Several major plastic manufacturers are taking the Trudeau government to court for implementing a ban on several single-use plastics.
The $29-billion industry is already suing the government for listing plastic as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The new lawsuit hopes to prevent the incoming ban and allow the continued sale of single-use plastic products.
The suit was filed by a coalition of plastic manufacturers, including DOW and NOVA Chemicals, and a few small packaging companies based in Ontario and in the United States.
In June, the Trudeau government unveiled details of its commitment to ban some single-use plastic items as part of its effort to achieve zero plastic waste by 2030.
The government will ban six common plastic products: single-use cutlery, stir sticks, straws, polystyrene food containers, six-pack rings and checkout bags.
“A person must not manufacture or import single-use plastic checkout bags, single-use plastic cutlery, single-use plastic foodservice ware or single-use plastic stir sticks.” staff wrote in a report ‘Single-use Plastics Prohibition Regulations.’
“Canada cannot meet its zero plastic waste goal without the participation of all Canadian households, businesses and institutions.” wrote staff.
Enforcement of new regulations will include “site visits, review of records, reusable product testing (if applicable), and review of written transit documents,” said the report. “the following responses are available to deal with alleged violations: warnings, directions, tickets, ministerial orders, environmental protection compliance orders, injunctions, and prosecutions.”
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s office offered Canadians advice on how to comply with the government’s ban on single-use plastics, including the use of alternatives such as wooden cutlery, paper straws and beverage containers shaped to be consumed immediately.
“Encouraging customers to bring their own containers or developing a deposit and refund system are options that would reduce the amount of single-use plastic food packaging and foodservice ware.” wrote staff in ‘Guidance for Selecting Alternatives to Single-use Plastics’.
“Another option is to engage with local recycling facilities to determine which plastics are recyclable,” said the guide. “Some alternatives can be plant-based or fibre-based.” wrote the report.
A 2011 research paper produced by the Northern Ireland Assembly found that it “takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag.”
“30,000 cotton bags can be packed into a 20-foot container, but the same container will accommodate 2.5 million plastic carrier-bags. Therefore, to transport the same number of jute or cotton bags 80x more ships would be required than for plastic bags, using 80x more fuel, using 80x more road space and emitting 80x more CO2.” wrote the paper.
As the Bank of Canada (BoC) continues to raise interest rates, the majority of Canadians are losing confidence in the central bank’s ability to deal with the inflation crisis.
Following the BoC’s decision to raise interest rates by 100 basis points, the largest increase in 22 years, the Angus Reid Institute surveyed Canadians to see if they had confidence in the BoC to navigate the inflation crisis.
The poll revealed that 53% of Canadians were not confident in the Bank making the right decisions to combat inflation.
The poll also revealed a decline in consumer confidence. The majority (75%) of respondents believe the next 12 months is a bad time to make major purchases such as a home, car, renovation or big vacation – this was particularly high in Alberta (81%).
“That says to me that Canadians are already in very much belt-tightening mode,” Angus Reid Institute president Shachi Kurl told the Calgary Herald.
“It starts with the big stuff, but then it continues on into discretionary spending, people really looking at their credit card bills.”
The latest Angus Reid poll also revealed that Conservative Party of Canada voters were most skeptical of the central bank, with 67% of respondents having little confidence in the BoC. In comparison, 39% of Liberal voters and 47% of NDP voters had no confidence in the Bank.
In recent months, the governor of BoC Tiff Macklem has received criticism for the Bank’s failed predictions. In 2020, the BoC told Canadians that inflation would “remain less than two percent.”
Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre has blamed Macklem for playing into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s spending habits.
While campaigning to become leader, Poilievre pledged to fire Macklem and appoint a new governor to the Bank.
“I would replace him with a new governor who would reinstate our low-inflation mandate, protect the purchasing power of our dollar, and honour the working people who earned those dollars,” said Poilievre.
Soon after Poilievre’s remarks, deputy governor Paul Beaudry admitted that the BoC should be “held accountable” for being unable to keep inflation within targets.
