B.C. Liberal Party adds 50,000 new members amid questions on sign-ups
The B.C. Liberals have signed up over 50,000 new members since the beginning of the leadership race, the party announced today.
The announcement came the same day Kevin Falcon’s campaign team sent out a news release indicating members of the Kamloops Blazers hockey team had been signed up to the party by a Falcon supporter without their knowledge.
Falcon’s campaign manager Norman Stowe said the campaign reported the memberships when they heard about it Monday night and asked that the names be removed from the party’s list.
Earlier in the day, Falcon’s team accused Christy Clark’s leadership camp of circulating photocopied membership forms. A recent report from the Globe and Mail also revealed a cat owned by a member of Clark’s campaign had been signed up to the party.
Veteran political observer Norman Ruff said the incidents raise serious questions.
“It would seem that one, people have been playing jokes, but also, there is a growing sense that people have abused the process and there are phantom members there,” he told the Straight.
“One can laugh about the cat and hockey players being signed up, but underneath it there’s some serious abuses of our democratic privileges.”
B.C. NDP leadership candidate Harry Lali said the membership incidents add fuel to his recent call for Elections B.C. to oversee provincial leadership races of any party.
“This is further proof positive that something has to be done in the future to avoid these kind of issues from arising,” Lali told the Straight.
“In the absence of some rules or if the rules tend to be a bit loosy-goosy, then obviously people are going to improvise and this is what’s happening all across Canada anytime there are nominations and leadership races, and I think it’s time for British Columbia to take the lead on this.”
In a news release issued today, the B.C. Liberal Party said they have adhered to “strict guidelines” to validate new memberships since the outset of the leadership race.
“All facets of the party's membership process have been monitored and analyzed on a daily basis,” a statement from the party reads. “With the party's membership deadline passing for eligibility to cast a leadership ballot, the validation process now intensifies with the inclusion of an external review based on statistical analysis and phone interviews.”
Stowe said he has confidence in the Liberal party’s mechanisms for auditing memberships.
“When you’re signing up 40 or 50,000 new members, which is what the party has done in very short order over the last couple of months, it’s an incredible number and it’s great news for the party, and I think you’re probably going to find anomalies like this, but what you want to make sure you’ve done is when you do find these issues, that you deal with them quickly and openly, which is I hope what we’ve done today,” he said.
Comments
9 Comments
Ken Lawson
Feb 8, 2011 at 8:44pm
Just make sure they have canadian citizenship cards before you sign them up, I do not care if they are chicken or cow the members
RonS
Feb 8, 2011 at 11:41pm
Does that include snakes? It would indiciative of their style and be appropriate if they included snakes.
NDB
Feb 9, 2011 at 11:05am
Im absolutely amazed people would sign up to support this party. Have they not been following the news? I mean even if they are in support of the HST did they not disagree with all the cheap stall tactics, and lies?
Will
Feb 9, 2011 at 11:57am
Something really fishy about this. The numbers they claim do not jive with the polls. I can understand a spike because of the leadership race, but more than doubling. Come on!
I suspect people have signed up their kids and relatives, as well as their pets!
Also, I don't see any sort of "joke" in abusing democratic process.
There should be a means of auditing and verifying sign ups in situations like this.
Also, most people, I think, are finding this suspect. There is a perception of corruption. Such perceptions have good traction in election campaigns. The BC Liberals would be wise to have an independent auditor review their lists. If they don't, the perception of corruption will linger and do them damage.
That said, there's no way the BC Liberals have the sort of momentum they are claiming. Its a PR charade. I hope some smart reporter gets to the bottom of it!
whatAjoke
Feb 9, 2011 at 12:33pm
Are there really that many clueless people in British Columbia?
*makes a sign of the cross*
The pope
Feb 9, 2011 at 7:07pm
This shouldn't be a stretch if you believe on the immaculate conception.
John Billstrom
Feb 10, 2011 at 10:33am
They think they will get a patronage job or their land decontroled form the ALR. But I hope the the NDP will reverse the Liberals actions in pork barrel politics.
Foxxe
Feb 10, 2011 at 11:24am
I wouldn't worry about the liberals, speaking as a former card carrier (before the conservative invader GORD CAMPBELL defamed and destroyed the party), I highly doubt there is ANY hope the BC Liberals will be anything more than a dirty spot on the voters' card just BELOW the So-creds.
At this point they could vote in an actually HONEST person to leadership but it won't do a damn bit of good. The party has been raped and left for dead by 'His Royal Soupness'
Fan'o Truth
Feb 10, 2011 at 11:41am
“When you’re signing up 40 or 50,000 new members, which is what the party has done in very short order over the last couple of months, it’s an incredible number and it’s great news for the party,...
That part's right. It is incredible. Literally incredible, in that no BC party can sign up tens of thousands of people in a matter of weeks, or even years, without resorting to bulk sales through brokers and contractors.
The resulting piles of instant memberships are not real in the normal sense, they are just an on-paper rent-a-crowd, people whom the brokers and contractors have recruited and coached on how to answer if asked about their supposed membership.
These "members" will not be doing the voting, the broker will handle that part.
But it is good for the party, ... as long as the general public naively believe the baloney. Pam Martin can help out with that part.