Vote Ophelia for Ward 2

Thanks to SJSOWC for this info! You can still vote until 8 PM tomorrow, and if you haven't, please do. If you need help getting to the polls tomorrow, message this page and one of my awesome team members will help you get there!

Folks - this is it. The light at the end of the tunnel's almost here, but I need your help to get this train to it. Please share this post to your friends and help get the word out about this campaign. Every one of you will be helping to elect an openly nonbinary person for the first time in Canadian history, and helping to put another truly progressive voice on Council. I'll be forever in your debt. In less than 48 hours, our ward will have a new councillor, and I really hop...e I'm fortunate enough to take the mantle. Voting for me means voting for true, systemic progress, and for a councillor who'll truly work for everyone - and who won't back down from a fight. It means voting for mobility, accessibility, and equity, and for a safer future for everyone. My Web page, http://voteophelia.ca, lays out all the details, and I'd invite you to read through it. We'll make wonderful things happen together. I've been grateful to have so many wonderful folks on my team - people like Alley and Burgess here, for instance, who helped out with delivering the pamphlets that many of you will have received in the mail this weekend. It's been a pleasure to meet so many new friends on the campaign trail, too, and to hear your visions for a better, more equitable city. I promise I'll always stand with you, listen to you, and show you honesty and dedication in return. You're all wonderful, and I'm truly glad to know you. I know many of you have already voted through the mail, but you can still drop off your completed voting kits at City Hall if you've received them, or head to one of the satellite drop-off centers on Tuesday, located at the Knights of Columbus building (St. Clare Ave) or the Pleasantville Legion. If you need help registering to vote, have questions about eligibility, or will require assistance getting to the drop-off centers, message this page and I'll personally help you get sorted. We can make this happen together! Let's transform our city! - Ophelia

Please read everything Lisa's written here. We have so much work to do on the accessibility front - and that's true at every level right up to the top. Our City needs to listen to the voices of people with accessibility needs and respond accordingly. The time to take action is now!

The tiniest supporters Thanks to Sarah, Jenne, and Mel - and their animals! - for helping me out with pamphleting this weekend! Massive thanks to the rest of our awesome pamphleting crew, too - thank you Riley, Sarah, Christine, Stephen, Philip, Bri, Nicole, Alley, Burgess, Julie, Rosanne and family, Johnny, Madison, and my wife Kayla and stepdaughter Charlotte! I'm forever in their debt. #sjpoli #nlpoli (Image description: Two small dogs are wearing harnesses adorned with buttons reading "Ophelia Ravencroft for Ward 2: Transform Your City"; a cat sits at a kitchen table festooned with campaign pamphlets and buttons.)

A moment of levity. I love sharing music and figured a few tunes could never go astray on a Saturday night, so I put this together for y'all! Would love to hear one of these from all the Ward 2 candidates! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7sdNT2HLE406RHtvXNoH59

Just picked up 10,000 of these from the fine folks at Quikprint Services Ltd.! They've done amazing work for many of us in this election - they're true unsung heroes of this campaign, and I'm thankful for their efforts. If you live in Ward 2, check your mailboxes over the weekend!

Spirit Song Festival was an unforgettable experience last year - congrats on an excellent lineup this year! Really looking forward to attending, whether it's physical or virtual.

Happy Friday, all! Good stuff for donors today! I'm pleased to announce that thanks to the kindness of one amazing donor, any donation you give to my campaign, if made with reference to this post, will be matched dollar for dollar for the rest of this election cycle (up to their individual limit of $1000, of course). Just etransfer your donation to [email protected] with password "wardtwo" and mention this post in the memo I'm also proud to announce that my full donor list is live at http://voteophelia.ca/donate, and I'll be updating it constantly. I believe transparency is essential in politics, and I'll be pushing for total donor disclosure in all future elections when I'm on Council, so it's a pleasure to put that into practise now.

I'll be parked at a corner table here at The Ship Pub & Kitchen for the next 2 hours or so, and anyone who'd like to chat is welcome to join me, whether for a minute or a half hour! It's always a delight meeting y'all, and I'll always have time to talk.