“The aspect that we should be held accountable is exactly right,” said Beaudry.
“Right now we completely understand that lots of Canadians can be frustrated at the situation. It’s difficult for a lot of people. And we haven’t managed to keep inflation at our target, so it’s appropriate (that) people are asking us questions.”
Social and political contagions of all kinds pique my curiosity. Believers have in common the tendency first to elevate emotion over critical thinking, thence to denial of objective, scientifically established truth and embrace of conspiracy theories, and finally to cultish zombieism in its service, even when the serious harms attached to their belief system are apparent to everyone else.
For the last several years, the cult that has formed around gender ideology has been a staple of my commentary. But I was very well prepared for the gender version of this syndrome, because I spent many years exploring a similar pathology on a very different subject.
My first professional journey down the rabbit hole of the cult mindset began in the early 2000’s when, having written anevidence-based column on the public-health dangers presented by an uptick in the canine population of pit bull type dogs, I experienced email blowback (this was before social media) so fierce and hateful – but also so uniform in its pit bull-affirming mantras – that I knew I was on to a social phenomenon that went way beyond typical breed devotion.
Combatting the pit bull advocacy machine, well-funded and well-organized, became a challenge I accepted for many years. Ultimately, after countless columns and longer articles that I knew only a small percentage of my readers found interesting, although a sizable number of those who did were passionately grateful for them (typically those whose pets had been savaged to death by pit bulls, or worse, those whose children or other family members had been mauled in random attacks, almost invariably the case with pit bulls), I conceded defeat. The pit bull population grows apace. So does the damage they wreak. And all my evidence-based writing fell into a (public policy) black hole.
So I rarely write about pit bulls these days. But like an old war horse, when the trumpet sounds – in this case, two pit bull-related fatalities in Canada – I feel bound to respond.
Noelville is a tiny town in northern Ontario, population about 250. According to a brief police report, on July 14, a man was attacked by his own “pit bull type dog,” which caused injuries grave enough that the owner had to be airlifted to hospital. To compound the tragedy, the owner’s elderly neighbour, 83-year old Chuck Evans, witnessing the attack, rushed to the victim’s aid, but “suffered a medical emergency” and died.
The medical emergency alluded to in the police report may have been a heart attack. Or the man may have been killed by the pit bull. A daughter in Cobourg, Cathy Foskett,posted on Facebook that “Tragically today my Dad was attacked and killed by a pitbull.” A son’sFacebook post concurs,, adding – directed at the wounded owner – “plz tell me why you had a vicious f****** dog…miss you forever dad…beyond words…rip Chuck Evans.”
Pit bull-related deaths are very common in the U.S. – more than 20 a year – but rare in Canada.
So two pit bull-related deaths within two months – in addition to Evans, on June 5, an 86-year old woman in Calgary, Betty Ann “Rusty” Williams, was mauled to death by a neighbour’s three pit bull type dogs – is newsworthy.
Previous to Williams, Lisa Lloyd of Langdon Alberta, a suburb of Calgary, was killed while defending her toddler granddaughter from attack by her own pit bull/boxer mix in September 2018. Apart from the fact that it took an unconscionable 30 minutes for the City to respond to the 911 call, Williams’ death is an awkward reminder to Calgary Animal Services and all the other good-intentioned advocates in the “no-kill” movement that the vaunted “Calgary model” of animal control. while pleasing to anti-science dog sentimentalists, puts the rescue of high-risk dogs above the safety of citizens.
The Calgary model assumes that risk for attacks by dogs is a function of owner behaviour rather than canine genetics exacerbated by human behaviour. This “bad owner” school of thought presumes that “good” owners can, through responsible guardianship and obedience conditioning, train dogs to repress their natural instincts. As Bill Bruce, Calgary’s director of animal and bylaw services from 2000-2012 said of his 2006 Responsible Pet Ownership Bylaw, “Our philosophy is that aggression is a human problem with respect to managing their dog more than it is a canine issue, and if we address the human side, the canine problem will take care of itself.”
