Pc Emissary Report

westcoast99 · October 5, 2003

Very interesting. Take a read for yourself: PC Emissary Report

Edited August 12, 2015 by Gugsy

Pellaken · October 5, 2003

if you want the talks to go through, you should delete part of your post. the media does surf these forums.

Pellaken · October 5, 2003

Here's what I noticed.

the PC's want equal representaiton per riding.

wont work. The Alliance will be outvoted.

here is my suggestion for what would work best

I like the PC party's 100 point system. Unfortunatly, I think each party MUST have some sence of equality... here is my idea:

use a 50-50 system.

each riding gets 50 points, automatically.

each riding then gets a certain number of points, based on its membership. This makes sure the smaller ridings are still represented, but also makes sure more members are better represented.

ridings in PEI, or the territories will likely have few "points", but Albertan ridings will likely average 150 points each.

how the points will be distributed is like so:

the total number of members will be totaled

also 50 X ___ (number of ridings) will be added

those 2 numbers divided, so we find out how many points each voter has.

then, each riding is divided, and points distributed (rounding to the nearest whole number)

that numbe (which could be as low as 5, or as high as 100... or more) is then added to the 50 that each riding gets.

This system will work. the one the PC Party wants will not.

Pellaken · October 5, 2003

more:

if the CA wants grandfathered MP's then give that to em, IMHO. The PC's are close on how the new leader should be chosen though. OMOV will not work in this instance. if it DID work, then the parties would have merged in the 1990's

theWatcher · October 5, 2003

Any sort of merger will be very difficult if not impossible to negotiate.

Currently the Alliance has about four times the members of the PCPC, as reported by Mike Duffy at CTV.

The Alliance has four times the MP's of the PCPC.

About half of the PCPC caucus would quit if a merger was formed. The PCPC are also split between their red faction and blue faction. I assume most of those leaving would be from the red faction.

How do you make an agreement between two parties that are so different in size?

The PCPC have at most a week or two left to decide what it is they really want.

They still think (wrongly in my opinion) that they are the natural ruling alternative to the Liberals and if they hang on long enough eventually everyone will come back to them and they will regain power.

They are resentfull of the Alliance for upsetting the traditional Flip/Flop of the electorate between the Liberals and Tories. Before the Alliance at least theyed get 4 or 8 years between the grits 20 or 30.

I also think they are deeply divided as a party with at least 4 separate blocks that would be hard to convince to merge.

Twenty five percent of the party is made up of Orchardites whose main goal is to kill the Free trade agreement. This guy hasn't stopped campaigning and is still signing up members. One more leadership convention and he's got it wrapped up, probably in the first ballot.

The other leadership contender disliked Mackay enough not to forge an alliance with him and their beliefs are all over the map.

Are the Tories for or against Same Sex Marriage? Or Legalizing pot?

Why are they for the slush fund of 100,000 dollars per MP, to hand out as they see fit? How is that fiscal conservatism?

-----------------------------

Now look at it from Harpers perspective. He will probably be the official opposition after the next election. He might have a few more seats, or a few less.

He has to forecast the number of seats the PC's will get. If he believes the PC's will drop, or remain about the same then he loses out if he gives away everything to make a merger.

What does a merger give the Alliance? Possibly 20 seats that they lost in close races with the Liberals. Would the Maritimes vote for a merged party, or move to the Liberals? Who knows.

The PC's popular percentage has been dropping in every election since Mulroney. Even Joe Clark couldn;t keep it from dropping. And Mackay is no Joe Clark. Frankly, I don't see any big gains coming from him during the next debates or during an election campaign.

So I think that the PC tactic of trying to hang on until the Alliance goes away might have backfired on them and will result in their own implosion given 2 or 3 more years. As their membership drops, and Orchards increases it is inevitable they he will be running the party and once that happens the right will be united.

Under the Alliance.

That is unless I am totally wrong and the voters are just waiting to flock back to the PC's so they can boot out the Liberals the next election or the one after.

And thats what the PC's have to decide, and yes it is a difficult decision.

dnsfurlan · October 6, 2003

if you want the talks to go through, you should delete part of your post. the media does surf these forums.

They do? Why would they want to read what a bunch of dolts like us have to say? Wait a minute, we're talking about the media. Never mind. (Ha Ha) :lol:

use a 50-50 system.

Sounds very reasonable to me. Expecting equality of ridings may be much to ask for from the PCs, becasue it doesn't acknowledge some of the strenths of the Alliance as a party. Similarly, one member one vote would all but make PC members an after-thought in the new entity. For the PCs, what's the point of merging if it means becoming the smaller partner from the get-go. Harper has already signalled compromise on this point. And I have said all along that I cannot see how this is a stumbling block to a real willingness to merge. Yes, the difference in size of the parties is probematic. But I don't see how some fair compromise formula couldn't be worked out. You can even get an objective third person to create one, perhaps.

Watcher,

That may be one of the best analyses of the federal PC Party that I have read on these boards.

You're absolutely right. The PCs have been trying to "play out the clock" even until recent events, in the hopes of regaining past glory. The problem with that is, of course, that the past may not be as glorious as you think, and you need to look beyond the past in order to give Canadians some kind of political vision. And nothing of the sort has come from them since Free Trade and the GST.

Pellaken · October 6, 2003

I'm speaking of the 2nd paragraph of his message

if its true, then he's may have destroyed the process. saying "I'm not susposta say anything, but..." in a place where the media can go, it not a good idea