It was a pleasure to participate in the Happy City St. John's town hall last night, and I'm grateful to all my colleagues for joining us, as I am to Brad Glynn for moderating. I've shared the event video on this page, but for those who can't watch it, I'll briefly summarise my points here. In all my answers, as in everything I do, I try to focus on the ways our government, and especially its delivery of essential services, impacts marginalisation - meaning how our priorities ...and actions correspond to, or worsen, existing inequities. When issues like sidewalk snow, accessibility, affordable housing, and transit aren't handled properly, the resulting issues go well beyond those problems' face value. They don't just make it difficult to get around - they make it almost impossible for some citizens to participate in our city's life. When that happens, our economy suffers, our culture suffers, and our collective livelihood suffers. When we do wrong by those who need our help the most, we all get hurt in the end. I believe our city has much work to do in better supporting our vulnerable citizens, and I won't take apathy for an answer anymore. In my answers at this town hall, I laid out a few key priorities for how to do that: 1. Significantly improve sidewalk snow clearing by investigating new technologies and methods, generating funds through reducing handouts, and ensuring any future tax increases are used to offset the cost of improved service levels. 2. Challenge car culture, and improve mobility equity, by focusing our priorities on active and public transportation and not cars. 3. Encourage the development of affordable housing in intensification areas through collaboration with the private sector. 4. Rethink our budgeting process in accordance with more successful schemes elsewhere. Ensure that taxes taken in, including any future tax increases, are used primarily to deliver high-quality essential services that impact all residents, and that our citizens aren't obligated to fill in the gaps with their own funds. This keeps money in everyone's pocket, makes us all safer, and builds a brighter future for our city. 5. Place greater weight on public consultation feedback while ensuring that City decisions are driven not by fear or conjecture, but by evidence - of which public lived experience is one form. Ensure that the voices of marginalised citizens are given much greater weight than they currently are in our decision-making process. 6. Reshape every step of our municipal processes to better represent the wealth of diverse lived experiences our residents possess. This means ensuring intersectionally marginalised people have seats at every table and voices in every discussion - right up to Council itself. I hope this helps everyone who can't watch the video, and I'd invite anyone with questions to reach out via DM, email to [email protected], or call or text 709-699-5014. Let's transform our city together! - Ophelia

The election for Ward 2 is just around the corner! Unsure which candidate aligns best with your views? We’ve got you covered! Join us for our town hall happenin...g live NOW with Carol Furlong, Matt Howse, Lorne Loder, Gregory Noseworthy, Ophelia Ravencroft, Shawn Skinner, Greg Smith, and Wallace Ryan. See more

You know I'll be speaking here tonight! Hope y'all are able to tune in!

I'm not exaggerating when I say I wouldn't have entered politics if it wasn't for Maggie Burton. Her trailblazing work in our most recent Council has been inspirational, and her leadership has made an unquantifiable difference for our city. It's truly an honour to have her vote, and her words, as always, are worth reading. Maggie, thank you.

Folks, if I can ask you to read one thing I've written in this election, this is it. The questions the St. John's Status of Women Council/Women's Centre has asked here are really important because they go in-depth in addressing issues of intersectional marginalisation - and even though those issues impact all of us, they sometimes get ignored when we talk politics. We can't let that keep happening. I've had at least one person I talked to on the campaign trail tell me how, i...n this election, gender "doesn't matter like it did back in 2017, when people just wanted to vote for women" (paraphrased). I firmly disagree. Gender matters because it's a system that shapes our lives, and feminism matters because it's a necessary response to gender regimes' frequent inequities. People vote for women, or for trans people, or for nonbinary people because they know we've experienced those inequities firsthand, and because we know, from our diverse lived experiences, how important it is to fix them. They vote for us because they know we deserve seats at the table, and that our voices deserve to be heard. They vote for us because we're competent, intelligent, and worthy. And they vote for us because they know we belong here. Just like we belong everywhere. Just like all people of marginalised genders, people of colour, Indigenous people, sex workers, people with disabilities, trans and enby folks, queer people, and people living in poverty belong everywhere. If we stand together, we will make this world a better place for all of us even if it takes a fight. And I promise that on Council, I'll be right there fighting, too.