Engaging Members About the Future of Party Policy

With thousands of active members across the province, gathering the Ontario Liberal Party’s (OLP) membership for policy development discussions is no small task.

The OLP traditionally brought its members together through a combination of in-person meetings and a written submission process. 

But when the COVID 19 pandemic hit in 2020, the face-to-face gatherings that the party traditionally relied on were no longer an option. The OLP needed to find a new way to engage its members online as it developed its 2022 election platform. 

“It was incredibly important to the leader and the party administration to engage our members across the province in a really grassroots way,” the OLP shared. “It’s an important aspect for any political party to give its members a seat at the table when you’re having conversations about public policy development.”

Because of the variety of experiences people were having during the pandemic and different levels of comfort with digital technology amongst the membership, it was essential to the OLP that their online engagement process was as equitable and accessible as possible. 

They also wanted a process that would let members engage in theme-based policy discussions that would capture people’s attention and spark conversations instead of a more open-ended ideation approach. 

“It was about putting some high-level, mission-oriented statements in front of people and being able to capture their feedback based on everything that’s been going on in the past year and a half in their lives,” the OLP explained. 

Real-time feedback from thousands of members

The OLP team chose Ethelo as the best platform for engaging its membership in online policy discussions. 

“The Ethelo technology served as a platform to be able to have these conversations and get a report with data at the end that told us what people said and thought.” they shared. 

They were also happy with Ethelo’s real-time feedback capability and the ability to see what did or didn’t get support.  

“We got some great real-time feedback about some of the big issues people are concerned about, like long-term care, education, and managing a global pandemic.” 

Ethelo also created space for people who might not otherwise be heard to share ideas and have those opinions considered by other party members. 

And with more than 6,000 participants engaging in English and French, the OLP says their membership loved the platform. 

“Some of the folks that work on the campaign team are pollsters, so they have a better sense of uptake and participation rates. They’re all satisfied with the level of engagement we got across the party membership.”