Some conservatives predict that this will be the largest number of Canadians who have ever joined a political party at some point in Canadian history.
Many Conservative Party of Canada sources say that since the current race to elect a new party leader began, more than 400,000 people have joined the party, renewed their membership or are existing members, entitling them to vote in the leadership race. .
“There is an unprecedented interest in joining the Conservative Party of Canada,” party president Rob Butterson told CBC News.
“I think people are really motivated right now in this post-pandemic period. They are interested in getting involved in politics and changing things in Canada, “said Melanie Paradis, a Conservative veteran.
Butterson would not confirm the figure of 400,000 or reveal the current number of party members. The deadline for enrolling new members to vote in the leadership race is today. Memberships can be purchased online until 23:59 ET, while all other new memberships must be obtained at the Conservative Party headquarters by 17:00 ET.
Butterson said he did not expect the final calculation to be confirmed until many days later.
“There is a process to challenge names on the list,” he said. “That’s why we don’t reveal numbers until after the deadline, because we want to make sure we get accurate information in the public domain.”
When Justin Trudeau won the Liberal leadership in 2013, the party had 127,000 registered members.
“There is a lot of lagging behind”
In 2020, the CPC set a record for new and existing members in the 269,469 leadership race. Party insiders say this year’s competition is expected to significantly exceed that number.
Butterson said he expects the final number to increase significantly in the last few days before the break on Friday, as campaign teams themselves often apply for a large number of new memberships.
“Sometimes campaigns are delayed, so we need to be prepared for a significant influx before June 3,” he said.
Butterson said the party had to extend its processing hours to nights and weekends to accommodate all new members.
Paradis said the party was lagging behind in processing membership. “As a result, there is a lot of backlog,” she said. “I understand that there is now a one-month delay, which is significant.”
Butterson insisted the party would do everything possible to ensure that a new leader is announced on September 10th.
As the deadline expired, all six candidates tried to register supporters via social media and in person.
Conservative MP Pierre Poaliever is visiting St. John’s, the Netherlands, to gather support for his candidacy for party leadership. (Mark Quinn / CBC)
Addressing a huge crowd in Saskatoon on Tuesday night, candidate Pierre Poalievre encouraged his supporters to get their neighbors, friends and family members to sign up.
Candidate Leslin Lewis was in St. John’s on Wednesday night. She told CBC News that she continues to see new faces in her travels around the country.
“There are various problems where people gravitate towards those people who have the courage to talk about these issues,” she said, citing, among other things, her opposition to vaccine mandates.
“These issues are important for the people and we see that people from different parties are gravitating towards candidates who will discuss them.
Patrick Brown delivered his message to Montreal on Wednesday night for a dinner hosted by the Muslim community. This was just one of about 20 membership sale events that Brown holds daily.
“Help me change the political debate in our country,” Brown told dozens of supporters who had gathered to hear him speak.
Jean Charest addressed the audience during the launch of his Conservative Party of Canada leadership campaign at the Wildrose Brewery in Calgary, AB on March 10, 2022 (Oseremen Irete / CBC)
Jean Charest spent most of the week on social media and personally worked on the phones.
“We’ve sold membership to every ride in Canada,” Charest campaign spokesman Lawrence Toth told CBC News.
“The effectiveness of the vote is key. We focused on registering new and dropped members in each ride in all regions.
“We are extremely pleased with our sales, we have re-engaged and registered thousands of new members and thousands of people who have not participated since the years of the Harper government.
“In particular, we are excited to see a commitment from Quebec and Atlantic Canada.”
Scott Aichison campaign manager Jamie Ellerton said his team had worked with phones and digital operations for their last membership.
The campaigns will try to “rethink” – Paradis
Roman Baber uses social media almost daily to reach supporters.
None of the campaigns will tell CBC News how many new supporters have registered. But that doesn’t mean they don’t look over their shoulders.
“Teams always inflate what they sell to try to annoy each other,” Paradis said. “It’s just part of the psychology of this race … you want to motivate your volunteers to keep going and strive for … the last hour and demotivate the other team.”
Today begins the next phase of the competition. The six candidates and their teams are now moving to a persuasion regime, hoping to persuade these hundreds of thousands of members to vote for them.
“Honestly, we haven’t really seen what’s going on because they’ve only focused on selling people’s membership on the spot,” Paradis said.
“It simply came to our notice then [of] what people would think of a traditional campaign. “
Add Comment