In the wake of President-Elect Trump's reelection, I thought it proper to reexamine Canada's NATO commitments in light of a predicted renewed push by Trump's new administration on NATO spending.

Last year, we spent $28.9 billion on defence, just 1.38% of our GDP.

We need to reach 2% by 2032 to meet the goal set by NATO. Moreover, Trump is not know for patience, and his last 4 years we were acutely made aware of our nation's shortcomings on defence spending.

The CFP is truly the only party talking seriously about meeting the 2% spending goal, and I for one hope as a party and membership we tout this policy loud and clear to voters who are anxious or eager to work with a new US administration.

What are your thoughts on foreign policy, defence, and the like in relation to the Trump administration and Canada, and how can the CFP show we are poised to deal with the immediate future of Canada in the world?

Friday November 8, 2024 Afternoon: Optional tours 17:00 Call to Order 17:10 Volunteer team/working groups reports 19:00 Break 19:15 Networking event

Saturday November 9 2024 09:00 Call to order 09:05 Confirmation of president by vote 09:50 Confirmation of National Council by vote 11:00 Break 11:30 Confirmation of leader by vote 12:30 Lunch 14:00 Review of Policy resolutions priority 1 and 2 15:00 Review of Policy resolutions priority 3 and 4 16:00 Break 16:30 Review of Policy resolutions priority 5 17:30 Wrap up

Evening: Optional Fundraising Dinner Sunday November 10, 2024 09:00 Call to order 09:05 Constitution presentation and vote 09:45 Code of Conduct presentation and vote 10:30 Break 11:00 Executive Director report and confirmation 11:55 Wrap up

Afternoon: Optional Tours

All CFP members will have recieved an email from the party regarding a final composited list of resolutions as gathered from the 362 proposals.

Members have until November 2nd at 12:00 EDT to submit comments to the party regarding the resolutions via the provided Google Form link (and not via email due to the volume expected).

Please take a moment to review the resolutions and provide any commentary you may wish to.

This is the next step in preparation for a fully-formed post-convention party platform, so have your say today!

Worth noting, the resolutions are in draft form and ergo are not to be shared publically at this point; they are for consideration and commentary by members only. Post-convention, the process of publication will be communicated.

I figured I should make a short summary of the youth wing and Cardy Q&A on Sunday for all you old people or anyone who couldn't make it. For anyone else who attended feel free to add details that I may have forgotten or overlooked.

To start with the youth wing meeting there were 15-20 attendees fairly evenly distributed between Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, Nova Scotia and BC. It was an introductory meeting, in which there was a lot of brainstorming of what the role of the youth wing would be within the party, how CFP leadership can engage with youth and any areas in which the CFP could improve.

The Q&A with Cardy was brief only lasting about 30 minutes. But there were some good questions for Cardy.

So to start I asked Cardy about the monarchy, he said he was supremely unconcerned about the monarchy. He belives that it plays an important constitutional role in Canada. Under his term as leader of the CFP the monarchy won't be touched as we have countless more pressing issues. He's happy for the monarchy to stay but wouldn't be angry if people pushed to abolish it.

When asked about CANZUK Cardy notes that he wants it to look like the EU with free trade and movement. He would be willing to expand it to other like minded democracies. He also advocates for the expansion of NATO.

Another question asked was about civility in politics and in everyday life. Cardy notes that we have to make clear distinctions between right and wrong, and treat everyone with respect but we also have to move away from being polite and ineffectual like many elite are, they're polite to you just so you shut up and go away while they don't actually address your problems.

I can't remember the exact context of the question but Cardy noted that police and other law enforcement agencies have become less willing to enforce the law.

Youth members and supporters, this one is for you.

The CFP is launching our Youth Wing on October 20th from 6-7pm EDT virtually and wants members and supporters 14-30 years of age to be a part of this great event!

A Q&A with our leader Dominic Cardy will be included in the event.

Reach out to youth@ourcanadianfuture.ca for questions about this event.

Listen up CFP members!

In an email recieved today, members are being welcomed to consult the party draft constitution and are able to make amendment and addition propositions via a feedback survey tool.

As this is for members only, I will refer members to this recent email for the links.

Have your say on the language, clauses, and mechanisms of the party constitution today!

Happy Thanksgiving all!

In the same vein of similar "turkey talk" guides from current political parties, I thought it could be fun to crowd-source some talking points/conversation starters in the comments below for folks to broach at their turkey/thanksgiving feasts today.

