Thank-you to all who supported me at the most recent LPC(O) Convention.
Urban ridings are easy to identify.
If you can walk or bike across your riding in an afternoon, chances are your riding is urban.
Congratulations! You should be able to go and knock on doors easily using established procedures.
It goes without saying that canvassing rural ridings is a special challenge due to population density.
Think about your riding. Does your riding have one (or two) communities comprising well over 50% of the population?
What if you had to canvass 39 separate communities spread over a riding bigger than some of our provinces?
Rural policy is in my roots.
Not only agricultural issues, but also rural economic and community development issues, and how they go together and rely on each other.
I believe I’d bring a lot to the table and a “rural lens” to decisions and communications.
Keep checking back here for articles with a ‘Rural Lens’ on Government actions.
November 13, 2025
https://farmtario.com/daily/federal-budget-shows-remaining-disconnect-between-agriculture-policymakers-panelists-say
November 5, 2025
https://farmtario.com/daily/federal-budget-draws-mixed-reaction-from-canadian-agriculture-groups
What I’d really like to do though, is come up with a set of Best Management Practices for canvassing rural areas as recommended in Project Rural.
What are your ideas?
I have a few, I’ve researched a few, and I’ve used quite a few.
I’d like to learn a lot more. Send me a note below.
Some suggestions from the National Democratic Training Committee include the following:
Phonebanking is a higher priority in rural districts.
You will want to do this early so that you can clean up your contact lists and be sure that you have the doors to knock on that make traveling worth your time before you even start canvassing.
Prioritize canvassing in target-dense areas.
Make sure you hit the areas that will benefit you the most so that you don t waste your time traveling to areas that aren’t going to help you. A tactic you can use for canvassing is the drive and knock method: have one person drive and navigate while the other gets out to knock on doors and contact voters.
One thing to keep in mind: in many rural areas, people have never had their door knocked on by a candidate or volunteer. — Be the campaign that gets to the doors that no one else does!
Include phone numbers for each household in your canvass.
Ask the canvassers to call any houses that they are unable to reach on foot. While calling is a bit less effective, voter contact is still voter contact.
Host house parties.
An easy way to get face time with voters is by inviting them to events hosted by your campaign. This saves you or volunteers from going door-to-door and can help foster a sense of community around your campaign by having your supporters (potential or promised) under one roof.
Decentralize your network.
While this might be helpful for urban campaigns, it is especially important in rural races. When you have a geographically large area to cover, you need people you can lean on for support. Having people that can help you organize canvassing, host events, etc. can make your campaign extremely effective. Having designated neighborhood teams with assigned captains helps you cover more ground. I have other ideas, such as breaking down the large riding into zones based on the location of advanced polls, and have “Zone Coordinators” take the lead in their area.
Canvassing rural areas present a unique set of challenges and you want to door knock as many homes in these areas as you can.
The Campaign Workshop ⩥
The ProjectRURAL task force was comprised of seven candidates who ran in rural ridings:
Tim Louis (Kitchener-Conestoga)
Katie Omstead (Chatham-Kent–Leamington)
David McPhail (Sarnia-Lambton)
Jennifer Stebbing (Flamborough-Glanbrook)
Heather Wilson (Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing)
Task force chair, Allan Thompson (Huron-Bruce)
The objective of OLP’s Rural and Northern Commission (OLRNC) is to maintain an active organization of rural and northern members, and to speak with a collective voice on behalf of rural and northern provincial Liberals.