Recall in Oak Bay Gordon Head

I do not think there is much of a chance of a recall campaign working in this riding for a host of reasons

Oak Bay Gordon Head only managed to get 7266 signatures in the anti-HST petition which is significantly less than the vote for Ida Chong in 2009.  It is also less than half of what is needed to for a recall.   With 60 days and not 90 days and with a target that is much higher, there would have to be a a huge new groundswell against Ida Chong, but there is nothing to indicate this will happen.

The campaign does not focus on personal decisions or actions of Ida Chong but decisions of the whole government.   Certainly Gordon Campbell or Colin Hansen could be said to have a personal responsibility for the HST but Ida Chong is in the same boat as all the government MLAs.  There is no specific reason for anger towards her.

The recall campaigns were said to be there to push the government to change their position on the HST.   The campaign has seen the resignation of Gordon Campbell and all the candidates promise for an earlier referendum or a free vote in the legislature.   The argument for the recall campaign was to get the government to act, well they are acting, any non-partisan person will see the actions of government a reasonable response to the demands of the Anti-HST campaign.   This means it is going to very hard to get most people to sign recall on the basis of the government is not listening

The campaign looks significantly partisan.  Too many of the people involved are very publicly known New Democrats and Moe Sihota has made it clear this is a riding the NDP would like to see recall in Oak Bay Gordon Head because they can win the by-election.  The fact that Moe Sihota is wanting a recall here is going to make a lot of people on the right that signed the Anti-HST petition refuse to sign recall.  

The campaign is not being run by someone from the riding and they do not have their office in the riding and many of the canvassers are not from the riding.   This outside 'interference' is going to make some people refuse to sign the petition.

Meanwhile the MLA will be defending herself and has volunteers going door to door for her.   She is working to galvanize people not to sign.

The campaign period is December 6th to February 4th.   I am not sure who the brain trust that thought these dates made sense.   The fact the campaign goes over the Christmas break means the 60 day campaign losses five days completely and effectively losses 16 days.  Many people in Oak Bay Gordon Head with kids will be leaving town starting on December 17th and not have to return till January 2nd.  

If we take the five lost days and say the other 11 are only half effective, this means the campaign basically losses 10 days of campaign time meaning there are only 50 effective campaign days.

With 50 days and a target of 15368 signatures, this means 308 signatures a day.   Realistically the campaign needs to get at least 16,000, and ideally more like 18,000, to have any hope of reaching the target for enough signatures or 320 to 360 signatures a day.

The first 6000 signatures will be easy to get and should be in hand by the end of next week at the latest.   The next 6000 will be hard to get and will require a lot of canvassing and really needs to in hand before January 1st.   The last 6000 will be very hard to get, it will require serious door to door campaigning and a very hard sell for those that are reluctant to sign.   I do not see how the numbers can be reached.

My guess is that the recall campaign will reach 12,000 or so signatures but not manage to come close to getting the signatures needed.