The good news is that for that $100,000 you can run for the leadership of the Ontario liberals. There is another $25,000 that is refundable but I am not sure why. And you can only spend $900,000 on your campaign. All of these rules have been announced by the Ontario liberal party executive for a leadership contest that will end with voting by ranked ballot on November 25 and 26 by all members and announced on December 2 this year.
There will likely be an admission charge for those liberals attending the leadership announcement party but that is still to be announced. The only really bad news in this announcement is the ranked ballot for the new leader. Hopefully, if the number of candidates stays within reason, at four or five candidates, the results of the voting will most likely be similar to using first-past-the-post.
But the best news of all is that if you have 50 or 60 thousand close friends or followers on Facebook in Ontario, who want to vote for you, there is no charge to becoming a member of the liberal party.
And this is the dumbest part of the entire exercise! Instead of the members of the party paying through their membership for the costs of the leadership campaign, it is the leadership candidates. I think the members of the party would be much happier to get one or two pitches per year for extra funding in support of the party. I, for one, find the constant requests for money annoying.
Yes, I will admit that the ability of the leader to be able to raise substantial funds for his or her campaign is important but it is hardly the most important. Leadership is also gathering a team that can work together to win. It has to be a creative team. It has to be a hard-working team. It has to be a team that can draw support to liberalism, to serving our communities.
Babel-on-the-Bay.com will welcome the candidates and help readers to get to know about them. We will probably do a Morning Line presentation to give our impression on where the candidates stand. We have to defeat Mr. Ford and his friends.
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