosperity. I want my campaign, win or lose, to be a field of new ideas and theories. Somewhere we can toss seeds and see which ones grow and thrive. I want to run this campaign in sync with how I will conduct myself as a representative of the people.

Too often both in real life and in this wondrous game we dither away on, we find campaigns being about how quickly candidates can sprint to the center and appeal to the elusive 50% +1 voters. Instead, campaigns should be an honest dialogue between dozens of different people arguing about totally different answers to the same questions. A campaign isn't one at all if you're just arguing over the party affiliation that drabs over the same exact policy.

I want to take bold new initiatives to get members involved. Let's be honest, the forums are one of the most important aspects of eCanada, but why are only a select few active there? We need to pursue long term action that will attract and retain members on our forum. Ideas like a mock congress aren't bad, but they are a band-aid more than a fundamental change in how we do business. For anyone unfamiliar with the term, this recent cycle Congress has discussed the idea of a mock congress for new citizens to play pretend and get hands on experience about legislating. The idea isn't horribly poor, the idea is internally flawed. This would be a novelty, and participants and mentors would rapidly become bored and disenchanted.

Instead, what we need is to explore the creation of a permanent lower legislative body headquartered on our forum. This body would have the power to formally refer real legislation to the upper Congress. While this would be their only ability, and many could argue it a ceremonial one, it would be an official facet of new member activity allowing new members to get their feet wet on a long term basis rather than a crash course in governing. This would give members an outlet to express their views without being part of a more lofty cabinet, or a Congress subject to challenging trials of entry.

Most people are familiar with the idea of communication. I talk, I talk, I talk and talk. And that's great. It's great when congresspersons take the time to emerge from the closed door congress and speak to the constituents, but it's nothing compared to an active conversation. I want to be able to take questions, criticisms, attacks and (praise?) everything else from the Canadian people. I don't just want to write 1000 word walls of text, I want to hear the problems that eCanadians are going through.

The above sentence may appear to be almost a bit ridiculous in the context of an online game. But for the citizenry that exist outside the glitzy prosperity of the beltway, there is a world where it's getting tough to continue this game. It's becoming unreasonably challenging to work a job a day, to train, to study, to get ahead and make something of character x. Those are the people who we need to be listening for, and I want to hear them and find in-game solutions for them. The answer is not in looking down or criminalizing business, for they are in a very similar place. In this precarious time we need aggressive social outreach from those citizens and organizations who have been winners of this game, and want to make other citizens just as successful. We need to build upon government programs that work, and stop wasting money on programs that don't help anyone.

TL😉R? - Active Communication and Bold Solutions is what eCanada requires of her next generation of leaders

So, this brings me back to President Wilson. The road ahead won't be easy. I know elections in this game are hard, for a myriad of reasons. But I'd rather swim up the stream trying to accomplish something, than coasting downstream, just relying on mass spam messages and GOTV techniques of my party.

The next generation of leaders have problems on the horizon that are mounting. Problems that are just too vital to allow any representative to sit idly in their seat. It's time to take up the mantel, and swim upstream. If nothing else, we can tell others about how hard it is to pursue a dream.

I'm ready. I'm willing. Let's fight together.

Thank you all so much, and I hope to have your support in Prince Edward Island and across the nation.