The Silent Majority Breaches 100,000
I’ve been preoccupied with real life goings-on, but two things happened this week on the Fair Deal website that I want to make a note of:
1/ We breached 100,000 letters delivered to Ottawa legislators. More specifically, at the time of this posting 102,499 letters have been delivered since Boxing Day, December 26th of 2004. This is a big number, and if I were an elected official, I’d look at this as a serious indication of the will of many in the province to cast their future votes in direct response to the fate of the Accord. Not everyone is online in Newfoundland and Labrador (the figure is at about 60%), and not all those who are online are moved to send a political letter, but this is a very real percentage that the Liberal MPs, the Conservative MPs and the NDP should be more than mindful of. If the Accord languishes due to party politics and either party is perceived to be the primary culprit, that party will lose serious support in this part of Canada.
2/ Earlier this week I sent an email to 500 randomly selected Fair Deal activists and asked them to send a letter to the Finance Committee as they considered the budget and the Atlantic Accord. At the time of posting, the participation rate of this group is 79 percent — so far.
This number is interesting because it shows that Fair Deal activists are still deeply committed to the Accord passage, but it also illuminates another fact that’s easy to lose sight of on a blog-oriented site: almost none of the 500 activists this week commented on the blog or sent me a personal email. They are what I would call a perfect example of “The Silent Majority".
While the blog-commenters on Fair Deal and the blog-writers of Canadian politics are squeaking loudly on their soapboxes, it is The Silent Majority of several thousand Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and Canadians who have sent all these letters. It is The Silent Majority that are sick and tired of party allegiance over common sense governance. It is The Silent Majority that would like to see the Accord legislation made a reality before the summer break.
It is The Silent Majority that will decide the outcome of the next election.
And so: a big thank-you to The Silent Majority from the Fair Deal campaign. Without your participation we would never have reached 100,000 letters, and even though it might seem that a few voices dominate the web, we are just the extroverts in the room demanding all the attention. It’s The Silent Majority who deserve all the credit — and who most of the time, define the right path.
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Well I might not be a “Silent Majority(er)” but I too am proud of the pressure we have all pressed down their necks. The cry for non-partisan Independent MP’s should remain the prime threat to get what we want from these “Party goers". It is abhorrent that they can sit in their fancy digs not answering e-mails and sending out weak responses that do not address the content of letters sent to their Ottawa and Bay Roberts offices! I am greatly offended that Ms Bianca James (parliamentary aid to John Efford) and Mr Efford himself have chosen to ignore my recent submissions following the initial returns that I received from Ms James. I have now on three occasions said that the responses, “[…did not satisfy my original submission]” and all of my attempts have been ignored.
This is not just party politics, this is party pooper politics!
Vote Independent
Fred from CBS
Comment by Fred Harris — 6/5/2005 @ 2:10 pmHey Kevin,
I visit this site often because your comments and Blogs are all Pro Newfoundland. I checked out the list of Bloggers listed on this site. With the exception of Patrick, (he also has a lot of good points) all of the other Newfoundland Bloggers appear to be either pro Liberal or pro Conservative.
If Paul Martin said that he would charge all Newfoundlanders $1000 “Newfie tax” each year, the pro Liberal bloggers would praise him for not charging $2000. And if Stephen Harper said he would pay all Newfoundlanders $5000 each year, these same bloggers would curse him for not paying $6000.
If the party leaders stance was reverse, the pro Conservative bloggers would have the same reaction. They would praise Harper and curse Martin.
I have never belonged to a political party so I don’t have to believe 100% of one party and 0% of the other parties.
Keep up the good work Kevin.
Lawrence
Comment by Lawrence — 6/5/2005 @ 8:22 pmim part of this ’silent majority’ always have been, lets keep the minority gov ok?
it makes me laugh atleast & ‘the peoples’ voices are louder in the goverments ears. 
Comment by john doe — 6/6/2005 @ 5:52 amGood point on the silent majority. Its through the work of the unassuming masses that political and social change happens. Its always been that way and always will.
You mentioned the comments on your site. I’ve noticed the same thing on Web Talk. When checking my server stats I can easily see that the number of comments left on the blog reflects only a very small percentage of the visiters on the site.
There are obviously a lot more politically concious folks out there than one might think.
Comment by Web Talk - Newfoundland and Labrador — 6/6/2005 @ 6:04 amKevin,
If you are looking to setup another email campaign, you might want to take on the issue of clean up of our waters. The feds have passed a bill that does’nt allow for toxic dumping in our waters, yet they are looking the other way on the rocket boosters and the tons of chemical soup they contained, that were dropped on our banks by the Americans.
You can read all about it on my site. I ask your readers to join me in emailing the PM and the Environment Minister. Tell them we want a recovery and cleanup of these boosters (who knows how many have been dumped off our coast in the past few decades?), and we expect the U.S. government to foot the bill.
When you see the chemicals that these things contain it will make your skin crawl. Its no wonder we don’t have any cod recovery on the grand banks.
Comment by Web Talk - Newfoundland and Labrador — 6/6/2005 @ 11:23 amWell put Kevin, very well put!
Comment by Jeremiah — 6/7/2005 @ 2:14 pmSo true. We don’t all feel the need to comment, but hopefully we will all show our comments with our votes.
Comment by marie traverse — 6/9/2005 @ 11:45 am