You'nity - Being progressive requires progress.

I've always wanted to write a letter - part love letter, part tough-love letter - to my fellow citizens. Here it is.

I'm going to start with the voters, because politicians take their cues from us;

More importantly, so do our kids.

When you scream at, denigrate and devalue people who don't think like you do, you're not part of the problem - YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

Now, with that in mind; to be truly progressive, you have to actually make progress, and we can't do that while we're busy tearing each other down.

I want to pass on some wise words I got from Leo, a Covenant House worker; "Blame is of the past, Mark. Responsibility is of the future. Go be mad for five minutes without speaking, then it's time to go figure out what you're going to do to fix it."

Some basic precepts of You'nity;

• We win or lose, live or die, progress or stagnate, as a planet, one race, one team.

• Good ideas don't just come from people who look and think like you.

• You can't get people to change their mind by yelling at them.

• Nobody is important enough to take away anyone else's humanity.

Maybe it's because I was raised on the politics of the 1980s where Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien, John Turner, Ed Broadbent, Kim Campbell, nearly everyone had a sense of humour, which stems from great intelligence...but I wonder when we all got so self-important, so scared of 'the other guy', when it got so damn hard just to exchange ideas.

I'm going to get back to that. Me. Myself. Responsible for only me. You should too, but that's up to you.

I will start by extending an offer to all of you, especially my fellow candidates; next election, let's get together with all of Windsor at a mutual and neutral community fundraiser - maybe for the Alzheimer's Society, for the GoodFellas, whatever we want - the day the writ drops, let's be the first to sign each others' nomination papers.

No hate. No fear. No politics. Just good humans wishing each other nothing but the best as we run TOGETHER.

My team will pledge, this election, to treat every member of every candidate's team with not just respect but kindness; we'll ask each other the tough questions, disagree with passion but civility, no personal attacks, no sign-stealing, nothing but politics the old-fashioned way.

Will you - candidates and voters - join me in a new climate of respect and Canadian co-operation?

See you out there.

Mark