Nearly 675,000 members have signed up to vote for a new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada — a staggering number that the Tories believe sets an all-time record for any federal political party.
The party said it sent the preliminary voter list to the candidates on Thursday. The final number is subject to change, as leadership candidates will now be able to challenge the validity of any of those sign-ups or force names to be added to the list.
Candidates have until the end of Monday to issue these challenges, which the party insists must be “certified”. They will be reviewed by the party’s chief returning officer, whose decisions can be appealed to the dispute resolution committee before finalizing the electoral rolls later in July.
However, the party said that some 6,500 non-compliant sales had been cut in accordance with the Conservative’s internal rules and the Canada Election Act.
These include subscriptions that were purchased for different addresses but using the same credit card or with prepaid cards or corporate accounts.
Ian Brody, chairman of the leadership election organizing committee, said Thursday that there are more Conservative Party members than people in Hamilton, Ont.
“Canadians are responding to the leadership race in unprecedented numbers. We have broken all records of prior political participation in Canada.”
For comparison, in 2020, when former leader Erin O’Toole was elected in the Conservatives’ final leadership race, the party claimed a qualified voting base of 270,000.
Earlier this year, the party said it had 161,000 active and current members nationally, although about 48,000 of them were due to expire by the June membership deadline.
It said most members signed up online, though some registered by mail or phone.
A provincial breakdown of membership was not provided on Thursday.
The party is also not releasing how many members each individual candidate signed off on, despite the urging of Ottawa-area MP Pierre Poilievre, who has claimed to have sold about 312,000 memberships through its website.
Five other candidates are vying for the top job: Ontario Conservative MPs Scott Aitchison and Leslyn Lewis; former Quebec Premier Jean Charest; Patrick Brown, mayor of Brampton, Ont.; and Roman Babur, a former independent member of the Ontario legislature.
The party also said that the list was cleared of duplicates, which it described as a normal part of any campaign. Anyone who has signed up twice is simply given a second year of membership.
Both Brown and Lewis had raised concerns about potential duplicates, which arose from emails sent by Poilever’s campaign before the deadline last month to sell a $15 subscription.
Brown and Lewis charged Members purchased new memberships after receiving an “official-looking warning” from Poilivre’s team that their status was incomplete.
A spokesman for Poilievre’s team said the emails in question went to people who, according to campaign records, were not members.
The winner is to be announced on September 10 in Ottawa.
Brody downplayed the revenue implications of selling so many memberships, saying that some of the money should be shared with ride-hailing unions.
Instead, he said the main finding was how the candidates mobilized supporters.
“I think what it shows is the level of engagement and enthusiasm for the race that will continue to pay dividends for us before the end of the race, and I don’t see it any less on September 11th.”
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