Tories dial back on membership fee hike

Limiting members also reduces data a party can utilize

The Conservative Party is set to reverse the increase in its membership dues, after the decision to bump up the cost by $10 a year was roundly criticized by a number of Tory MPs for limiting the ability to attract new members at a time when the Liberals plan to offer free membership.

Jason Kenney, a Calgary Conservative and potential leadership candidate, said he would prefer the party’s national council revisit the issue.

“I have heard no support for it within the party and I’ve heard a great deal of concern and opposition,” he said.

“We need to send a message as a party that we are open, by inviting and encouraging people to join. I think we should be trying massively to expand our membership, but I think raising the price makes that more difficult.”

Sources close to the party president, John Walsh, said that message has been received by the hierarchy. A motion will be brought forward this weekend at a national council meeting to return the membership fee to $15, from the $25 introduced earlier this year.

The source said the increase was a “technocratic” change to reduce administration costs and encourage people to buy $30 twoyear memberships.

“We don’t want this to be a political football — there was no agenda, it was done to make renewal more easy,” he said.

The issue may sound arcane, but parties are increasingly recognizing the value of collecting data from supporters.

The Conservative source said his party does not make money from its membership, but the accumulation of information about members has long been judged the “secret sauce” of Tory fundraising.

The party’s CIMS database pioneered the use of targeted political fundraising in Canada, allowing the Tories to send pinpoint messages to potential donors on issues they cared about, such as the gun registry or the CBC.

For many years, the Liberals did not show the same appetite for micro-targeting and worked with a database that had a limited number of entries.

In his post-2011 analysis, thenparty president Alf Apps said while the Conservative party was “able to calibrate its voter contact to each voter’s profile with laser like focus, the Liberal Party of Canada is flying half-blind.”

However, the Trudeau Liberals have embraced micro-targeting tools.

“It means you can target people but, more importantly, you can have a conversation with them, so they can engage or contribute. We need to hear who’s interested, who’s engaged and what they care about,” said Christina Topp, interim national director of the Liberal Party.

But she said the Liberals have used the new technology in ways that are distinct from the Tories.

“They used all that data to micro- target and pit people against each other on very specific issues in a very negative way. Our base doesn’t respond well to those negative, narrow issues,” she said.

“They want to know what we are for and what they can do to be part of it. The negative stuff doesn’t fit with the brand of our organization or our leader,” she said.

During the 2013 Liberal leadership race, non- members were invited to vote for free as “supporters” — about 300,000 people registered as a result.

“There’s something weird and cultish about being a member of a political party,” said political strategist and digital outreach expert, Corey Hogan.

“Canadians want to instead get involved in different ways and, almost casually, be able to join, leave, come back. There’s much more bleeding than there used to be.”

Justin Trudeau adopted similar tactics to the Liberal leadership contest in the last election.

In an update to her book Shopping for Votes, author Susan Delacourt interviewed the prime minister about his attitude toward marketing and data.

He said he had one condition for visiting ridings during the campaign: organizers had to promise to gather contact information from all the attendees.

“That was what I demanded. If they wanted a visit from the leader, they had to arrange that or else I’d be really upset,” he said.

That information was then used to raise money and motivate particular demographic or interest groups. New research from Abacus Data suggests young Canadians were critical to the Liberal Party’s majority victory.

The party created a micro-site aimed at young people’s issues and pushed its message out on Facebook, YouTube and Vice.

With the youth vote increasing by 12 per cent on the previous election, the targeting proved extraordinarily successful — 45 per cent of Canadians aged 18-25 voted Liberal, compared with 25 per cent for the New Democratic Party and 20 per cent for the Conservatives, the poll suggested.

The Liberal move on membership fees is in keeping with this style of campaigning.

The party currently charges $10 a year for memberships, but the proposal adopted at the national board this month advocated opening the party up to free memberships.

The issue will be voted on by delegates at the party’s national convention in Winnipeg next month.

CANADIANS WANT TO INSTEAD GET INVOLVED IN DIFFERENT WAYS AND ... BE ABLE TO JOIN, LEAVE, COME BACK.