Independent candidate seeks nominators in London West, no money.

tags:

I plan to stand as an independent candidate for M.P. of London West in the upcoming federal election, and so am seeking valid electors (Canadian citizens over 18 years of age who reside within London West) to sign my nomination papers.

Signing my nomination form does not require you to vote for me, nor prevent you from signing nomination papers for other candidates.

If elected M.P., my job would be to represent the people of our riding, not the interests of any political party or financial backer - to that end I am refusing to accept any political campaign donations or spend any money on my own campaign. It's time to kick the taint out of our parliamentary system.

If you are a valid elector in the London West region (see map link below) I encorage you to email me at owenferguson@gmail.com so that I can arrange to have my nomination form delivered to you for endorsement. If you live in one of the other ridings in our fair city, and agree that what we need is a party-free candidate on the ballot, I encourage you to run for office beside me, in your own riding, adopting the same principles of financial independence and fidelity to the constituents' best interest.

 

Map of London West:

http://www.elections.ca/scripts/pss/Map.aspx?L=e&ED=35044&EV=99&EV_TYPE=... 2

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Chad ONeill's picture

fortituity

Jeremy, meet Owen! Owen's a pal of mine who just moved to London. I expect you guys will meet up this spring... Prayers for Tibet.

Insanity and Genius are seperated only by degrees of Success.

Jeremy McNaughton's picture

more about your platform?

Hi Owen,

Maybe you could post some more details about your platform, or at least your political outlook.

 "[T]he constituents' best interest" really doesn't mean anything.  For all we know, aside from campaign spending reform you could think that rounding up all the senior citizens for conversion into food is in our best interest.Wink

I respect the idea of a candidate who would try to act only in the interest of us common folk, but I'm skeptical unless I know there's some sort of process behind it.  Neighbourhood meetings where community members can vote to decide how you will vote in the house?  Surely you aren't just expecting to know our best interests from us visiting your constituency office.

Town hall style meetings where citizens would decide on my votes was one of my campaign promises when I ran for Parliament back in 2000.  I'd love to start a dialogue with you about the idea if you're into it.

 

Jeremy 

Owen Ferguson's picture

Hey Jeremy, thanks for the

Hey Jeremy, thanks for the response. One of the reasons I've started posting here is to meet other politically active people in London. Anyway, I like to think that, for the most part, moral deduction can lead a good legislator to the right course of action with very little actual input from the community - we hire MPs to contemplate this stuff for us, so we don't have to.  To whit:

 (with appologies to Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale)

 10-point program for moral government:

 

1. We want freedom. 

We believe that people will not be free until we are equally
enabled by the government economy to determine our destiny regardless of income or
savings or credit rating.

2. We want full employment for our people.

We believe that a federal government operating a fiat-money economy
is responsible and obligated to give every citizen, regardless of other
occupation,  employment or a guaranteed income. This is the only way a
fiat economy can beeffectively perpetuated without moral hazard. We
believe that if non-corporeal persons will not pursue our decided
social ideal of full, voluntary employment, then good governancedictates parliament dissolve
those corporations, their assets to be reinvested in the community so
that the people of the community can organize to employ everyone.

3. We want an end to the robbery of our community.

We believe the corporate government has robbed us of the civil
wealth built on the backs and dreams of our forefathers, and now we are
demanding the overdue debt of effective social services and ruthlessly
prosecuted organized profiteering of human misery.

4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.

While we recognize that every person has a right and responsibility
to shelter oneself, we also recognize that not all persons have the
capacity toadequately manifest this right. Thus, and social
governmental structure has a humane responsibility not to negligently
allow its citizens to be enfeebled by the attitude of the environment.

5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature
of our society and government, that is made freely available to all, at
every level, as per our Treaty on Post-secondary Education
obligations. 

We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a
knowledge of self. Those without knowledge of self and government in
society and the world have little chance to relate to anything else.

