By Pepper Parr
January 15th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
There were no fireworks – but it was a bigger Annual General Meeting of the Burlington Progressive Conservative Association than they expected. Additional tables had to be set up to accommodate everyone.
Jane McKenna at the Progressive Conservative AGM last Saturday.
Jane McKenna, now the candidate, worked the room but studiously avoided the table at which Jane Michael and her colleagues were sitting. Michael was the candidate that lost the nomination to McKenna.
McKenna was the Member of the provincial legislature for one term, elected in YEAR and lost to Eleanor McMahon in 2014 – putting an end to 70 years of provincial Tory rule in Burlington.
While there were ten tables set up there were just two that mattered,
The one with the defeated candidate and the other that is best described as the “power” table. This is where the heavy weights in the PC party in Burlington sat. Keith Strong, Mike Wallace, Paul Sharman – others we were not able to identify but certainly people who have been part of the organization for some time.
The agenda was the standard AGM deal.
Mike Wallace – flipping burgers at a Chamber of Commerce event when he was the Member of Parliament for Burlington.
Keith Strong, one of the most powerful people in the room; doesn’t sit on the board but will have a lot to say about policy and strategy. Once he has decided to do something – it is going to get done.
Brook Dyson asked that we not take pictures – we complied. Quite why they wouldn’t want photographs of a very full room was beyond this reporter.
The members were told that in the past membership had been around 250 – and was always pretty steady at that number.
Because there was a contested nomination campaign membership had shot up to more than 900 – the trick is going to be to keep them all and to get them out on the streets knocking on doors.
Jane Michael is reported to have brought in 350 new members; with the hard feelings that came out of the way the vote count during the nomination was handled there is little chance that the bulk of those members will be active.
Mention was made a number of times that there were youth groups being set up – but there weren’t any young people at the tables – other than the daughter of the nominated candidate.
A couple of odd things – there was a sheet of paper with a list of the people whose names were being put forward to serve on the riding association board.
An executive of five and 14 directors. The past president sits on the board but he was reported to no longer be involved.
Colin Pye, the lawyer who wrote the appeal against the nomination vote count asking that the results of the nomination vote be set aside (that appeal was denied) chose not to run for the board again.
The Jane Michael crowd felt they were robbed and attended the meeting partly in protest and to sit by helplessly as a new organization was put in place.
The slate of candidates Mike Wallace put forward was not opposed and there were no nominations from the floor.
At the top of the list of names was the letterhead of Mike Wallace’s new real estate operation. When asked why his name was at the top of the page Wallace said “it was the only paper I had”
It became very clear that this was the Mike Wallace slate – they were the people he wanted to go forward with when the election is called
Wallace is going to run the McKenna campaign.
Colin Gray, the financial officer gave a short report on how much money there was in the bank and what the new political donations rules are – donations from corporations and unions are out; individual donations are limited to $3600 during an election year and $2400 in a non-election year.
Expect to see signs like this when the provincial election is called.
The organization believes it has more than enough money in the bank now to fight a 28 day campaign – which they pointed out could take place at any time. They want to be on a war footing as soon as possible.
Expect to see a lot of Jane McKenna in the next six months but don’t expect to see her at fund raisers – the new funding rules say the candidate cannot attend. Who wrote that rule?
Many people at the Saturday AGM felt that in the past the riding had been directed and controlled by the Toronto headquarters of the provincial Progressive Conservative party – they wanted to see that end.
Of the 19 member board 12 were new. No one from the Jane Michael team are on the board,
The board is now made up of:
Brook Dyson, president; Rene Papin, vice president election organization; Mike Clouse, VP membership; Archie Jollymore, treasurer; Bill Brown,secretary; Hugh Loomans, Kris Kowalchuk, Taylor McKensie, Alice Sterling, Paul Scherer, Sukhdev Takher, Rajpal Sidhu, David Stabkiewicz, Ann Curran, John Krasevec, Riley Thompson, Brenda Stewart, Mike Wallace and Larry Pedlar.
Ruth Roberts, who has been an active Tory for longer than she might want to admit asked some very probing questions at the close of the meeting: What has happened to us she asked. “We have fences to mend she said and added that there is a tough fight in 2018 and we are going to need young people to help us win it.
The problem was there were very few young people in the room that Saturday morning.
Those that were there left on a high note. They have their candidate; they have the money they need to run a campaign – all they feel they need is the date on which the campaign will start – and they expect to be ready for it.
Ruth Roberts had the most positive words – but she isn’t on the board.
