I'm going to throw my hat in for the position of Vice President. The role of VP has fluctuated a lot recently so I wrote up my thoughts on what it entails currently (and what it ideally should entail). It's important for us to understand what the job is about if we're going to be picking the person to do it.
Quick blurb on what characteristics I have that make me a good candidate: I'm good at communicating and compromising, I believe efficient delegating is important, I have a general dislike for bureaucracy but I also understand that reasonable and fair rules are necessary, I understand my own limitations and I've been active in the party for over a year now.
What does the VP do?
There are three jobs for the VP currently: to replace the President if the position is vacant, to be an ex-officio member of every committee (to facilitate communication between the Executive Board and all committee's), and to coordinate volunteer efforts.
The primary job of a VP is to replace the President, the other two jobs are to help the Executive Board run smoothly. Above all else, this should be how you decide which candidate to vote for because it is a very real possibility that the VP will be required to become the President (it's already happened this year). So really the qualifications for VP is the same as the qualifications for President: organizing and facilitate communicating throughout the party. At GM's s/he is the chair and therefore must be comfortable with RONR. In the Executive Board it is their job to ensure the group is functioning properly and getting any tasks finished on time. Beyond that s/he should work with the VP in facilitating general communication between the various people in administrative roles throughout the party.
The secondary job is as an ex-officio member of every committee. This was previously the job of the president, but it was felt it was a sensible duty for the VP to be doing. It would allow the President to focus more on leading the executive and IT, while giving the VP some practical experience coordinating people.
Lastly is managing the volunteer efforts. I'm not sure if we made a good move in adding that third duty to the VP job, it may have been because people were unaware of the second duty. Volunteer coordinator is a very difficult job and should have someone specifically in charge of just doing that. If I am made VP I will immediately move to create the new position of 'Volunteer Coordinator' on the Executive Board. The VP will still be in charge of ensuring the Coordinator is getting the job done properly (it would be a similar relationship as the one between the President and the IT Head), but it would spread the work out better.
I'm currently on the Political Council and according to the constitution you may not be on it while also being the President, VP or Secretary. I will remove myself from the Political Council if I am elected to the position of VP. If the membership wishes to create an exception using a special rule of order to exempt me (until the proper elections take place in the beginning of the new year), then I will continue on both. A similar proviso was added to allow our previous President to be on both, so this isn't ground breaking.
I'm a bit conflicted here. Having worked with you in the past I think you would do well in this position as you have done on the PC and on various committees. My issues are as followed:
-If you leave the PC it will trigger a by-election. The party has issues with stable leadership and I don't want the PC/party being distracted with 2 federal by-elections likely in the next few months that still need candidates.
-If you retain both positions a proviso will require a full membership vote. If taken at the same time as the constitution vote its not an issue but otherwise I have to say that a higher than average amount of things we bring to the membership are constitutional changes which doesn't inspire confidence in the leadership either.
-While several reasons were discussed for accepting Sean Hunt's resignation one was that he shouldn't be on both the PC and EB. If you are on both you may face similiar sentiments at unlikely times.
All that said I would probably still vote for you but it will be a harder vote than it should have to be.
Well to ask similer questions as i did to Jesse, (in the other forum that didnt transfer)
Until the time when a volenteer co-ordinator is found, ( or if that position is not created) how will you handle the duty of co-ordinating volenteers?
( i do like your idea and i did not know of the other duties of the VP, Personaly in most volenteer or semi-volenteer positions [including our executive] we run a gamble of burning people out and too many duties on a volenteer position is a bad thing)
Second question, As the VP and potential President how will you handle the direction of the party in regards to our pan political spectrum design? as a conservative turned pirate this is of particuler consern to me as i am currently the minoraty in the party (from my estimate based on forum topics)
Hey Tyler,
The president/vice-president has absolutely zero influence on whether we remain bloc-neutral, "rightist" or "leftist" by the design of the party. That is the role of the Political Council, lead by the Leader.
I can assure you that no matter the outcome of the election, we are going to continue to strive to remain bloc-neutral on issues of traditional right/left division. We are united, no matter our background, against corruption.
This is an interesting discussion, and I'd like to continue it here to not hijack this thread.
http://dev.pirateparty.ca/forum/topic/remaining-bloc-neutral-left-right-political-dichotomy-and-you
Thanks but in the interests of the Party ( and my interests in bringing in more dissatisfied conservatives ) i think the person talking to the media ( as far as i can tell since ive been here the president and other executives) should hold the same beliefs, if if they do not,at least have the ability to speck to the media neutrally.
( now ill admit ive only been here 5 months so i don't know the how that all works, just what ive seen on the news feeds and what not, either way its the minor part of who ill decide to vote for, most important is the duties)
I'm not really happy with the options either but this is the situation we're in. I had thought about running for President (and therefore also VP) after my term with the PC was up, so this just feels like a temporary stop gap until then. Probably the biggest issue I have with running right now is that it may trigger another elections, which we don't need. I'm not sure how to work this out so that it's good for the functioning of the party and follows the rules. Maybe I could take a leave of absence from the PC until the constitution vote is ready? Ultimately though I think it's more important to have a VP who can focus on the core job and who is fully capable of replacing the President, if necessary.
I'm going to be nominating Jesse Gaudet for the position of volunteer coordinator in either the Executive Board (I'm fairly confident they will agree cause it's sensible) or if they disagree, I will bring it to the next GM. Failing both of those I will try and find someone to assist me with organizing it in general. In that case, my primary action would be to figure out the best way to communicate and try and delegate as much as possible (maybe through local volunteer coordinators or something similar).
