Listening, Learning and Finding Common Ground

For me, one of the highlights of our campaign so far has been what we’ve been calling “kitchen table conversations”. Though the name is somewhat misleading.

Last Tuesday night for example, Kitchener residents Byron & Ann hosted more than 25 friends, family and neighbours for a conversation about our campaign in their beautiful home in Central Frederick. In this case, it was over dinner in their living room.

While always hosted in someone’s home, both the size and format have been varied: from 4 - 40 people, either on a back porch or over pizza, with brunch, or over tea and brownies.

And each time, we’ve had candid conversations. I’ve had the opportunity to hear priorities from people across our community, and also to share about our campaign. Topics have run the gamut, from why I’m running at all, to why I chose to run with the Green Party, to how we expect to build a winnable campaign - along with a wide mix of policy questions, from criminal justice reform to health care to Indigenous reconciliation.

The beauty of it for me? Rather than being limited to a couple minutes at someone’s front door, these conversations are usually a couple of hours among friends and neighbours. Getting together in small groups means we can have more in-depth conversations about what is meaningful to those in the room. Often, they even feel magical, as we move closer to the best of what democracy can be about: listening to each other, learning from each other, and finding common ground.

For anyone living in Kitchener Centre interested in hosting a kitchen table conversation, please let us know here: Morrice2019.ca/join.

We’ve had about a dozen of these already, and are planning at least 15 more in June alone: these are one part of how we continue to engage more and more widely across our riding, and how we intend on building the momentum needed for a winning campaign.

-Mike