6. We want to end the Canadian Military.

We believe that people should not be forced or paid to kill in
service of any conspiracy of murders, be it a syndicate or a
government. The right to killbelongs to god alone - no democratic
majority can provide it, regardless of ideals. The right to kill in
direct self defense is not transitive. We will not fight and kill other
people in the world who, like our people, are being victimized by the
notion of government fiat absolving moral responsibility. We will
protect ourselves from the force and violence of the police and the
military, but always by the mostpeaceable means necessary.

7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of our people.

We believe we can end police brutality in our community by
relieving them of the responsibility of enforcing civil disputes
between municipalities andpeaceable citizens. By re-focusing police on crime investigation and prevention, we can work towards a society that is both peaceable
. Further, we recognize that all persons have a right and
responsibility to self defence and so should arm themselves for self
defense. It is the responsibility of a well-managed federal government
to ensure that each citizen and municipality hasadequate capacity to
assist fully in the defence if the dominion, should invasion occur.
Moral government cannot allow distributed of limited liability weapons,
such as bombs or electrocution guns.

8. We want the release of all persons held in federal,
provincial, county and city prisons and jails for crimes not involving
specific violence againstdefinite victims. 

We believe that all non-violent people should be released from the
many jails and prisons because, in their ignorance of the limitations
of governmental authority todictate behavior, they have not received a fair and impartial trial.

9. We want all people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group.

We believe that only a true jury of 12 or more persons may
legitimately exert the force of government against a free citizen.
While judges are certainly essential to efficient court process, they
cannot, as single persons,possess the deliberative capacity required to
willfully violate the freedom of the accused. A peer is a person from a
similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental,
historical and racial background. 

10. We want an end to all political corporations, and a complete ban on political donations and campaign spending.

 

 

 

Owen Ferguson's picture

whoops! Sorry for the

whoops! Sorry for the typos/bad line breaks. This is an early draft of the 10 point program. Hopefully you get the gist of it...

Jeremy McNaughton's picture

ok you're cool

Ok, you look pretty cool to me.  I would sign for you, but I live in London-North-Centre.

Dan H's picture

CherryHill Mall

If you have yet to think of this, I would highly recommend spending a day or two down at Cherry Hill Mall on Oxford St. It may be just inside LNC riding, but I'll bet there's lots of London West voters there. No one running for office doesn't go there, as the seniors there are very politically engaged. Bet you get a lot of signatures there.

Best of luck - as I believe it is impossible to win without spending some money (Like thousands!!).

But I do admire people how take interest in OUR public offices! What would be nice would be if every candidate (and party) was only allowed x amount of dollars that had a low ceiling.

Owen Ferguson's picture

Thanks

Thanks for the advice - I'll head down there some afternoon and see what support I can muster.

 Personally, I'd like to see a ban on any and all campaign spending/campaign donations, as they are the means by which the corporate class controls our party-backed "representatives." Take the money out of the equation, let every candidate rely on personal reputation & earned media, and we might just get some forward-thinking people in office, instead of limpets toadying for donors and party paymasters. 

 

 

Greg Fowler's picture

Your Campaign

As somebody who had to try and run a municipal campaign with few personal resources and no ability to do any fundraising, I certainly understand the inequity of the current system. However, I see problems with your proposal also.

To begin with, media coverage doesn't necessarily appear just because you may have done something to earn it. Anybody who doesn't know that the local media cherrypicks candidates and assists them and slyly discredits others is deluding themself. And in the absence of either campaign spending or equitable media coverage, how does a previously unelected citizen compete against the name recognition of an incumbent?

I agree with Jer that you have to fully disclose your platform. But more than that, I think it's absolutely essential that you have a campaign website where the platform is posted.

I'm troubled by your comment about public input post-election and would like to hear/read more from you on that score.

Kudos to you for putting your name forward, no matter what your personal beliefs.

---

From My Bottom Step
personal opinion from the perspective of a London, Ontario community activist

 

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