The mantra of these believers is “Punish the deed, not the breed.” In other words, punish breed dogs as though they were all individuals, like humans, who mate randomly, rather than what they actually are: predictable stereotypes of the assembly-line breeding from which they have inherited their morphology and principal traits.
As is invariably the case in all pit bull-related fatalities, pit bull cult members and their allies – often mocked in pit bull critical circles as “useful pitiots” – spring into action, warning against a “knee-jerk” reaction that would stigmatize pit bulls and encourage any talk of breed bans.
“Any dog of any breed, any age, any mix can have behavioural issues,” said local veterinarian Dr. Miranda Logan in response to the Calgary grandmother’s death. Indeed they can. But the sudden, unprovoked killing of family members is not generally a “behavioural” issue with 99% of the other 399 dog breeds. In spite of her professional credentials, this vet is playing handmaiden to the pit bull cult in the same way professional therapists and biologists are playing handmaiden to the cult of gender ideology.
(Interesting sidebar: Pit bull love may be fairly described as a fetish amongst Queer-theory academics. Search “pit bulls, queer theory”: I just did, and got 1,830,000 hits. Read some of their papers, as I have. They’re a hoot. While you’re at it, search “Critical Race Theory, pit bulls”. I just did and got 6,520,000 hits. Woke theorists see the pit bull as a stand-in for oppressed people, and many otherwise intelligent intellectuals hold that discrimination against pit bulls for public-health reasons is literallya form of racism.)
Dr. Logan’s statement is firstly a repudiation of the science of genetics. More importantly, it implicitly rejects the science of epidemiology which, in the case of dog bite-related injury and death, should be the supremely relevant basis for public health policy.
Epidemiologically, the record is clear. Pit bulls are implicated in about 70% of dog-related human deaths, even though they represent only six percent of the dog breed population, and they account for more than 90% of dog-related animal deaths. Most of these fatal attacks are unprovoked, and a hellish number of them are attacks on children, often by their own pets. Their particular biting style – “rending” rather than slashing or bite-and-release – causes such horrific injuries that surgeons have had to devise special techniques for dealing with them. In 2016, pit bulls were responsible forover 90% of dog attacks that resulted in disfigurement.
Moreover, according to Animals24-7, which has been tracking dog-related deaths and injuries for 40 years, for every dog attack fatality, “there are approximately 10 permanently disfiguring maulings, around 100 injuries severe enough to bring insurance payouts, according to insurance industry data, and according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention data, about 100,000 bites of lesser severity.” A five-year review of dog bite-related outcomes in a Pittsburgh pediatric hospital found that the culprit in any dog bite-related hospital stay of over six days was invariably a pit bull-type dog.
Before the Calgary Model became the default, pit bulls, dog attacks and dogfighting were unknown to Calgarians. Then, following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as chronicled by Animals24-7 publishers Merritt and Beth Clifton, Calgary opened its doors to pit bull rescues and the pit bull population multiplied. Followed, inevitably, as everywhere else on the planet where pit bulls are welcome, by soaring “incidents.” By 2009, “dogfighting burst into the open in Calgary.” There were “a then-record 58 dog bites reported in Calgary in 2009, 102 in 2010, 127 in 2011 and 201 in 2012, 70% of the total reportedly by pit bulls, when Bruce retired in mid-year.” Pit bulls were responsible for an average of 40 attacks a year between 2009-2019.
The essence of public safety is harm reduction through a change in the environment in which the harm is occurring, so that even careless (i.e. human) behaviour is not punished by serious injury. When hospitals reported a certain number of injuries from children falling off playground equipment onto concrete, parents “panicked” and playground flooring was changed to prevent bad injuries when children fell. Nobody blamed the children for tempting fate, or argued for educating them on strategies to prevent falling, or suggested post-injury reprisals for the schools, which is the thinking behind the “owner responsibility” model many pit bull advocates recommend.
