Straight to the source

CBC reports today:

Political sources told CBC News Monday that many of the 73 names on Cabana's papers fail to meet the definition of a PC party member, as outlined in the party's own constitution. An eligible signature would need to come from a current or past member of a district executive, the provincial executive or a current or former member of the house of assembly.

Here again, for the record, and for the benefit of both CBC and its sources, is what The Party’s The Constitution says, which is not the same thing as what “political sources” say that it says.

Appendix A, Part II, 1.C.:

The candidate must file with the Chief Electoral Officer a nomination form containing the signatures of fifty individuals who are members of the Party on or before the date of close of nomination established by the Convention Committee.

The term “members”, as in “members of the Party”, is not defined in the definitions section of either the Appendix, or of the Constitution itself. However, there is absolutely nothing in that document which restricts the class of “members” who are entitled to be among the fifty to nominate a leadership candidate to the subset of people who are a “current or past member of a district executive, the provincial executive or a current or former member of the house of assembly”.

There are provisions of the Constitution which provide that current and former MHAs are members of The Party’s Executive Council, or that current and former MHAs, members of The Party’s Executive Council, or certain members of district executives, are ex-officio delegates to a leadership convention.

But those provisions are not those which govern the nomination of leadership candidates itself.

No, the nomination of leadership candidates is done by fifty “individuals who are members of the Party on or before the date of close of nomination”. If the Constitution had wanted to restrict nominating power to a small sub-set of PC Party members, it would have said so. Expressio unius exclusio alterius and all that.

And as party nomination contestants and John Babb have reminded us, ad nauseam, during candidate nominations in recent years… The Party has open membership, which makes it rather a tricky business determining who is a member at all, let alone who is a member on any given date.

Back to you, “political sources”.