This is an archived comment posted by Alex Matan. You can view the original here.

Isn't it interesting that your initial platform on feds.ca makes no mention of ennumerating and empowering students on municipal, provincial, and federal levels? Once Chris Edey's ideas with regards to this began to receive praise, it seems that you have been quick to jump on the bandwagon. Could you please try and make your policy thefts less blatant in the future?

For one, I didn't even mention municipal enumeration strategies in my post, which is where students have the most trouble getting registered. The question was about how I would ensure accessibility, which falls into the provincial and federal domains. There are pretty much four options to engage these domains: lobbying, voting, participation in political parties, and protesting. I talked about getting the vote out, but that is hardly a novel idea (we're all doing it right now to try to win the Feds election), so you can't claim that was stolen. I went into detail about using some novel affordances to actually get people to go to the voting stations on election day, which Chris' platform did not discuss, so you can't claim that was stolen. I went further and discussed another option that I don't think anyone has brought up, which was providing incentives for students to become active in political parties, and you can't claim that was stolen either.

Although I made no mention of municipal enumeration in that post, as it was not related to the topic, I have openly talked about having student volunteers enumerate voters in the past. Right now I have to go to City Hall during business hours with proof of address in order to register, while landowners are automatically enroled. Great way to disenfranchise students and the poor, both of which are groups who don't own land and don't have the time to visit City Hall. I've discussed this with Ryan O'Connor last term over lunch.

I can't put every idea I have and every possible answer to any possible question in a 1000 word statement. Chris probably has ideas to actually get people to the voting stations as well (or can just as easily come up with them), and I can accept that they are not in his platform, since he only has 1000 words as well. The platform is a distillation of the agenda/vision you want to put forward, and that's it. I was asked by a poster on UWS a question about ensuring accessibility, it was not directly related to my platform but I still had an answer, and I have a right to provide it.

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