A different kind of Canadian federal election view from Josh Lieblein [Video]

Welcome to Doorstep Postings, a collection of election-adjacent observations, brought to you by The Canadian Jewish News.

I’m Josh Lieblein, and for 15 years I’ve knocked doors, driven signs, made calls, waved things at passing cars on the side of the road, attended a couple of International Plowing Matches, asked planted questions, ridden on campaign buses, accumulated a collection of candidate-branded T-shirts I won’t wear anywhere except to sleep, embedded myself in deepest rural Ontario and in city-based locales where no English is spoken—also in Ontario—at all three levels of governance. 

Think of me as a sort of shaliach tzibur, an almost-nameless community representative, poor in worthy deeds, yet for some inexplicable reason given the chance to speak at length and at large.

No political operation can exist without invisible armies of people like me, and as much as some like to believe that well-run governments are the sole products of heroic leaders exerting their rare talents, those leaders …