In the case of dog maulings and fatalities, so much worse than concrete playgrounds, a certain panic is not unjustified. The necessary change in the environment here is to phase out the breeding of pit bulls and enact legislation that targets these dogs for special constraints (muzzles) or outright bans. They work.
True cult believers are impervious to data and logic. And their propaganda mills have successfully marketed the pit bull as a victim with a “bad rap”. In the present cultural climate, where human victimhood offers elevated social status, the pit bull has benefited by association. When rescuers get mugged by genetic reality, they understand. But until they do, they keep drinking the Kool-Aid.
They’ll never believe me. So the final word goes to renowned “dog whisperer” Cesar Millan, who said of pit bulls on his eponymous TV show, Season 3, Episode 4,
“Yeah, but this is a different breed…the power that comes behind bull dog, pit bull, presa canario, the fighting breed – they have an extra boost, they can go into a zone, they don’t feel the pain anymore. He is using the bulldog in him, which is way too powerful… So if you are trying to create submission in a fighting breed, it’s not going to happen. They would rather die than surrender… If you add pain, it only infuriates them…to them pain is that adrenaline rush, they are looking forward to that, they are addicted to it…That’s why they are such great fighters….Especially with fighting breeds, you’re going to have these explosions over and over because there’s no limits in their brain.”
Who would want a dog who has brain “explosions” baked into his genetic blueprint, and the potential to exhibit them at any time without anyone ever knowing why? A lot of people.
On the first episode of True North’s Alberta Roundup with Rachel Emmanuel, Rachel takes us inside the United Conservative Party (UCP) leadership race and breaks down the winners and losers of last week’s debate. Danielle Smith – the perceived frontrunner to become the next leader of the UCP and Premier of Alberta — fielded most of the heat on Wednesday night as the rest of the pack took advantage of their opportunity to square off with the highest profile candidate in the race.
Also, an Alberta Court of Appeals judge ruled in Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s favour this week, ordering the Alberta Health Services to reimburse the fines Pawlowski was forced to pay for refusing to comply with government-ordered church capacity limits.
And Alberta Agriculture Minister Nate Horner took aim at Trudeau’s newest fertilizer reduction scheme, saying that Ottawa pulled these emission reduction targets “out of thin air”. All of that and more on the first episode of Alberta Roundup with Rachel Emmanuel. Tune in now!
The Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ) is gaining popularity among the province’s anglophone voters.
A recent Leger poll showed that the PCQ is now polling second among english-speaking Quebecers, with 22% of them saying they intend to support the party.
As reported by TVA Nouvelles, this is a significant increase from the marginal support the PCQ received in the 2018 provincial election.
The federalist Quebec Liberal Party still has the most support among non-francophone voters (49%), but that support has dropped.
Political scientist Philippe Dubois told TVA that“the sovereignty-federalism axis is no longer the main divide that characterizes the political game in Quebec, which allows others to express themselves [such as the] left-right [axis].”
He added that this “partly explains the fall of the Parti Québécois and the Liberal Party to the benefit of third parties like the Coalition Avenir Québec, Québec solidaire, and now the Conservative Party.”
According to Dubois, the Liberal Party’s dithering on language issues has caused anglophones and allophones to look for other political options. The pandemic and government restrictions are also a factor.
The PCQ have been one of the most vocal critics of Quebec Premier Francois Legault’s extreme Covid restrictions regime – which included lockdowns, regional travel restrictions, curfews and vaccine passports that limited access to churches and groceries.
Speaking to TVA, PCQ leader Eric Duhaime said that there is “indeed an interest among non-Francophones”.
“With the Parti Québécois, Québec solidaire and increasingly the CAQ with the arrival of Mr. Drainville and Ms. Saint-Hilaire, it is becoming less and less an option… There remains the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party.”
However, Duhaime says many anglophones have been “perplexed” by how the Quebec Liberals have responded to the Legault government’s controversial Bill 96. He also said that the party has shifted to the left.
“Dominique Anglade who wants to make a kind of federalist Québec solidaire of the Liberal Party. I see the Liberals crossing over. These are people who are more centre-right.”
