After Marc Emery left prison in Saksatoon, Saskatchewan, an incredible swell of cannabis activity took place in the province.

Activists (many of which camped outside the Provincial Courthouse, holding vigil for Marc, for 62 days straight!) have started organizing and representing the cannabis culture in Saskatchewan.

Incredible work guys - keep it up! The prairie politicians will never know what hit 'em!

Post here with questions, information, updates, whatever you can contribute to the Saskatchewan Marijuana Party!

Thank you for the dedicated stickied thread Jodie, much appreciated.

The SKMP should be registered by the end of the month if all goes according to plan and also depending on how long it will take elections SK to go through te lists.

We are also going to do our best to time our registration in a politically savvy manner so as not to be overshadowed by the Gomery fallout and a snap federal election.

Cheers

Hey Psycho, Do you know if we definitely need a home address on the petition to form government papers? The majority of the people who signed my copy have only put down their postal codes..

ooh...We definitly need a land location which in any town would be a street address. Just ask some one where they would tell the fire trucks to go if their house was on fire.

If worst comes to worst, we'll see if elections SK will accept the postal code only signatures but try to ensure that you don't get any more of those.

Cheers

Yes I will try to do so. and those who I can get a hold of before the sheets go in will hopefully add their addresses. I don't know why they wouldn't accept a town name and postal code... the postal codes should give them a pretty good idea of where the person's from, and they are the government! They should be able to figure out that those people are real.

Hi guys.


I know it is late in the sig gathering game to be handing out some advice but.


My experiance with elections manitoba have been instructive.


For instance....Different returning officers have different screening methods for signatures.

One problem was persons who only put down a first initial.

John and Jane Smith both live a 123 Blueberry street. Who signed when the name reads J Smith? Questionable?


Then look at it from the Electionssask point of view.

Often Sig are illegiable.

What they do is read the voter list address column then see if the registered voters name can be decerned...lots of chicken scratches.


Then for the Rural sig......your address, here in Mb. is something like....Lot 23, Parish of St Laurent MB.


Box 123, station 23 St. Laurent is not an acceptable addreess for the same residence.....

Think of a police summons......where are they going? To the post office box or to lot 23?


Lots depends on the people who check the sigs. What willl they accept?

I learned the hard way with a stickler last election.

I turned in 135 sigs to cover the need 100 and was told the Returning officer could only find about 70 of them.

I doubted that.....So I exercized my right to challange all the rejected sigs. They were in the middle of preparing a new voters list and the last thing the Returning Officer had was someone to spare to go knock on the doors I had been to where the people told me they were eligiable voters.

My list was sent downtown and reworked by the Chief Returning Officer. The valid sigs were increased to 85. So rather than force them to go physically check rejected sigs, I went out and got 30 more of which 15 were acceptable.

I have now learned to ask people their names, first name too, and I write that down and I write the address down too. Then the chicken scrath doesn't matter.....

People who deliberatly muss their names and give one initial and the like are only causing you grief.

Pretend they were signing a check or some other legal document....because that is what they are doing....

Hope that helps for the campaign trail....


And if I may....never never ever wait until the laast moment to file papers. The first election I ran in I stood out side a popular 7-11 and gathered 150 sigs in two days.

About 60 of them were good. Phoney names, phoney addresses, you name it.....people thought they were helping....

The Returning Officer was even very nice...I turned my papers in 3 days early so I had a chance to go get 40 more valid names....I got 60 more by choosing big apartment buildings an knocking on doors.

Of those 39 were good and I had 99. Again a day early so rather than force them to check I went and got 5 more sigs right down the street from the RO's office.

The first name was good so the rest were not checked. I was in my first election.....


In the last election, a fellow decides to run in rural mb.

He puts a lot of time and trouble into it.....but friends helping gather sigs are waiting till the last minute....

I begged him to file early.....He had it all under control.


He gets his sigs from his buddies and faxes them into electionsmb....at 11 am with the nonination closing at 1 pm. They get back to him at 20 to 1 and ask where his cover page is? That's the top sheet you fill out and your campaing manager signs it....he races home, races back to the fax and electionmb gets it at 1:02 pm. The nominationation were closed at 1:00 pm and that was that. He was out!

Don't wait to the last minute....there is always some little overlooked detail....

Here in mb 2 elections ago, the Lierals did not have a full slate either....they were 2 short....one guy handed in his papers without his campaign manager sig and was disqualified and some other small mistake cost the other person her chance.....

Remind candidates to file early so as to have a chance to correct any flaws or whatever....

I think were over the 3000 mark now, so if they want to check on the people I say go ahead. lol
Who knows we might have 20,000 by the time we turn it in, lots of old hippies came here for the cheap housing, $500-5000 for some.
Bring the lists around and I'll help find the addies using a reverse directory.

Ya alot of sigs are no good thats the word marijuana that scares them off.I must have collected over 300-400 for my 100 and that was alot of fun .If it aint right they wont count it thats just the way it goes but i would let anybody sign even had a native inuit sign in triangles and circles.
Just keep the word speading and cheers in your pursuit of happiness.

Thanks for the input Chris. To be honest, I have been worried that many of our sigs may be considered invalid but most every one who has signed my sheets have done so in a manner which is satisfactory (I think) to an elections officer. Sides, elections SK does not yet maintain a voters list and when I asked them how they checked signatures, all I got were very vague and non definitive answers which suggests to me that they are most likely checking signatures of this nature in an "if it looks right, it probably is" kind of manner.

Also, we are not filing last minute as an election in SK is most likely a ways away. Looking into the future, we plan to start recruiting candidates as quickly as is possible after a leadership/policy convention is held. Your warnings hold very true of course. I filed my nomination papers in Winnipeg when running for mayor only to find out that I was about 50 valid signatures short despite my having a bunch more then was needed. I waited till last minute just to be there when the press was there. They found me…asked me a few questions but not only was I out of an election for mayor, I was out of the news as soon as my name failed to appear on the list of nominated candidates.

Cheers

Electionssk will use the last voters list available to check sigs.

Best to straighten out the definition of eligible voter.

Here in Manitoba, I was told and eligible voter was someone who's name appears on the voting list. Neat eh!

Lots of people move between elections.

I got used to asking people if they knew if they were on the list or not. The politcally astute usually knew.

Got to the point I put a litte astrike by the for sures and left the if's blank. There were a lot of blanks.

Lots of people don't even know if their Canadian never mind on the voters list.