Looking for a leader
P.E.I. Progressive Conservative party to announce leadership convention plans
The president of the P.E.I. Progressive Conservative party says plans for a leadership convention will be announced this weekend. Pat Banks says planning has been happening at the party level to nail down a time frame if not, perhaps, a date. “We have some big plans for the party going forward, organizational wise, that we will be presenting to the membership.” The PC annual general meeting will be held this weekend, and leadership promises to be a key issue of discussion. The party has been without a permanent leader for the last year. Rob Lantz stayed on as leader for a few months after failing to win a seat in the May 2015 election but resigned in September 2015. Since then, Borden-Kinkora MLA Jamie Fox has filled in as interim leader, but the party has been silent on any plans to recruit and install a permanent leader.
Internally, party executives and the eight PC MLAs have had trouble coming to an agreement on when the convention should be held, sources have told The Guardian. There is also disagreement over whether the new leader should be one of the elected MLAs or someone new to try to build the party while leading outside the rail. Banks says he believes a permanent leader is needed “sooner than later” as a way to build more public support. The party has been stagnant in the polls since the 2015 election, PC party president Pat Banks says the party needs a permanent leader in place to help increase its polling numbers and public support. hovering around 20 per cent in decided voter support in quarterly polls from Corporate Research Associates, leaving the governing Liberals to enjoy a full year of strong polling numbers. That’s why a permanent leader is needed, Banks said. “As good a job as an interim leader does, it’s very difficult to increase your numbers without the permanent leader being place, and we recognize that,” he said. “We have formulated a plan as to the proper timing for the leadership convention.”
He said “several” people are thinking about running for leadership but would not give names or an actual number of people. Meanwhile, members will decide this weekend on a number of proposed amendments to the party’s constitution, one of which pertains to leadership. The current wording of the constitution says anyone who has been interim leader of the party within 180 days of a leadership convention is ineligible to run as permanent leader. A proposal went to members suggesting this should be changed so that any interim leader should never be allowed to seek permanent leadership of the party. But a second notice has since followed, suggesting instead the 180-day buffer between an interim leader seeking permanent leadership should be extended to one year.
Banks says this is not an attempt to make it impossible for Fox to seek permanent leadership of the party, noting Fox has publicly stated on multiple occasions he is not interested. Another motion members will vote on proposes to make all members of the party executive sign a confidentiality agreement “to ensure the privacy of the association.” The PC caucus has been vocal in its criticism of the secrecy and confidentiality that shrouded the e-gaming controversy, but Banks says this change is a standard clause.
“The idea of this, as in any organization, you have things to discuss that the general public doesn’t necessarily need to know about. It’s just a confidentiality agreement.” The PC AGM will be held Saturday, Oct. 22, in Charlottetown.