Voter guides and letter campaigns: Special interest groups want your attention in this Ontario election

In the coming weeks, politicians won't be the only ones wanting to reach voters with their messages ahead of the Ontario election.

Various groups — from community grassroots organizations to national entities — will also be bending voters' ears about important issues leading up to the June 2 vote.

That's because in most cases, the groups either need provincial funding to continue to operate or they want to see the next government adopt certain policies.

Take, for example, the David Suzuki Foundation, which has launched a voter guide aimed at young people and in six different languages. 

While most people will know the foundation for being an environmentally aware organization, the foundation does not — and cannot — tell people who to vote for on June 2.

Maham Kaleem, who created the foundation's voter guide, said she was inspired, as a first-generation immigrant from Pakistan, by the fact 200 languages are spoken in Ontario.

"My friends, me included, we always go in and out of one or two languages. We speak our mother tongue at home, English with friends, and we might want to learn French on the side," she told CBC News.

The voter guide is in French, Mandarin, Urdu, Punjabi, Arabic and English. Its goal is to reach young people, and Kaleem said she hopes that means younger voters will take what they learn back to their families and have "meaningful conversations" about the election.

But, she stressed, the guides "don't talk about any party whatsoever and it is just a basic how-to on voting."

Votes will shape what's next in Ontario

Sarah Jensen said the housing crisis has impacted every corner of the province.

Jensen, 22, became an advocate for affordable housing after she and her mother moved into Castlegreen Housing Co-operative in Thunder Bay 16 years ago.

She is now a board member for the co-operative and with the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, which recently launched the Vote4Housing campaign with the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association.

She wants people to remember her story as they head to the polls.

"I know that there are many other families out there like my family, single-parent households and otherwise, that are facing an affordable housing crisis as well. And it breaks my heart to think that if this happened to us today, if we faced homelessness, my mom and I would face a 10-year wait list to get into a spot like Castlegreen," Jensen said during a recent news conference.

The campaign directs people to the Vote4Housing website, where they can fill out a form letter that calls on the next provincial government to build and protect affordable community housing. The campaign sends the filled-out letter on the voter's behalf to their local candidates.

Marlene Coffey, chief executive officer of the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association, said during the news conference that the housing crisis is having a "snowball effect" on some of the most vulnerable people in the province.

"As we head into our first election post-pandemic, votes will be more important than ever in shaping Ontario's social infrastructure and economic recovery, and what the future of our province can look like," Coffey said.

Post-pandemic priorities

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce has released a document called Voter Prosperity. Vice-president of policy Dan Safayeni said the document outlines four priorities for the chamber. It's meant for the political parties, but they hope it also sparks a conversation among voters.

"Frankly, whoever the next government turns out to be is going to have some difficult decisions on post-pandemic priorities," Safayeni said.

That includes supporting businesses facing labour shortages, rising inflation, increased energy costs and supply chain disruptions, he said.

"We feel it's important to also inform that discussion with what's top of mind for Ontario's business community. What are the business community's top priorities? How have the last couple of years shaped that thinking and informed our policy priorities going forward?"

The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) is taking a slightly different approach with the launch of the I Choose campaign. Each week, CMHA releases a new issue for people to consider, with the goal that voters will keep mental health and addictions support in mind when they go to the polls.

Helen Fishburn, chief executive officer of CMHA Waterloo-Wellington, said they've seen an increase during the pandemic in the number of people reaching out for support — a great thing, but they haven't seen any additional funding from the province.

"What we're asking for our community to do is to stand behind the needs of the people in our community that need mental health and addiction help and ask our candidates, both that are elected officials as well as those running for office, what their intentions are to better address these needs and these gaps, and what they're going to do," Fishburn said. 

Increasingly difficult to get message out

But will these campaigns, and similar ones by other groups, get lost as messages from political campaigns take over headlines? It's likely they will, said a University of Windsor political science professor, Lydia Miljan.

"Increasingly it's difficult to get the message out. I think a lot of organizations are trying to go directly to social media," Miljan said.

"That's hit and miss because you either have to have something shared to you or you have to be following somebody, and if people are fundamentally not interested in politics or even provincial politics, then they're going to miss these messages."

People may start to take notice now, though, Miljan added.

"Once the campaign starts, people do start to pay attention, if for no other reason that those lovely election signs that litter the highways and byways at least alert people to the fact that there's something going on." 

Set limits

It's also not just a provincial election on people's minds these days — with wars in Ukraine and Afghanistan, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the issues people face in their own lives.

As people are inundated with messages over the next four weeks, even those from CMHA, Fishburn said it's important to take care of yourself.

"There isn't just a light switch that turns on or off based on what we have been carrying for the past two years. People are carrying it day in and day out. It's heavy, it's overwhelming. It feels like a wet blanket on your life," she said. 

"We want people to pay attention, to name it, to seek support, to set some limits for themselves. So be careful about how much news you're taking in. Be careful about the relationships in the conversations you're having with people which can be very negative. Find ways to manage that support and manage those feelings and seek support."