Bonnie Feigenbaum is an English-speaking Quebecer who left the provincial Liberals for the Conservatives.
Feigenbaum wrote in The Suburban that “the Quebec Liberals had a dismal performance on Bill 96, then former senior Liberals admonished the Anglos in a June 7th Gazette Op Ed.”
Duhaime also told TVA that the PCQ is getting support among first and second generation immigrants.
“It’s certain that when there is a drift [pandemic] like the one we have experienced in the last two and a half years, these people are more concerned than we are,” said Duhaime, adding that “they cherish their individual freedoms and democracy more.”
“They came here to offer freedom to themselves and their children.”
The Quebec Liberal Party has been struggling to gain momentum since it suffered an historic electoral defeat in 2018. They also placed fifth in an April by-election, with the incredibly poor performance having not been predicted by the polls.
The Liberals are also behind other parties when it comes to selecting candidates for the upcoming election, as reported by La Presse.
According to the latest polls, the Quebec Liberals are set to lose even more seats in the upcoming October election, while the Conservatives are on track to make historic gains.
As western nations look to “transition” away from fossil fuels, the World Economic Forum (WEF) says reducing ownership of private vehicles is necessary to limit the world’s reliance on critical metals.
“This transition from fossil fuels to renewables will need large supplies of critical metals such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, to name a few,” the international organization said in a report in July.
“Shortages of these critical minerals could raise the costs of clean energy technologies.”
As first reported by Fox News, the WEF is urging consumers to carpool instead of owning their own vehicles. The global organization believes vehicle sharing will be vital in reducing the number of cars needed globally.
“More sharing can reduce ownership of idle equipment and thus material usage,” the WEF argued. In its report, they point to how the average vehicle in England is driven “just 4% of the time.”
Critical metals are used in a variety of “green” technologies, including electric vehicles, wind turbines and efficient lighting.
This isn’t the first time the WEF has proposed a radical solution to combat climate change.
In May, during the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos, Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans boasted about the development of an “individual carbon footprint tracker” to monitor what you buy, what you eat and where and how you travel.
While there has been little discussion about reducing car ownership in Canada, there has been a huge push by the Trudeau government for Canadians to use electric vehicles.
In December, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said he wanted to enforce a national mandate which would force auto dealers to sell a specific number of electric vehicles. Guilbeault said he wants to enforce this mandate by the end of 2022 or early 2023.
In its climate plan, the government outlined a plan to ensure that 50% of all new passenger cars sold in Canada will be “zero-emission” by 2030, and 100% by 2035.
Despite the push for electric vehicles, it was revealed in November that Guilbeault racked up over 21,000 km on his government vehicle between January and August 2021, an average of 3,000 kilometres of driving.
Managers of the Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) reported that out of 774 claims received, eight received compensation, 71 were deemed ineligible and 654 are still under review.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the Department of Health would not release information on how much has been paid in compensation so far. The program is expected to provide a total of $75 million to claims made by families of those who suffer death or injury from Covid vaccines until 2026.
“Payments for those who have a serious and permanent injury from a vaccine will be retroactive to the date of the injury,” said a June 23 Department of Health briefing note.
“Eligible individuals may receive income replacement indemnities, injury indemnities, death benefits including coverage for funeral expenses and reimbursement of eligible costs such as otherwise uncovered medical expenses.”
The health department has reported 48,670 adverse events including 9878 rated as “serious” out of almost 86 million Covid vaccine doses given to date. Adverse events could include milder symptoms such as headaches or chest pains while serious outcomes could include heart inflammation or facial paralysis.
Guillain-Barré Syndrome has been reported in eight cases, including B.C. resident Ross Wightman. Thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) which is characterized by blood clotting has been reported in 105 people following vaccination. 1097 reports included cases of myocarditis/pericarditis, an inflammation of the heart or the lining surrounding it.
A total of 355 deaths have been reported following vaccination.
Senior medical advisor for the health department Dr. Supirya Sharma said last December the long term effects of Covid vaccines are not yet known.
