The Conservative Party of Canada says approximately 675,000 members will be eligible to vote in this year’s leadership race.
Party officials told reporters Thursday that the historic number reflects the success of each campaign’s outreach efforts.
“We had six credible candidates, each with a slightly different message to Canadians, but taken together, it resonated in a way that led to this extraordinary mobilization,” said Ian Brody, Chair of the Leadership Election Organizing Committee.
In February, before the June 3 membership enrollment deadline, there were about 113,000 active members nationally — excluding those whose memberships were set to expire by that date.
The preliminary 675,000 have been removed from non-qualifying sales – transactions that do not comply with the leadership rules – and duplicate memberships.
“In the madness of a leadership race, it’s normal to bring in people who don’t know all the ins and outs of party finance rules,” Brody said.
Among those who signed up in the past few months, 95 percent purchased their membership online.
The party released the list for each campaign on Thursday. Candidates and their teams have until Monday at midnight to challenge any names they believe have been “incorrectly” listed.
By the same deadline, they can also request that a name be added if they believe an individual has been omitted.
“Our Chief Returning Officer, Don Nightingale, has the authority to make decisions on challenges. Its decisions can then be appealed to our Dispute Resolution Appeals Committee. Once all these challenges are cleared, the Chief Returning Officer promulgates the final list of voters,” Brody said.
The party does not normally release preliminary membership numbers, but this time it did so given the remarkable jump.
The last peak was recorded during the party merger in 2004, which combined several leadership contests to reach 282,000 membership.
Ballot packs will be sent out in batches over the next few weeks, the party said, and must be returned by September 6. A new leader will be elected on September 10.
During the 2020 leadership race, results were significantly delayed due to thousands of ballots damaged upon opening.
Automated envelope-opening machines cut open both the envelope and some ballots, requiring a new ballot to be re-marked with identical data to be properly scanned and tabulated.
Jaroslav Baran, who is in charge of media communications for the ongoing leadership race, told CTVNews.ca on Thursday that they have made processing changes to avoid such a problem.
“Given the volumes we deal with, the party has really increased the number of people handling each stage. There is a small army of people working on this, and that small army will be redirected to validating ballots once we are at that stage,” Baran said in an emailed statement.
CANDIDATES WEIGH IN
Jean Charest’s campaign said the membership numbers were “great news” for the party and that they were “very confident” they had a motivated base.
“We will continue to engage party members by offering real ideas and solutions that will make us competitive at the next federal election,” communications director Michelle Coates Matter said in a statement.
Jamie Ellerton, Scott Aitchison’s campaign manager, said 675,000 Canadians had “stepped up” to help the party “strive for a better Canada.”
“Scott Aitchison will begin his national ‘Hope and Respect’ tour next month and continue to work to build a Conservative Party that can deliver the results and good governance that Justin Trudeau is unable or unwilling to deliver.” said in a statement.
CTV News reached out to all of the campaigns for comment, but had only heard from the above at the time of publication.
With files from CTV News’ Rachel Aiello
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