2010 Annual Meeting
President’s Report
This is really a joint report from my predecessor Scott Armstrong.
It’s hard to pack in a full report in three minutes or less, but I will do my best.
First, I would like to thank the 52 men and women who stepped forward as candidates in the June 9 election – as well as the campaign teams supporting them.
Many are in this room this morning.
Our candidates had the courage of their convictions to put a name on a ballot and stand with our former leader Rodney MacDonald and the PC Party.
I would also like to thank provincial campaign chair Kevin Lacey and his campaign team. Despite the overwhelming challenges of a 10 year old governing party, Kevin put together a new campaign team, with many new people – people who will continue to serve our party well in future campaigns.
Since the 2009 annual general meeting, your provincial executive has met seven times – six in person and one by teleconference.
Five of these meetings have taken place since the June 9 election.
As you will hear from members of your provincial executive this morning, despite the results of the 2009 election, the PC Party has stayed extremely active.
After going from first to third place, the easy thing for our party would have been to go to ground, take the summer off and regroup in the fall... perhaps even wait until this annual meeting.
At our June meeting after the election, the provincial executive unanimously decided on a different course of action.
We chose to listen to party members over the summer about four things:
• what needed to change from the last campaign;
• what needed to be kept and built upon from the past campaign;
• when would be a good time for our party to elect a permanent leader; and
• what’s the best method to select a permanent leader.
In July, then president Scott Armstrong, provincial director Jim David, then organizer Steve Taylor and deputy campaign chair Jordi Morgan and I hosted 10 post election meetings in every region of the province.
More than 250 candidates, campaign managers and other party volunteers participated in these meetings.
Now with 250 Tories, we did get about 250,000 opinions, but there was some general consensus in a couple of key areas.
A lot of it’s good old fashioned common sense, but it bears repeating.
Most PCs felt the provincial campaign structure generally gave local campaigns the support they needed – even if local campaigns had grave concerns or disagreements about the actual strategy.
Most party members, however, desperately want our party to do a better, consistent job clearly articulating what we stand for as a party, rather than what we’re against.
If we don’t give Nova Scotians positive reasons to vote Progressive Conservative, they will turn to the party that gives them hope.
Party members also noted that the work preparing for the next election – whether it’s organization, communications, fundraising or policy – does not begin when the election is called, or in the weeks leading up to an election.
That work must take place now and continue to build towards the next election, which may come as early as 2012 if not 2013.
On the question of leadership timing, party members wanted us to wait a little while before engaging in a full blown leadership... but not wait too long, so that our party can start 2011 with a leader that has a democratic mandate from PC Party members.
Finally, on the question of leadership selection, party members told us they wanted a process that guaranteed the equality of the 52 constituencies and give long serving party supporters greater protection.
The provincial executive listened to what the grassroots brought forward last summer and we took action.
We set a delegate leadership convention for October 29 and 30, 2010, with greater protection for longer serving party supporters. Our two great leadership co-chairs Alice McCarron and George White have graciously agreed to oversee this process, working with a growing team of volunteers.
The provincial executive also unanimously adopted the Outlook 2014 initiative – to start the process of developing a plan for the PC Party of Nova Scotia – working together with the leader elected this fall.
This will be a plan that by 2011 every Progressive Conservative will have a stake in.
It will be a plan that gives every Progressive Conservative a job to do,
It will be a plan to rebuild our party, improve our performance and raise our game as a modern organization that becomes closer to the voter than any other party in Nova Scotia.
Most important of all, it will be a plan that we can measure.
A workable plan we can measure is essential for the leader, the campaign chair and the party president to have.
To ensure we move forward as a party, not backward.
As I hope you will hear from the reports this morning, while the PC Party was beaten last June, we are not broken beyond repair.
We are in the black. We have money in the bank.
We still have the strongest grassroots, as demonstrated by this convention.
And we have the drive, the determination and commitment to rebuild as a party, to reconnect with Nova Scotians and return to provide the good government that our citizens need.
I hereby respectfully submit this report.
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