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To all Members
and Supporters:
The BC Conservative Party started the
election campaign with nothing but faith. We
had no money, few volunteers and almost no
candidates. But the small group that we
assembled had faith.
And that faith has produced results.
Despite not electing any MLA’s we have
actually enjoyed a great deal of success in
this campaign.
We have dramatically increased the awareness
of our Party, both in the media and among the
public.
We have increased our membership and we have
identified a large number of campaign workers
and constituency members, as well as a number
of good potential candidates for the next
election.
We have a number of people to thank for our
success.
Thank you to all the members of our
Provincial Board of Directors who have worked
tirelessly over the last four years to build an
organization for this election campaign.
A special thank you to our Party Secretary,
Gill Picard and to Yvonne Dunlop for the
tremendous amount of work they have done for
the Party. Thank you to Del & Sharon
Israelson and all the members of the Candidate
Selection Committee for their work in finding
candidates and screening them. Thank you to our
Campaign Manager, Tony Bhullar and or Deputy
Campaign Manager, Del Israelson for their work
in organizing and managing the campaign.
Thank you to all the people who contributed
to the development of our policies over the
last four years and who worked to put together
a fantastic Party Platform, based on those
policies. Thank you to all the people who
contributed financially to the campaign. Thank
you to Chris Delaney and Mark Thompson, our
Deputy Leaders for helping me to lead the Party
through the Election Campaign and to both Chris
Delaney and Peter Neville for their work in
bringing attention to the single most important
issue in this campaign – the Recognition and
Reconciliation Act.
Thank you to all the Campaign Managers and
Campaign workers in every constituency that
worked so hard to help our candidates.
A great big and heartfelt thank you
to all the candidates for an exceptional job in
campaigning for election and in helping to
raise the profile of our Party.
I am sure I have overlooked some people who
helped in this campaign, but I want you to know
that I really appreciate everyone’s
contribution.
Now the work
begins.
We must continue to provide credible and
accountable opposition to our Government from
outside the legislature. We must criticize them
when they do badly and give them credit when
they earn it.
We must encourage them to improve the
situation for British Columbians and offer
suggestions on how to do it. This will include
improving health care and education,
encouraging private industry to build a
stronger economy, with good paying jobs for our
citizens, reducing taxes and eliminating the
carbon tax without replacing it with any new
tax or cap & trade system, and finding a
way to settle Aboriginal Land Claims without
giving up control of our entire Province to 30
unelected Aboriginal Governments that are not
accountable to you and me.
I have asked the candidates, the campaign
managers and the members of the Provincial
Board of Directors to meet with me for a
week-end camp-out to unwind after the election
campaign and to discuss ways to ensure that our
Party keeps growing and working to get ready
for the next election.
We will talk about what we did right in this
election campaign as well as what we could have
done differently. We will also talk about how
to organize our Party with an overall plan or
roadmap for building a credible party for the
2013 election. This will include the formation
of a strong Board of Directors and a Strong
Campaign Team. It will include establishing a
Party Office in Vancouver. It will include
Committees like Fundraising, Membership and
Constituency Development, among others. It will
also include recruiting the maximum number of
candidates and campaign workers.
We will be talking about the possibility of
organizing a petition drive to force the
government to hold a binding referendum on the
Recognition and Reconciliation Act. We
will talk about enlisting the support of the
Business Community as well as a number of
organizations to join us in the petition drive.
We intend to take this campaign to every corner
of this Province and we will be victorious.
We must also address the fact that, despite
the defeat of the BC-STV System, people do not
like the current voting system either. I
believe that if we offer a change that is
simpler, fairer and easier to understand than
the BC-STV System, the vast majority of the
voters in BC will support it. Our Party
supports the “Preferential Balloting System”
and would like to see it instituted in time for
the next election. We may be able to accomplish
that with a petition drive.
I am inviting everyone who agrees with us to
join in these battles. This will be the most
important thing anyone has ever done for this
Province and you can be a part of it. You can
help us to save British Columbia. Please
contact our Secretary and volunteer to help us
build this Party.
Then we will work together to continue
building this Party. We will sell new
memberships, build constituency organizations
and recruit more candidates. Then we will be in
a position to win the next election and form
the Government of British Columbia.
Wilf Hanni,
Party Leader.
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