How would you start a conversation with folks at your table about the CFP?

Enjoy some time with your folks and have a great rest of your Thansgiving!

With the latest distribution of the climate rebate to citizens' bank accounts across several provinces, I thought it timely to discuss the CFP and eventual climate-based policies.

Here's an excerpt from our current policy framework:

"Climate change is real. We need a transition plan including carbon capture, nuclear and renewable energy, the use of democratically sourced fossil fuels, especially Canadian energy, and an incentive-driven program to reduce carbon emissions. ​Large emitters must pay, but those costs should not be imposed directly on citizens."

It is pretty clear thus far that the CFP is against the carbon tax, as are the majority of Canadians. It is also abundantly clear our membership and leadership both acknowledge the reality of climate change.

What are the specific policies or areas of focus regarding climate change you are hoping the party adopts in our official platform?

Just a reminder to folks that tomorrow, October 8th at midnight is the deadline to register as a member in order to vote at the inaugural party convention in November.

The CFP wants to strike a balance between open engagement with interested supporters and members with safeguarding against underhanded influencing campaigns by foreign actors. Knowing from the foreign inteference commission's work of how party membership and leadership races have been targetted in the past, the party has a hard deadline to confirm members who wish to vote for party policy and leadership.

On a broader note, be excited! Whether you are going to the convention or not, once membership has approved policies, we will havexa concrete platform and be able to initiate our next phase of outreach and engagement.

This really is just the beginning!

Not left, not right, but forward.

Hey folks,

I am hoping many of you have had the opportunity to share the message and spread the word of the CFP.

This week I spoke with a former provincial PC EDA pres. about the CFP and at his request forwarded along some info on the party. The conversation was productive with a lot of agreement about the current state of federal politics ("Poilievre scared me" being a direct quote from him).

Drop a comment below about recent conversations with folks you have had about the CFP.

And keep spreading the word!

Fresh from the CFP Steering Committee:

Sign-up 20 new CFP members by Oct 31st and consider your $400 entrance fee waived! Make sure the new members enter your name in the comments section when submitting their memberships.

This is exciting news! Good luck to folks as they begin their membership drives.

The party is initiating phase 2 of our volunteer development plan and wants you helps and expertise in order to help the CFP grow and spread our message of practical, evidence-based politics.

Ongoing call outs have already been made but are still open for the following teams:

-Fundraising Team

-Communications and Creative team (including web)

-Data science team

-Candidate vetting team

-Administration team (house with experience with event bookings, scheduling etc)

-Team Langley (upcoming by-election)

-Team Halifax (upcoming by-election)

Also, new teams are being struck with the following focus areas, with some time-sensitive positions related to the convention as well:

MEMBERS PHONE BANK - we will be calling all members to provide update and let them know about ways to participate. If you have even an hour a week that would be great.

CONVENTION VOLUNTEERS (In-person) - If you live near Ottawa or are attending Convention we have a variety of roles we need filled.

CONVENTION VOLUNTEERS (Virtual) - We need people to help implement the flow of documents for consultation and the logistics for convention before the date arrives

EVENT LOGISTICS - We need at least one person to make reservations and create eventbrites for us

VIDEO CREATION - We need people with video training to help us record more videos

VIDEO EDITING - We need people to edit videos and clip interviews

RESEARCH - We need people with strong research skills to produce directed research on short turn arounds

SOCIAL MEDIA VETTING - we need people with time to vet the social media of potential candidates

PARLIAMENT MONITORING - we need people to flag important files coming forward

BOOK CLUB LEAD - I need someone to organize and facilitate a party book club online

FRENCH LANGUAGE CLUB - We would like to create space for people to practice their French online. I need a fluently bilingual person to organize and facilitate.

IMPORTANT DATES CALENDAR - I need someone to create a calendar of important events or dates to inform party decisions on travel

FOREIGN INTERFERENCE AND CYBER SECURITY - we need experts to inform our processes and tools

MEMBER DEVELOPMENT - We need people with concrete connections and plans to improve our reach

We have a plethora of members with diverse skills and backgrounds, so put those skills to use to help the CFP and join other dedicated team members in volunteering with the party. There is no role too small; all are important and forward our mission.

Looking forward to having you folks on board and pulling for bringing reason and moderate voices back into Canadian politics.

