2014 Party Leadership Elections

10 Jan 2022

Greetings fellow Pirates,

It is once again time to elect your officials for the year. Since we have had a lot of new people join us I thought an overview of how the process works might be helpful.

The elections take place over the months of January and February. The Political Council, responsible for policy development and political strategy, is elected in January. While the minimum size of the Council is five it is often larger as approval voting is used. From Section VII.2 of the Party Constitution:                                                                                            “Elections should be done on an approval basis. There should be a Yes option, a no option and an abstain option. The abstain option should be selected by default and should garner no effect on the approval percentage. 60% Approval garners a seat on the Political Council guaranteed. If there are not enough candidates with 60% approval then the top 5 candidates will make up the Political Council.”                                                                                                                              A note of importance: the Leader and Deputy Leader are elected from among the Political Council members in February. Those seeking to contest the leadership must win a seat on the Political Council to be eligible to run.

The Executive Board, which handles internal party communications and paperwork, is elected in February. It is comprised of the party’s officers: Leader, Deputy Leader, Secretary, President and Vice-President. As this is a leadership contest it falls under Elections Canada’s rules for campaign spending. All candidates are discouraged from spending on their campaigns as it is unneccessary. The party forums will be open for those wishing to present themselves and their vision for the party. The party will also allow candidates equal access to social media to present their cases to the members.

Nominations for the Political Council will be held at the January General Membership Meeting on the 15th. The election will be held shortly thereafter with a week set aside to vote. A membership email will be sent out announcing the start of voting.

Nominations for positions on the Executive Board will be held at the February General Membership Meeting (tentatively February 19th). with the process following the same format as the Political Council elections.

I Hope to see some strong candidates step forward.

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