Selling freedom is what Freedom Party is all about!

That statement was the major theme of my message last issue and this time round, I'd like to expand and clarify our approach to marketing freedom by once again concentrating on our three primary goals: (1) recruiting & fundraising, (2) literature, and (3) visibility.

Let me begin by first reporting on our progress in each area, and while so doing, I hope that it will become clear as to how our activities of the past few months relate to our over all objective of 'selling' freedom.

I imagine that there are those who might consider the response to our first newsletter mailing somewhat disappointing --- if they were prone to holding idealistic expectations. But the theory mentioned last issue (i.e., where a small number of events account for 90% of the results, etc.) held quite true, and on the basis of this realistic expectation, I was most satisfied with the result: a 5 % response rate contributed over 2,000 fresh dollars to our freedom fund.

Those dollars more than adequately provided for our operational expenses, the purchase of our computer facility, the publishing and mailing of our newsletters and issue papers, and for expenditures relating to the setting-up (signs, stationery, stamps, etc.) of our headquarters in London. We are left with our cash resources on a sound footing, and with your continued financial support, the potential for some remarkable headway in the coming months is on the horizon.

It is our intention, of course, to improve this response rate in future. Because the time and effort required to satisfactorily follow up (i.e., letter writing, phoning, etc.) each solicitation for support had to be balanced against the time and effort required to achieve some degree of success in our other major goal areas, we may have lagged a bit behind in this regard.

But our current situation is partly self-correcting. Many of our administrative activities (and some political ones too) were on 'one-time-only' basis, particularly those that related to setting up our offices in London, the transferring of membership and support lists to our own computer system, the re-registration and de-registration of various constituency associations, etc. Since these activities are largely behind us, we are now in a better position to place some emphasis on organizing the growing number of volunteers who have offered their time to work on membership drives and solicitation follow ups.

Most of these 'volunteers', incidentally, contacted us as a result of our efforts expended in making ourselves visible in the community; so naturally, our success rate in other goal areas is also critical to the level of success that we may ultimately expect in financial and volunteer support.

Hopefully, you've already noticed our enclosures: five issue papers, a freedom fund soliciation for support (please fill out and return!), and a pamphlet describing how to set up a constituency association. Though the purpose of the latter two enclosures is somewhat self-evident, the purpose of our issue papers may not be. There should have been five enclosed with this newsletter: Freedom!, Censorship: In a 'free' society?, Taxation and You, Healthcare: The Hawkesbury Solution, and The Failure of the Welfare State.

Please be aware that these are issue papers, not policy papers. As a general rule, they are designed to offer our perspective on certain identified issues and to market our political point of difference from the other political parties we must compete with.

'Freedom Party believes that the purpose of government is to protect your freedom of choice, not to restrict it.' --- That's the marketing statement our issue papers are designed to deliver. Wherever possible, these papers will concentrate on a single aspect of a single issue. So it won't be unusual for us to have several issue papers, say, on healthcare, where each paper concentrates on a single principle, or example of alternatives to big government.

We have approximately thirty issue papers on the drawing boards as of this printing, of which about a dozen are currently in production. Subjects include aspects of: deficits, pensions, unemployment, inflation, pollution, rights, the law, racism, pornography, lobby groups, education, interest rates, labour and unions, free trade, etc...

Beneath it all, every issue paper will emphasize the most critical issue that we would like to see addressed in the political forum --- our freedom of choice.

Any issue paper is available to members and supporters on request.

The manner in which we choose to market our literature is critical to the identity of Freedom Party. Our issue papers, combined with our 'action-oriented' pamphlets, are the things that will provide the public and our supporters with the most concrete evidence that Freedom Party exists. We will welcome any criticism or suggestion offered to improve our product, so please don't hesitate to let us know what you think about our approach. Improvements will be implemented with every re-print or update of an issue paper or pamphlet.

When Freedom Party established its headquarters in London, it was our expectation that such a move would make it easier (than Toronto) to gain media access and coverage. Judging by the media attention focused on us over the past few months, we were right.

London is, by and large, a community quite receptive to the ideology inherent in freedom, despite what appears to be a lack of such support being reflected in the voting pattern of the electorate, a pattern which, of course, can only be based on the current availability of political alternatives.

Being headquartered in London also gives us the unique opportunity of sharing our provincial ridings with political heavyweights like David Peterson (Liberal Party leader) and Gordon Walker (Conservative Secretary of Justice; former Minister of Industry & Trade). During an election, any attention focused on them will be bound to have a residual effect on us. Radio access programs in the London area are available in such abundance that we simply don't have the manpower or time to fully utilize them --- despite the fact that we already have about fifty hours of commentary and debate recorded. These discussions will soon be edited on to Freedom Party cassette tapes, and will soon be available to members through purchase or borrow options.

Undoubtedly, the big issue that dropped into our laps at the beginning of the year was censorship. When the Fraser Committee on Pornography & Violence held its hearings in London, Freedom Party was there to make its presentation (copies are available; please inquire), and it got us a lot of attention. Within a period of two weeks, Freedom Party was mentioned no less that four times in conjunction with local front-page news articles.

During that same time period, I had the opportunity to publicly debate the ethics of censorship with Ontario's Censor Board chairman Mary Brown and to confront Liberal Party leader David Peterson on the same issue.

The residual attention on our activity culminated when Freedom Party became the focus of a three-quarter page article on Ontario's political parties. Though almost every aspect of that coverage was somewhat out of context, it nonetheless served its purpose of making us visible in the community and thus helped enhance the party's credibility. Considerable television and radio coverage accompanied the press coverage.

Freedom Party activist Marc Emery got his fair share of media attention as well --- including a nearly full-page profile on his history as an activist against big government. I leave it to the reader to draw his or her own conclusions from its content.

The one thing that appears certain is that there are more people who have heard of Freedom Party today than knew of it yesterday, and our continued public exposure will only serve to enhance both our identity and our credibility in the future. And plans are in the works.

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Page last updated on April 28, 2002