As an aside, I just realized another problem with linking the VP to the Volunteer Co-ordinator. If the President needs to be replaced, then suddenly the central point of communicaiton between our volunteers has switched jobs. They would need to transition all contact info and current projects. Sounds needlessly messy to me. I think we should leave the task in their job description. This is coming from some discussion about assigning certain tasks to the various board/council members to ensure things are finished on time. There would still be a separate Volunteer Co-ordinater, but it would be up to the VP to ensure they were working effectively. If that were to happen we should look at the role of the other officers and see if there are reasonable task to assign them as well.
I believe Shawn V is right on your second question: the political direction of the party is supposed to be dictated by the Political Council. They are the ones who are authorized to speak to the media on behalf of the membership. The VP did previously do an interview with CBC, but that was during the transition period, before the Executive and Political Boards had separated. I can say that in any of the debates throughout the party, I will try to remain off the standard political spectrum. I also do not tolerate attacking someones argument by insinuating it is part of an ideological dogma (that is therefor negative somehow).
I believe that you're ineligible since you are presently on the PC, any votes for you do not count since you cannot be elected to VP. I don't think you can have your cake and eat it too by resigning after the votes are in.
Since there is no precedent set in the party, I don't see any reason that we cannot allow PC members who wish to run for VP to "have their cake and eat it too" and resign from their PC position in the event they're elected to the executive board. It makes no good sense to limit ourselves this way.
I admit I am a little bit wary of handing the VP position (the heir to the presidential seat, the de facto member of every committee and now volunteer co-ordinator) to someone that I am completely unfamiliar with, and that is influencing my opinion. Jesse seems like an enthusiastic guy, but I would be much more comfortable easing him into the party rather than making him vice president after posting three times on the forum, and Johann seems to want to include him.
Vote Weissgerber!
(Edited once I got to a real keyboard)
That sounds like a bad interpretation of the constitution. Not holding more then one position doesn't mean you can't run for one with the expectation that you'll resign from the conflicting position, if you win. Your preference for how to read that section would lead to needless re-elections with no discernable purpose. I have the intention of resigning in the case that I win. The concerns I expressed in this thread were over the need for another byelection. Could we just delay this new election (so the PC would be one member short) until the next constitution vote?
Oxpirate: thanks for the support.
Johann Weissgerber wrote:
Bad in that that's not the way you want the constitution to work, or bad in that you disagree with it in context? It's not that you cannot run, it's that a vote for you cannot be counted since you are incapable of winning. You cannot be announced as the winner of the VP election since that would take effect immediately and put you in conflicting positions, against the constitution.
I'm not making a political argument. I haven't thought about whether or not you would make a good VP, only that I am of the opinion that you cannot be elected VP by virtue of your position on PC.
Bah, that was me. Didn't work right at all. Probably my fault somehow.
The constitution: "No Individual may hold more than one officer position. Officers of the party are the members of the Executive Council which comprise the Leader, Deputy Leader, President, Vice President and Secretary positions. The positions of President, Vice-President and Secretary shall not be eligible to hold a position on the Political Council."
That doesn't seem to say anything about running for positions. It's that you can't hold more than one position. This would mean that before I could accept the position of VP I would have to resign from the PC. Aside from the pedantic arguments over exact wording, it's just logical. We don't have enough people running for administrative positions, so restricting members from moving between them (and possibly causing unnecessary re-elections of the PC) is just silly.
Ignoring the votes of members is an insult to democracy. Yes, if I got the most votes the GM couldn't accept me as VP until I resigned, but I could resign and the problem is solved. That just makes sense and is functional to the party.
Question for all VP candidates: Since the VP position means you can end up as the President of the party in short notice, what is your plan for the party if you are asked to become the president?
Given that this is such an important position and there are only two contesting candidates, how is it possible that it is even being considered to allow a virtually unknown candidate (as the other fellow most certainly is) the opportunity to win the position. The best interest of the Pirate Party of Canada is at stake, and we should not be treating the future of the Party in such a willy nilly fashion. There is no other option than to elect Johann Weissgerber. At least he has been an active member in the forums and Party Members have been able to get a sense of his good character, as well as his opinions on various topics - whether one always agrees or not. The other candidate I know nothing about.
This is perhaps something that should be added to the definition section of the constitution. Since most votes on positions I've seen require the person to affirm they accept the position before they actually have it it would stand to reason someone who won but refused to step down from their other position has refused the new position. I agree with Johann, saying the votes simply don't count is probably the least democratic way to go about solving such issues.
IMHO...
I think the interpretation that would be best used is that while running for a position since the candidates have the option to decline as this is a write-in ballot that given someone is declared a winner and given the opportunity to decline that there is a period of time where they are the winner but have not assumed office. Thus in that period of time it makes sense they can resign from their other position to assume the office of VP.
That said I have concerns about this triggering a by-election in the PC but I'd rather see brand new people running for the PC rather than the EB but that's just my opinion.
I would like to apologize about any potential misunderstanding regarding my last post, and want to make myself more clear. I am not against the other candidate running - that is of course part of democratic process. What I was concerned about when I wrote my post is that some hold the view that Johann is an ineligible - effectively making this a one horse race; a 'fait accompli'. A one horse race is what I am against.
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