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The three purposefully pedantic Canucks behind FactsCan hope to launch well before the federal vote expected in October, but they first need a few more loonies to finish the site and cover start-up costs.

The trio has never actually met in person. Toronto-based Wagner connected with B.C.-based Jacob Shroeder and Ottawa’s Tyler Sommers through mutual Facebook friends. They all wanted to bring more truth and hard, measurable evidence to the political arena. And, they hope that launching FactsCan will spur other Canadians to get involved and volunteer their time and expertise.

“There’s a big gray area between black and white, and our analyses will take be taking context into account. That’s our commitment to depth and fairness,” she said.

And she even demonstrated her commitment to the site’s independence in the process of the story: she emailed to clarify that one of the founders (Sommers) briefly held a provincial conservative party membership about a decade ago, after initially saying all three have been life-long non-partisans.

And it seems Canadians have a ready appetite for facts: An IndieGoGo crowdsource project launched Tuesday has already raised over $1,200 of the $5,000 they are seeking.

Wagner said they are looking for “a lot of volunteers. From all over the country, from all types of backgrounds. The heavy lifting is in the reporting: the scanning, researching, writing and editing.”

FactsCan won’t just be another place for partisan parsing to migrate. Wagner said contributors, “will be vetted. We’ve got some unbreakable rules, a big one being that they will not join our team if they’ve got ties to a political party.”