The Candidate-Team Playbook
Offered identically to every campaign in both by-elections — that identical offer is the whole point.
One playbook, delivered identically to every candidate in both races — the federal by-election in Beaches–East York (voting day Monday, August 31) and the provincial by-election in Scarborough Southwest (voting day Thursday, September 3). Same document, same links, same offer, no exceptions. Whoever takes it up, takes it up on equal footing.
What this network is
Beaches–East York Mutual Aid Networks — "BEY Mutual Aid" — is neighbours meeting each other's needs directly: a public directory of the help that already exists in the riding; daily in-person Hub Hours at each of the riding's TTC stations, morning to late evening, all 14 days of the sprint; an ask-and-offer loop where a volunteer matches each need to an offer, and block circles of about ten households each. It runs on solidarity, not charity: no proof of need, no eligibility tests, no line between the helpers and the helped. The two-minute version is the one-page explainer, MUTUAL_AID_101 — please read it before anything else here.
The non-partisan floor
This part is not negotiable, and it protects your campaign as much as it protects the network.
The network itself wears no colours — but you can wear yours. Come in your campaign shirts; so will your rivals, and that mixed-colour table is exactly the point: every team working the same problem, side by side, in the open — and the team that mobilizes hardest is the most visible, earned fairly. What stays outside network spaces: campaign literature, signs, pitches, recruitment, and list-building. The space belongs to the neighbours; the work is the message. One exception, non-negotiable: on the needs walk and any outreach to vulnerable neighbours, no campaign colours — nobody in crisis should wonder whether help comes with a vote attached.
Your volunteers are welcome — colours and all. Anyone on your team joins exactly the way any resident joins, wearing whatever they like. What they don't do inside network spaces: canvass, pitch, or collect names or contacts for the campaign. The work is shared; the lists are not.
Everything is identical for everyone. Every candidate in both races receives this playbook, the same public invite link, and the same offers, on the same terms. The network endorses nobody, and publishes nothing about any campaign beyond the plain fact of who engaged with an open, equal offer.
What your team CAN do
Plenty, and it is real work.
Share the public invite link. It is the same link every team and every resident has. Put it in your volunteer channels, your newsletter, your conversations. Sharing it doesn't claim the network for you; it helps your neighbours find it.
Bring what you hear at the doors into the loop — with consent. Your canvassers hear real needs every day. When a resident names a need the network could help with, ask them directly: "There's a neighbourhood mutual aid network that matches needs with offers — may I pass this along so someone follows up?" If yes, pass it to the network's intake. If no, it goes nowhere. Never pass along a name, address, or need without the resident's explicit consent. This is the most valuable thing a campaign team can contribute: you are already talking with more residents in a week than the network will meet in a month.
Host a listening hour. Any of your volunteers can convene a neighbourhood listening hour in their own name — a room, some chairs, an hour of neighbours saying what they need and what they can offer. The network provides the kit and the method; the host convenes as a neighbour. It is a neighbourhood event, hosted by someone who happens to volunteer for you — not a campaign event, and it cannot be advertised as one.
The one ask of every candidate
Come to one Hub Hour. Listen for one hour. Give no speech.
That is the entire ask, and it is the same ask made of every candidate in both races. No remarks, no literature, no staged photos. Sit with your neighbours, hear what people actually need, and leave having listened. A candidate who does this learns more about the riding in one hour than any briefing will teach them.
About money — plain language
The network spends no money on any candidate or campaign — nothing that could ever be counted as an election expense, a contribution, or a favour. It goes further than that: the network holds no money at all. No fund, no float, no donations account. If anyone — including your supporters — wants to give money, we route them to three long-standing local organizations with their own donation rails and their own receipts: Community Centre 55, Eastview Neighbourhood Community Centre, and the Salvation Army East Toronto Corps. The half-page rule is at NO_MONEY_RULE_CARD. If any question about money and this network ever feels unclear, the answer is: the network doesn't touch it.
One boundary on this document itself: nothing in it is legal advice. What your campaign says in its own channels, spends, or reports is governed by election law and your campaign's own compliance rules — that judgment stays with your team and your counsel, not with this network.
Where the calendar lives
The two-week orchestration calendar — what happens when, and what a team of five volunteers can contribute each week in under three hours — is THE_PULL_TOGETHER_STRATEGY.