Moose Jaw resident Cody Sharpe was the Saskatchewan representative at the Canadian Future Party’s inaugural membership convention in Ottawa recently.
The new centrist federal political party hosted over 100 members at its first convention. The convention allowed the membership to pass the party’s constitution, confirm members of the federal council, and elect the party’s first leader. Sharpe is the party’s national council representative for Saskatchewan.
Sharpe said much of the policy talk focused on affordable housing, national security, Indigenous relations, electoral reform and proportional representation, and family medicine.
Above all else, Sharpe said the Canadian Future Party is aiming to be an alternative for those who feel the other major federal parties have left them behind.
"The whole point of the party, more than any specific policy that we are espousing, is that the existing major parties have abandoned their responsibilities to be really proactive leaders when it comes to addressing the difficult issues that are facing the country today. That's what's bringing together this group," Sharpe explained.
At the convention, Sharpe saw former Conservative Party of Canada members, former Liberal staffers and supporters, and former New Democrat Party members. Sharpe, himself, is a former member of the Green Party.
“It’s really a broad swath of folks who feel that the existing structures are taking their support for granted,” Sharpe said.
One of the reasons Sharpe wanted to attend the convention in person was to see who would turn out and was “pleasantly surprised” to see working professionals, entrepreneurs, well-educated people, and those civically minded who volunteer with non-profit boards and are really involved on a local level.
“It wasn’t a bunch of angry people. It was a bunch of people who are dissatisfied but who want to take that energy and put it towards productive purposes,” Sharpe said.
At the convention, former New Brunswick Progressive Conservative MLA Dominic Cardy was named the party’s first leader. Cardy served as the minister of education and early childhood development under Premier Blaine Higgs. Previous to that, Cardy served as leader of the New Brunswick NDP.
Sharpe said the convention was the first time meeting Cardy in person. The first night of the convention was an informal meet-and-greet. Sharpe said Cardy kicked it off by taking questions from the membership and spent two hours taking questions.
“I was really impressed with his intellectual nimbleness. He is obviously a very well-read and very well-experienced individual, so I am quite comfortable working with him now after that weekend,” Sharpe commented.
The Canadian Future Party was a couple of years in the making. It started with former Conservative Party leadership candidate Rick Peterson exploring the possibility of a new centrist party in Canada to act as an alternative to the Conservatives and Liberals.
He held a number of town halls and polls across the country to see if people were dissatisfied with the current parties and if there was a hunger for a new centrist party.
Once the public consultations wrapped up, a final report was released that showed there was an appetite for a new centrist party.
It was that final report that caught Sharpe’s eye and made him become more interested in the party. He said he was surprised to see in the final report that climate change was one of the three top issues that people wanted to see a new centrist party focus on.
"That really surprised me. The Conservative Party of Canada basically abandoned environmental policy altogether. So when I saw that I thought, oh, this is a group of serious people who want to work on some really challenging issues,” Sharpe said.
Calling himself a “policy nerd”, he added that he was also on the party’s mailing list and saw the policies and found he wasn’t the only one dissatisfied with the approach that the current federal parties were taking.
Following the final report, volunteers went through the process to register the new party with Elections Canada and they became an official party earlier this year and ran candidates in by-elections in Winnipeg and Montreal.
Sharpe said the party’s next step is setting up electoral district associations (EDA) in ridings where there are good membership clusters. As the national council representative of Saskatchewan, Sharpe is focusing on finding ridings in Saskatchewan where there is a solid membership base and people are interested in setting up an EDA for the next federal election.
More information about the new political party can be found at www.thecanadianfutureparty.ca. People in Saskatchewan wanting to learn more can also reach out to Sharpe directly at saskatchewan@ourcanadianfuture.com.