New Voting Process, But No Date For Leadership Vote

By 250 News

Vancouver - The BC Liberal Party Provincial Executive has passed a unanimous motion calling an extraordinary convention of the party to modernize the Party's leadership vote process.

BC Liberal Party President Mickey Patryluk made the announcement  following a day long meetinig of the excutive  "We are  taking a major step to modernize our constitution to ensure every member of our party not only has a vote in selecting our next leader, but also give every region of the province an equal say," said Patryluk. "After reviewing the 17-year old leadership vote provisions in our constitution, and hearing from our membership, we all felt this course of action was the best way to proceed."

The proposed leadership vote process endorsed by the Provincial Executive calls for a preferential ballot system, giving every member of the party an opportunity to vote, and weighting the results through a point system to ensure each electoral district is counted equally. The first leadership contestant to receive more than 50% of the points allocated on any province-wide count would be selected as the Leader.

To ratify the new vote process in the BC Liberal Party constitution, an extraordinary convention has been called for Saturday, February 12th, 2011 at 1pm in Vancouver. At that meeting, all delegates as selected by local riding associations will have an opportunity to vote on the proposal. To pass the amendment it will require the support of 2/3rds of delegates in attendance.

"Our Provincial Executive is united in moving this amendment forward to ensure we have a representative process for our leadership vote," said Patryluk. "The process we’re endorsing has been widely used across Canada with similar types of leadership vote systems in place in the Federal Conservative Party, the Federal Liberal Party, the Ontario Conservative Party, among others."

The BC Liberal Party Executive also took action on Saturday to reschedule the Party's Biennial Convention. Due to the pending Leadership Convention, the Party President, under the Party Constitution, must reschedule the biennial convention and general meeting of the Party, originally scheduled to be held November 19th and 20th in Penticton. The Party Biennial Convention is now scheduled to be held May 13th and 14th, once again at the Penticton Trade and Convention Centre. This event is constitutionally separate from both the Leadership Vote, and the extraordinary convention to deal with constitutional matters. Further information about the rescheduled Biennial Convention will be presented over the coming weeks.

"We're pleased to be heading back to Penticton for our Biennial Convention," said Patryluk. "Convention is always an opportunity for our members to look ahead, build on our strengths, and generate new ideas for the future."

The next steps for the BC Liberal Party Executive will be to schedule a date for the Leadership Vote, ratify nomination criteria for candidates, and determine voting methods. These topics will be discussed when the Provincial Executive continues their board meeting over the next week.

Email | Print | Facebook | Twitter | Digg | Del.icio.us