The Hot Pink Paper Campaign
The Hot Pink Paper Campaign (HPPC) is how WTC amplifies the voices of communities who are otherwise not heard in the election process. Through this campaign we hold the Mayor and council to account on their commitments to make Vancouver a city where everyone can thrive.
In the lead up to the municipal election, WTC runs deep engagement with community groups and organizations to identify the priority municipal issues for women, girls, and other equity-seeking genders in Vancouver for the upcoming election. We prioritize hearing from groups who are systematically excluded and oppressed from democratic processes. We synthesize all the important information we have heard into a list of policies asks for candidates running for Mayor and Council with the question: Will you commit to implementing this if you are elected?
We use the HPPC to challenge public discussion and debate around city issues and centre the folks who need the city to work for them most.
See our 2022 Policy Asks
As part of our Hot Pink Paper Campaign, Women Transforming Cities developed eight policy asks for Mayor and Council candidates in the 2022 Vancouver election.
A Four Year Campaign
Once elected, we keep the Mayor and City Council focused on making Vancouver a city where everyone can belong through regular engagement and monitoring of council agendas. We communicate their successes and highlight work that still needs to be done. We hold elected officials accountable to the commitments they made during the election process and make ourselves available to help support that work.
Our Watch Council group speaks at council meetings, sends letters, meets with councillors and organizes campaigns on key issues.
The Impact of the HPPC
We ran the HPPC in two previous municipal elections in Vancouver and know it works. Learn more about our previous Hot Pink Paper Campaigns here.
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The campaign keeps the issues that impact genders made-marginalized at the forefront of election issues
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Provides council with the blueprints and references needed to embed intersectionality within bylaws, motions, and decision-making
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It gets results - councillors have told us that this campaign raises issues they otherwise wouldn’t have considered, and knowing that WTC is following decisions made at council holds them accountable during their term
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The campaign helps residents make informed decisions when voting by providing accessible information to rally around issues that matter the most
Our Timeline
The HPPC has seven key phases leading up to the elections in October.
Initial Strategizing Phase
In this first stage we organized our volunteers in teams and began strategizing which organizations we could engage to better understand the needs and potential asks of our future 2022 elected officials. We researched current candidate positions and motions that the city has already committed to.
We also wrote a Letter to the Editor that was published in the Vancouver Sun about the historic (and current) lack of women (or people who experience gender oppression) running for Council and Mayor.
Wise Group Consultation
In this phase, we collaborated with a variety of different community organizations to understand what issues are most important to each of their groups. Think of this stage as the start of the the data collection phase that will later inform the Hot Pink Paper we hand out to each candidate.
We learned about the issues that different communities throughout Vancouver are facing and various themes were repeated throughout these meetings.
In this stage we developed and fostered relationships with diverse organizations throughout the city and hold meetings to better understand how to thoughtfully engage with the needs of each community.
Community Organizer Consultations
We held four different Dialogue Cafes in which we listened to community organizers and activists that are leaders on topics like safety, housing, prosperity & income, civic participation, and movement & mobility.
These virtual presentations followed by discussions with community members allowed us to further understand the lived experiences and ideas of the variety of folks from equity-deserving genders.
We also sent out a comprehensive community survey to over 300 diverse participants to better understand what equity-deserving genders' priority issues are in this upcoming municipal election. Our outreach during this stage included boothing at community hubs like South Vancouver Family Center and Britannia Community Centre's Intercultural Market to connect directly with community members. Our HPPC survey closed at the end of May.
Data Crunch
We have analyzed the data gathered by our community survey as well as the feedback we received holding our Dialogue Cafes. Our community feedback formed our eight policy asks that have been sent to each party running in the municipal election.
Hot Pink Paper
The results from each of these surveys are here, complete with party commitments, organization endorsements, and backgrounders that explain why these policies are so vital to creating a Vancouver that works for us all. Head to our policy ask page here to read all about it.
Stay up to date on our campaign stages by signing up for our Hot Pink Paper Campaign mailing list.
Follow us on social media and send a message or reach out to us via hotpinkpapercampaign@womentransformingcities.org to ask any questions you may have or learn more about this process.
WTC has also developed a five step toolkit that walks you through how to put on your own intersectional municipal campaign for an election. Visit the links below to see the toolkit!
