Local members of new party created by former Tory to meet in Kelowna
Supporters of People’s Party of Canada plan organizational meeting Saturday
The first real-world meeting in Kelowna of a new political party will include the virtual presence of its leader. Maxime Bernier, leader of the People’s Party of Canada, is expected to call those attending the inaugural gathering of local supporters on Saturday at the downtown library.
About 150 people in the federal riding of Kelowna-Lake Country have already taken out People’s Party memberships online, but this will be the first time they’ve met together.
“It’s amazing how fast this party is growing, which is both sort of a good thing and a bad thing,” Glen Walushka, a regional organizer, said Wednesday.
“It’s great that so many people are passionate about wanting to bring positive change to the political scene, but it’s also a bit of a challenge for us to stay on top of things,” Walushka said.
The nascent party, formed by Bernier after he quit the Conservative party in late August, already claims 33,000 members nationwide. That includes about 500 people in the ridings centred around Kelowna, Penticton and Vernon, Walushka said.
The national membership, he says, already exceeds that of the Green Party of Canada, and is equal to about one-third of what the Conservative party had before the leadership contest that resulted in Andrew Scheer taking charge, defeating Bernier on the final ballot.
The purpose of the 2 p.m. Saturday meeting at the downtown library is to establish a constituency association for the riding of Kelowna-Lake Country and elect seven local directors.
A similar meeting for the riding of Central Okanagan-Similkameen Nicola will be held Nov .17 in Summerland at the Arts and Culture Centre. A time and place for the organizational meeting for the riding of South Okanagan-West Kootenay, which includes Penticton, hasn’t been set yet.
Bernier, who is in Vancouver today and Calgary on the weekend, won’t be in Kelowna for Saturday’s meeting. But he will call in during the proceedings, says Walushka, as he did in September when he talked for about half an hour to the 30 people who attended a similar meeting in Vernon.
Walushka says people who’ve expressed interest in joining the People’s Party of Canada include disaffected Conservatives like himself, along with Liberals and Greens.
“We certainly have some old, grizzled veterans who’ve survived many political wars, but also millennials and Gen-Xers, people who’ll provide the vital new blood that any political party needs,” he said.
The most common criticism about the People’s Party, at least from other small-c conservatives, is that it will serve only to dilute the right-of-centre vote and all but guarantee the re-election of the Liberals in next year’s federal election.
Unsurprisingly, Walushka rejects the theory, at least in part.
“Andrew Scheer is taking the Conservative party in a centrist direction, so his main rival is now the Liberal party,” Walushka said. “We haven’t abandoned the Conservatives; they’ve abandoned us, by walking away from core principles many of us care deeply about.”
It’s possible, Walushka believes, that together the Conservatives and the People’s Party could between them win enough seats to form government and oust the Liberals.