I thought there was going to be talk of setting up individual riding associations? Not only have I not seen that but I have no idea if my riding already has one? if one needs to be set up? I think communication has been lacking over all, especially when it comes to social media. If we know what are policies are we should be making content to get the word out and grow the party. Only 3 videos on youtube in 7 months is terrible. you can argue 4 but 1 is the french version of the other. Where are the clips saying we have committed to 2% GDP? We are a party that commits to financial responsibility without the baggage of right wing social policies?

Its impossible to share the message when their is nothing to share. The party is already fighting an uphill battle to become a federal party. Not making an attempt to grow is not helping.

Hey! I wanted to kick this idea around before making a proper policy proposal to see what people here think.

What and why? Successful, growing companies often set an ambitious but achievable goal (usually some revenue target) and organize their strategy, plays, and capital allocation bets around hitting that target.

Federal government could do something similar - pick a goal that roughly represents "everyone is better off" and select policies based on whether they help hit the goal or not.

What are the benefits?

• It sets a long-term vision for Canada where everyone gets richer and better off.
• This could be differentiator when campaigning - while other parties will likely be focusing either on attacking the Liberals or addressing the short/medium-term crises (immigration, housing), we can also be presenting a distinct, appealing long-term vision.
• It serves as a source of additional policy ideas. For example, what else do we need to do to hit +10% GDP/capita? Attract more capital investment? OK, let's come up with specific policies to do that. Or maybe encourage more people to get degrees that earn a more income? OK, let's make policies to do that as well.
• It serves a decision-making tool. For example, should we support the use of low-wage temporary foreign workers? Well, does it help raise GDP/capita and median income? Probably not - it discourages investment into labor productivity and introduces more low-income earners.

Why real GDP/capita? GDP/capita is often used as a broad measure of how "well off" the country is. It also sets the limit on how much the government can spend on each person; increasing real GDP/capita unlocks the government's ability to introduce new social programs while keeping taxes the same, or to cut taxes while keeping service levels the same.

Why real median income? GDP/capita can be distributed unequally, with all of the benefits going to the top income earners. By also setting a median income goal, we make sure that the benefits are distributed widely across the population.

Why +10%? To hit +10% over 5y, we need about 2%/y growth. Canada's long-term historic GDP/capita growth is ~1%/y (source), though there have been periods when it went over 2%/y (e.g. 90s). So +10% over 5 years is an ambitious but a realistic goal.

So, are you proposing to forget about affordability, healthcare, climate change, etc? No - to be clear, this could be one of several top-level goals, and we'd need to make tradeoffs when the goals conflict.

I was over on r/canadapolitics where someone noted that question period has been a gong show since they allowed the cameras in. Ever since there has been an incentive to play to the audience rather than debate. Likewise, Speakers of the House have largely not enforced the rules of decorum in the house to a degree high enough to discourage bad behavior.

I think partly this is because the main form of punishment the speaker has is kicking people out for the day. Now, in a democracy kicking elected representatives out should be a last resort so its no surprise it doesn't get used very often.

I wonder if an intermediate punishment might be more effective? Rather than kick someone out for bad behavior, empower the speaker to turn off the camera whenever the guilty party is talking. This robs their party of the sound bites they are looking for while keeping them around to debate.

I suppose you could argue there is an accountability issue here but what they say still ends up in the Hansard (which is easily searchable at the federal level).

Couldn't find any information on their website.. curious about their feelings on Bill C-21 and the status of the Canadian Firearms Act in general.

While I am excited to see the efforts the party has undertaken to be visible I think it necessary to point out an area it needs to improve on or its going to start causing problems; communication.

Perhaps other people's experiences are different (its why the title is framed as a question) but my own efforts to contact the party have been somewhat spotty.

I will give a shout out to Zbig who was very responsive as a candidate. My efforts to contact the party through their official contact email have not been overly successful. About six months back I asked why no meeting had been arranged in Moncton. This email was answered but since the party officially announced two attempts at contacting them on different issues have gone unanswered (each with several follow-ups). I have even gone so far as to try and track down the party leadership on Facebook.

I'm still getting party emails but the email address is now listed as an unverified sender which is not a great look.

I think there are two possibilities:

1. The announcement of the party's founding overwhelmed the communications team and it just hasn't been sorted yet.

2. Communication has taken a back seat to visibility.

3. Both

The first possibility is understandable as I don't think anyone expected as much media traction early on. The second possibility is a problem. Not everyone is as persistent as I am and an unanswered query may equate to a lost member. Communication is such a bedrock requirement of politics I want the party to do better.

