She’s not done yet folks. Sheila Copps just announced that she will appeal her nomination loss in the riding of Hamilton East-Stoney Creek. She’s taking her case right to the RCMP with sworn statements from her supporters who suspected “dirty tricks”. Her mother, the Liberal riding president and Warren Kinsella are among those who claim that they were turned away from the nomination meeting.
Now, as an observer from the outside and particularly as a Conservative Party observer, I must say that Sheila’s bold last-ditch move against Paul Martin is refreshing. When the Conservative Party was going through the pains of formation, the Liberals were laughing smugly as a small minority of members wondered if they’d stay or go. This week, as I’ve said, has proven to be a dirty internal war within the Liberal Party and it appears that Sheila is about to become a bigger headache for those Liberal MPs seeking re-election. A party in turmoil is not fit to govern and Canadians are starting to realize that, as Conservatives, we’re ready to form the next government.
We have already learned that the Liberal government is not in order. Now we’re starting to see that the Liberal house is not in order.
The numbers are out today and all of our efforts have not been in vain. The membership of the Conservative Party of Canada has gone from 142,000 on December 7th 2003 to 251,759 today (March 1st). This means that 109,759 new memberships have been purchased by Canadians. Detractors of the Conservative Party have said that the whole would be less than sum of the parts. Today, these numbers show that this is completely untrue. The unified Conservative Party membership is actually greater than the sum of the memberships of the two formative parties (the PC and the Alliance).