Dear Friends,
Thank you!
Thank you to the people of Davenport for having put your confidence and trust in me and my team to stand with you as we worked together to build a fairer, more equal city and nation. It has been an incredible honour to serve you as your Member of Parliament.
I am so proud of the work we have done together, the accomplishments we have made and the spirit of community engagement in politics that has flourished over these last four years. I am humbled to have had the opportunity to work with so many of you. It has been an incredible privilege to have been welcomed into your communities, to share your stories, to listen to your concerns and to work together to build a better place to live.
I entered politics to help make positive change in people's lives and in our community. We worked hard to make that happen and wow did it happen! Better protections in the Federal Labour Code for unpaid interns; banning Pay-to-Pay fees; saving a post office; forcing changes that help our arts and culture sector flourish; standing up for a fairer immigration system; opposing refugee health care cuts and continuing to push for clean public transit in our community.
All of the campaigns we ran and issues we championed came as a result of the dialogue we had together as a community. That's why we knocked on doors in mid-February in non-election years asking people to sign our Pay-to-Pay petition, or why we were out in the blistering sun inviting people to a Clean Trains Now public meeting. It's why we put so much into building awareness and finding solutions to the growing issue of precarious work that affects so many in our community and in our city.
So, if you find yourself feeling discouraged by Monday's election results - if you start wondering if perhaps all that hard work and those hard won victories over these last four years were in vain - remember that we did all this work, first and foremost, to make a positive difference in people's lives. And we did that.
I'm very proud of the campaign we ran here in Davenport and continue even in its wake to be awestruck by the enthusiasm, energy, positivity and hard work of so, so many. To those of you who put your lives on hold these last three months to work on this campaign, thank you! To those of you who took time off work or took holiday time to knock on doors and make phone calls, thank you! To those who rushed to the campaign office right after work or school eating a fast dinner in font of a computer terminal or a telephone in our ramshackle Bloor Street office, thank you! To all the parents of young children who found the time - I really don't know how you did it - to come and work on the campaign, often with newborns in tow-thank you!
Some of you who had been looking after elderly parents, managing busy lives, or job hunting but still came in to volunteer, thank you! To all the young kids, too young to vote, who helped out on the campaign, you are such an inspiration, thank you! Many of our elders worked tirelessly on this campaign and I am particularly grateful to all of you. It was an honour to have had the opportunity to work with such wise and experienced community members. And while the media is full of stories about how young people are not connecting to politics, I found myself knocking on doors each day and night with the most engaged, interested and interesting young people, many of whom were volunteering on a campaign for the first time. You give me great faith in the future of our movement and our country. Thank you! And to all who made financial donations both big and small, thank you so much! Many phenomenal musicians supported this campaign by performing at the mid-point or by encouraging others to come out and door knock. I want to say a big, big thank you to all of you. You really came through.
To my constituency and Parliament Hill staff and to everyone on my campaign team, what a privilege it has been to work with you all. I learned so much from you and was constantly inspired by your dedication to our work and this community. None of you approached this work as simply a job and your talent, hard work and humour were what propelled everything we have done over these years. It was a joy to work with all of you.
We had a great story to tell here in Davenport and Tom Mulcair presented Canadians with a bold, progressive, transformational platform and that combination produced an incredibly exciting campaign of which we can all be very proud.
I'd like to thank the other Davenport candidates in this election for their commitment to the democratic process and I congratulate Julie Dzerowicz and wish her well as our new Member of Parliament.
With this election Canada has turned a page and though we haven't quite got to the chapter that begins: "Canada's First NDP Government" I know that chapter will come.
But politics isn't just about elections. It is about showing up, standing up and speaking out for and with people every day. I know that after such a long campaign everyone needs a bit of a rest. So let's take that rest... and then let's get back to work.
Thank you Davenport!
Sincerely,
Andrew Cash
|
|
|
|