“The benefits outweigh the potential risks but it is still a drug and still a vaccine and there are potential risks even if they’re rare,” said Sharma. “That’s why we continue to monitor it.”
Last year, Julian Scholefield from B.C. was diagnosed with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), where inflammation in the brain and spinal cord damages protective nerve fibres, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Scholefield has been unable to work as a result of the injury and is on disability. A GoFundMe started by his wife Angela helped raise money for basic needs such as the wheelchair, physical therapy and an elevator for his home.
The B.C. Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) stated on their website that the conditions can occur up to six weeks following vaccination. Side effects can happen from vaccines and “vaccine safety is continuously monitored to identify any serious adverse events.”
Scholefield is still waiting for government compensation after applying to the VISP in October 2021.
United Conservative Party (UCP) leadership candidate Rajan Sawhney is becoming one of the most vocal critics of perceived frontrunner Danielle Smith.
After relentlessly attacking Smith during the first leadership debate on Wednesday, Sawhney told reporters that a Danielle Smith government would be “disunifying” for the party’s caucus.
While the former Transportation minister registered 0% support with UCP supporters in a Leger poll released Sunday — and Smith leading with 22% support — Sawhney is not holding back her criticism of the former Wildrose leader.
The polls and the media are saying it’s becoming a race against Smith, but she speculates the UCP caucus would split if Smith becomes leader, Sawhney told reporters.
“That’s why it was important for all candidates to speak up today about some of the policy ideas that (Smith) has brought forward that are incredibly damaging,” she said Wednesday evening.
Smith is winning broad support with promises never to lockdown Alberta again, to rehaul Alberta Health Services (AHS), and to introduce the Alberta Sovereignty Act which would bar federal legislation considered harmful to the province.
During the Wednesday debate, the Calgary-North East MLA constantly attacked the perceived frontrunner — sometimes on a personal level.
Sawhney launched her first shot in her opening remarks, saying the UCP needs more than “a talk show host” to unify and win a general election. Seconds earlier, Smith had touted her history as a talk show journalist.
Smith’s Alberta Sovereignty Act is creating chaos, it’s “seductive” and there’s nothing about it that makes sense, Sawhney said. Candidates “must not be risky and hot-headed” or respond to Ottawa in anger, she continued to jibe Smith, who was standing to her right.
She later said the business community is concerned with Smith’s rhetoric.
While discussing healthcare, Sawhney said there are issues with AHS and it might be time to move back to regional boards. She’s promised a public inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic response, if elected.
She then took aim at Smith’s controversial comments on cancer, preventative treatments and early detection, saying the frontrunner’s remarks “diminished” the experience of cancer.
In a podcast last week discussing naturopathic care, Smith said preventative treatments and early detection could lead to better outcomes for cancer patients, who have no alternatives to chemotherapy, radiation and surgery in the late stages of cancer.
When Smith clarified her remarks during the debate, Sawhney said she “didn’t buy it.”
Sawhney later told reporters she went “a little bit personal in the debate” because of Smith’s comments about cancer. As a former community and social services minister, Sawhney said she’s dealt with a lot of vulnerable individuals who’ve suffered from cancer and mental health issues thereafter.
“I’ve made a mistake and you apologize, you move forward, but the doubling down was not appreciated,” she told reporters following the debate. “And that’s why I felt like I needed to definitely say more than what I normally would.”
.@ATSoos Stole my question. Why did UCP leadership candidate Rajan Sawhney say candidates must resist the urge to “respond in anger” to Ottawa, but then make personal attacks against opponent Danielle Smith? Listen to her response 👇 pic.twitter.com/PYnrIMU8s0
In a scrum following the debate, Smith apologized to “anyone who was hurt by her comments,” but encouraged supporters to listen to her full podcast to understand the context of her remarks.
Sawnhey also said constituents have told her they’ve received calls from pollsters canvassing support for UCP leadership candidates, but the survey did not include herself or contender Leela Aheer on the poll. Aheer registered no support in the Leger poll, the only candidate to place lower than Sawhney.