This relates to another issue; as of yet there has been no announcement of online attendance, or even a video stream, of the founding convention. Its not difficult and frankly with how large this country is a bit of a necessity.

I really just want the party to be better on this file.

Does anyone know if the party has put any thought into recruiting some MPs with pervious experience to run in their old ridings. There are a good amount of people who have stepped away from the Liberals and Conservative parties due various reasons whose name still carries with them some weight. It would also help with the whole notoriety issue that new political parties like ours have.

Members recieved a free transcript of Dominic's new piece in The Hill Times. Here's the article for all you CFP supporters:

It’s time for a very reasonable revolution.

Half of Canadians in a recent Angus-Reid poll say Canada needs a new, moderate political party. The Canadian Future Party aims to be that party. We’re socially liberal, and fiscally disciplined. Those are complementary—not contradictory—ideas. We believe in the aggressive defence of democracy both at home and abroad. In a time of toxic division, we bring democrats together: a former Stephen Harper cabinet minister working with a former Jack Layton NDP MP; former Liberal organizers with former sovereigntists. We believe in evidence, and in science.

Anyone reading The Hill Times is already involved in public life: you’re not here for the horoscopes. Whether you’re sitting in a DFO office in Nunavut, a backbencher waiting to be told how to vote, or a staffer waiting for a minister to get out of a meeting in the Prime Minister’s Office: you have a perspective on our country and its institutions that’s up close and personal. You can see backbench MPs treated as animatronic voting dolls. Health-care reforms that can’t be discussed because our leaders are afraid of upsetting doctors. National defence ignored as the world burns. And a politics that’s more angry, extreme, and subject to influence.

Many of us are equally alarmed about the Liberals’ high-handed approach to these problems, and the Conservatives’ willingness to play populist games to highlight the government’s many failings. Poorly developed programs are as damaging to democracy as heedless program cuts. Opposition conspiracies are as dangerous as government excuses.

The CFP believes in a data-driven alternative to the sterile left versus right; in 2024, no sane person believes government should do everything, or that it should do nothing. That fight played out over 200 years. Both left and right lost. Democracy won. Neither offered complete answers: the extremes of the left and right have poisoned and continue to poison our politics as much as their centres made us richer, more equal, and freer. We want to build on that centre.

We know what works. Canada works. We are lucky to be among the small family of free countries where individual rights and collective responsibilities are decided through fair elections. In Canada, the rule of law isn’t a revolutionary goal, but a fragile achievement. Here, we can fix what’s broken. We can solve problems. Whether its building houses, introducing competition in the airline, telecom, and agricultural sectors, supporting Ukraine’s victory over Russia while boosting defence spending to two per cent of the GDP, or recognizing the credentials of foreign-trained doctors, making democracy deliver is at the heart of the CFP’s political project.

Democracy defines the limits of the CFP’s politics. We cannot tolerate the intolerable. We make no apologies for that rigidity. Open societies like ours are rare and fragile. Over the last couple of generations, we have been too quick to believe that the democratic enthusiasm that marked the Cold War’s end meant anything more than dictators figuring out new ways to liberate democracies from our cash. We assumed money would build democracy, instead it built the banks and battalions of our enemies. For the CFP there’s a policy lesson: free economies only work in free societies, and the free societies always have strong governments.

No one has ever faced the problems of a post-industrial world, declining birthrates, climate change, aggressive dictators, and amoral algorithms. There is no road map. A government of the people that delivers universal social programs, protects universal human rights—we’re lucky to live in a country with these problems to solve.

As the CFP’s first leader, I am under no illusions about the challenges in front of me, my team, and my country. Equally, I have no doubt this start-up project is essential. In a chaotic world, it’s time to define and then ensure Canada’s place as a big country in every sense, ready to lead.

In the end, parties are just vehicles to move a country in a certain direction. I hope the Canadian Future Party helps drive our country not left, not right, but forward. I’m excited to start the journey and I hope, no matter your history, that you’ll join us for the ride. For the future!

Thoughts in just over 100 votes in each by-election.

My thoughts are disappointing.

Our first attempt in federal politics will play out tomorrow as Émard-Lasalle-Versun and Elmwood-Transcona both hold their byelections. We have two great candidates who have worked their tails off over the campaign period, but of course in the end it's all a numbers game.

I think it's safe to say everyone has different definitions of what success is, so I thought I would ask what you think it is when it comes to vote share in these byelections.

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