I want to help (re-)create a National Council that fully understands its own constitutional role as a primary governance body within the Conservative Party and is determined robustly to fulfil that role. Specifically (but not exhaustively), I shall work to ensure that:
- National Council conducts substantive and meaningful reviews of Conservative Fund Canada’s budgets, financial reports, and financial statements, and ensures that its financial report to the delegates at a national convention is subject to proper scrutiny and interrogation (Constitution 9.2, 9.3, 9.9).
- National Council develops and implements rules and procedures to ensure fair and effective candidate recruitment and selection, making certain that a nomination schedule is published well in advance of the process, that it begins and ends early in the life of each Parliament, and that throughout the process the constitutional rights of EDAs are upheld (5.1, 14.2) and all nomination applicants are treated justly.
- National Council develops “rules and procedures for any national convention of the Party” (7.3) that are consistent with the tasks that the National Constitution and Policy Committees are constitutionally mandated to carry out from the beginning until the end of their terms of office (Constitution, 13 and 16).
- National Council proactively engages in direct regular communication with electoral district associations and members to ensure accountability (6.1.2), not least in the timely distribution of the minutes of its meetings (8.9).
- National Council ensures that each EDA has access at all times to its own membership list, enabling it to operate in reality (rather than merely theoretically), as “the primary organization through which the rights of members are exercised” (5.1).
- National Council also proactively encourages communication among EDAs nationally, both by ensuring that each has access to up-to-date lists of electoral district association presidents within their own provinces and territories and beyond, and by recognizing/renewing its recognition of Presidents’ Forums that allow for regular contact among EDA presidents (3.1.14, 11.1).
In other words, my campaign is about restoring National Council to the position envisaged for it in our Constitution - strong in governance "in the interests of all members” (8:17) , and
actively promoting the kind of grassroots, Conservative democracy that contributes to “the goal of building a national coalition of people who share [Conservative] beliefs” (2.1.2).
But why should you trust me to keep my promises? Click here to find out.