How to Engage Your Candidates

Knowing who your candidates are, what they stand for, and their intentions for the arts and culture is instrumental when deciding who to vote for. As your direct link to the federal government, the winning candidate in your riding has the ability to table issues and increase the importance of arts and culture in federal decision-making. Follow them on social media and in the news to keep in touch with what they are up to. Also, it is useful to follow the major parties and their leaders on social media to stay up to date on their general policies and initiatives, as well as their campaigns during the election period.

To see the day-to-day details of your current MP's activity, go to openparliament.ca.

Hearing from your candidates is as important as them hearing from you! Let them know why they should care about arts and culture. When you discuss with them, include a link to our Quick Arts Facts, or cite a couple yourself!

Find your candidate

You can find who your local candidates are by entering your postal code under "my voter information" on the Elections Canada website.

You can also find your candidates by party. The parties' websites often list some information about each candidate, as well as links to their websites and social media pages. The direct links to each party's candidate finder are below:

Conservatives | Liberals | NDP | Green

If you are wondering where the leaders are on the campaign trail, CBC has a great tool for tracking where they are and what they are announcing.  Click here to Track the Leaders. 

Questions for Candidates

Now that you know who is running in your riding, you are ready to start learning about them and their ideas about arts and culture. Following are some questions that you can ask to get things started off. Make sure to help us all stay informed by sharing what you learn on social media with the hashtags #artsvote, #elxn42, and #cdnpoli.

1. Getting the conversation started.

  • What is your vision for the arts and culture in our riding?
  • What role do you see the arts and culture playing in our riding under your party? In Canada?

2. Learning about the plan for arts and culture.

  • What specific things will your government do to maintain and improve the contribution that the arts and culture make in our riding? In Canada? 
  • This is a good point to tell your candidate a bit about the contribution that the arts and culture sector makes. Head to our Quick Arts Facts to find out more.

3. Finding out about key issues.

  • What is your party’s view on investments into the Canada Council for the Arts?
  • What steps will your party take to support the creation, distribution, and sale of Canadian artistic content domestically and internationally? What will your party do to increase cross-provincial and international market access?
  • What are your party’s intentions for the future of our public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation?
  • What are your party’s intentions towards Aboriginal artists and art in Canada? What will your party do to improve the position of Aboriginal artists and art?

4. Opening the floor.

  • Are there any other parts of your party’s platform related to the arts and culture that you would like to share?
  • Are there any other steps that you will take in our riding to improve the state of arts and culture?

In addition to sharing what you learn with your community, friends, and peers, we encourage you to let us know what your candidates had to say so that we can keep this toolkit as up to date as possible. Tweet at us @alliancearts or post on our Facebook page!