“But having said that, I’m really focused on selling memberships,” Sawnhey said.
The leadership candidate also said she’s paid the full $175,000 to get on the ballot.
UCP members will elect a new leader and Premier on October 6.
This week, the Trudeau government and the legacy media were up in arms about a flag being draped over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, calling it an act of “desecration.” Where was the outrage when statues of Sir John A Macdonald and Queen Victoria were toppled and vandalized by radical activists?
Plus, remember that time when the Freedom Convoy protested Pope Francis when he was in Canada? Us neither. Although the media claimed it was going to happen, it never actually happened in reality. That’s literally fake news!
And this week, the CBC somehow wrote an entire story about farming without a single mention of the threat of the Trudeau government’s fertilizer reduction scheme and its effect on farmers across Canada. Bravo.
These stories and more on this week’s edition of Fake News Friday with Andrew Lawton and Harrison Faulkner!
Over half a million Canadians are eligible to vote for the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, the party announced on Friday.
The party has finalized its official voter list at 678,708 members, making the Conservatives “the largest party in Canadian history,” the party claims.
Party president Robert Batherson said, “this massive surge in membership demonstrates the excitement generated by this leadership race, and the momentum for a change of government in Ottawa.”
According to the party’s figures, there are members across Canada:
4422 voters in Newfoundland & Labrador
2979 in Prince Edward Island
13,648 in Nova Scotia
11,754 in New Brunswick
58,437 in Quebec
295,815 in Ontario
25,291 in Manitoba
32,639 in Saskatchewan
131,860 in Alberta
99,963 in British Columbia
1160 in Yukon
606 in the Northwest Territories
132 in Nunavut
The Party says membership counts have “at least” doubled in every Canadian province, with Quebec seeing a shocking 764% increase – the highest increase of any province.
“This astronomical growth in Quebec is a clear sign of our party’s resurgence,” said party Vice President Valerie Assouline.
“Quebecers are increasingly seeing a home in the Conservative Party, excited to be part of our movement that will form a principled government after the next election.”
The figure is almost quadruple the amount of 169,705 members the party had at the end of 2021, and also more than the eligible voters it had in the 2020 leadership race (269,469) and the 2017 race (259,010) combined.
In comparison, the Liberal party had 294,002 eligible voters in the race that saw Justin Trudeau become leader. Liberal Party memberships are free, while Conservative memberships cost $15.
Canadians had to join the party before June 3 to be eligible to vote in the leadership race.
The party gave the leadership campaigns an initial membership list on June 30 – which was subject to challenges. An updated list was sent on July 18th to the campaigns.
As previously explained by True North, voting for the 2022 Conservative leadership race is being done via ranked mail-in ballots.
Each federal riding with 100 or more voting members is assigned 100 points, regardless of whether the riding has 100 or 1000 members. Ridings with less than 100 voting members will be given one point per member.
Points are distributed by how many votes each candidate receives in the riding.
For example: if candidate A gets 45% of the vote, candidate B receives 35% of the vote and candidate C gets 20% of the vote. Then Candidate A would receive 45 points, candidate B would get 35 points, and candidate C would come in third with 20 points.
A candidate needs to receive over 50% of the points to win the race.
If that does not happen in the first round of voting, the candidate who placed last is eliminated and their votes are transferred to other candidates ranked on those members’ ballots.
The process continues until a candidate receives the majority needed in order to become leader.
For example, Andrew Scheer was elected on the 13th ballot after trailing Maxime Bernier in all 12 previous rounds. While Erin O’Toole was elected on the third ballot despite having placed second to Peter Mackay on the first.
Ballots must be returned in time for September 6, and the results are set to be announced on September 10, 2022 at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa.
U.K.-based firm Deloitte will be in charge of receiving and registering the ballots. The firm is serving as the validator of the vote.
The Conservative Party says around 80,000 have already been returned.
This marks the Conservative Party’s third leadership race since the defeat of Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2015.
Conservatives have since failed twice to unseat Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, despite his unpopularity and multiple scandals.
