September 11, 2018

Never underestimate how much can be accomplished by having a positive, civil conversation with a stranger. I'm serious.

The VoteOpen storefront location opened up today at 201 Portage and so naturally yr girl was there to do interviews and hand out lawn signs and literature and tshirts, and also to talk to people walking by about what they thought about this polarizing issue.

I stood in the underground concourse for over an hour and changed the minds of nine of the "no" votes and talked to at least two dozen people who were already voting "yes" in the referendum in October.

Some people were rude and mean, but at least nobody told me to fuck off like the people at the First Friday event over the weekend. 

Canvassing for a cause isn't for the thin-skinned, that's for sure.

I had a woman tell me that being assaulted in one of the stairwells when I was a teenager was "my fault" and that because she, personally, had never felt unsafe downtown then no woman should.

Which is an opinion she is entitled to.

Even if it's wrong.

But overwhelmingly the people I've spoken to have been open-minded and willing to engage in the discussion, which is rare and strange and to be honest not what I expected going into this campaign. 

I under-estimated a lot of the people in my city, and that's okay. 

Let's just hope the rest of the population proves to be as open-minded and progressive as the people I spoke to today.

Because those are the people who are going to move our city forward.

And, damn it, Winnipeg deserves to move forward.