Maybe this is a controversial opinion based on today in #YEG Twitter. But I don’t think you need a formal platform to announce your candidacy for #yegcc. That idea is harmful to encouraging underrepresented communities to run & could result in harmful, under consulted policy.

There’s a # of #yegcc candidates I’m excited to watch & they’ve posted on here that they need team members. Building a team takes time & you need people to know you’re running to do it. If you’re not surrounded by marketing, comms, data etc folx you need to recruit publicly.

Next, to develop thoughtful policy requires research, data, consultation and much more. To be able to get support to do that you need a team and/or the knowledge that you’re seriously running to have those deep dive conversations.

I’m not saying whether or not the candidates everyone is talking about is doing all of this. But running for office has previously required an immense amount of privilege. We’re gonna have to get used to some changes to how it happens to genuinely support new candidates.

But to be 100% clear, I will not support candidates who are racist, homophobic or any other bullshit like that. Whether or not they are new to running.