From left: Former MP James Moore, Laureen Harper and local Conservative candidates Tim Laidler and Doug Horne on the training route Terry Fox used while preparing for his cross-country run, in Port Moody, B.C., on Sunday.Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press
Political parties are ramping up the "ground war" in British Columbia, putting their resources into get-out-the vote campaigns that can make the difference in the critical provincial battleground leading up the federal election on Oct. 19.
"This will be the election where more attention is paid to get out the vote than any other election in Canadian history, because we've never seen any circumstance like this," said Bill Tieleman, a former NDP strategist and president of consultancy West Star Communications in Vancouver.
The voting results of battleground B.C. will be key to which party forms government after election day. Parties in the province are focused on getting more of their supporters out to vote than their competitors, helping them win ridings closely divided between the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP, and in some areas on Vancouver Island, four ways with the Green party.
"It's getting pretty intense on the doorstep. People from every party are knocking on doors," said Arie Ross, an organizer for advocacy group the Dogwood Initiative. The group is running a third-party campaign for voter turnout to "elect MPs who will stand up for our province, defend our coast from oil tankers and help rebuild our democracy," according to the campaign website.
Ms. Ross said at least half of the people contacted by her team have reported they are undecided on who they plan to vote for, and that she's heard circumstantially that the Conservatives are running a strong door-knocking campaign.
"I know there's a pretty big presence at the door from Conservatives," she said. "They saw in the polls that B.C. was leaning away from them, so they're really ramping up."
Nanos Research polling for The Globe and Mail showed NDP support at 36.7 per cent support in B.C. as of Sept. 28. The Conservatives had 33.2 per cent support and the Liberals had 22.9 per cent. (The margin of error is plus or minus 7.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.)
Vancouver-Granville is considered a particularly tight, three-way race. In the riding the other day, Mr. Tieleman said he was driving down 16th Avenue and saw NDP, Liberal and Conservative signs consecutively lined up on neighbouring lawns.
Other close races are seen in Burnaby North-Seymour, Vancouver South, North Okanagan-Shuswap, and South Surrey-White Rock.
Delta is considered another close contest, where Conservative cabinet minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay is running for re-election. She was criticized for skipping an all-candidates meeting in September, the same weekend her organizers said she was out knocking on about 300 doors.
The parties are using volunteers as well as hired canvassers to make contact with previous supporters to make sure they get out to vote.
Political parties' databases can also identify households that are not likely to vote for them, and Elections Canada has warned its staff to watch for sophisticated voter suppression tactics such as those that have surfaced in the United States, the Canadian Press reported this month.
Social media is also playing a role. New technology helps parties build direct voter contact databases and campaign mobilization software like NationBuilder allows them to contact supporters via social media and text message. Many B.C. voters will receive text messages from their favoured political parties on election day, reminding them to vote.
"There's no question that you have to absolutely get every single checkmark out to vote for your candidate," Mr. Tieleman said, adding that NDP is strong in door-knocking, phone calls, and automated calling. "There's probably no more important factor if you're effectively in voter-to-voter combat."
Parties are also urging their supporters to vote early in advance polls so that they have fewer people to try to reach on election day.
Bruce Young, the Liberal party's B.C. campaign co-chair, said Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau's leadership has drawn a lot of new, young volunteers who are working on getting out the votes of Liberal supporters and engaging with undecided voters to pull them to the party.
Mr. Young said he's never seen a better ground team for the Liberals, adding that by the end of September he estimated the party would make half a million door or phone contacts with voters.
"We've got a guy out in Delta who's one of our strongest canvassers. [He's] 81 years old and out there chopping it every single day," Mr. Young said. "That is inspirational."
Party signs are a good indication of the parties' strength on the ground, said Greg Lyle, a former campaigner for various parties who lives in B.C. as head of the Innovative Research Group polling firm. He said the NDP appeared to be leading in signs from the start of the campaign while the Conservatives and Liberals were slow getting them out.
The Green party is also mobilized on the ground, Mr. Lyle said, which could further divide votes on the left in Vancouver Island ridings. "For the Conservatives, anything that splits the progressive vote is good news," he said.