February Update
April 11, 2010
Fellow Campus Conservatives,
It’s an exciting time to be a Campus Conservative in Ontario.
Our campuses have had an exceptionally strong year so far. We have formed two new campus clubs at Conestoga College and the U of T Scarborough Campus, with others on the verge of forming at Niagara College and UOIT.
Membership across the board has doubled to almost 1,500 members over the past year. There is still a lot of work to be done, but the effort put forward by our clubs right now in recruiting youth will pay dividends for our party in the 2011 election.
On the important training file, OPCCA hosted an ideological training session in Toronto on
February 6th with almost thirty people in attendance. Our executive hopes these sessions will help our activists think critically about conservative philosophy, policy and values and how it relates to party policy.
We are more than just volunteers of the party; we are also representatives of the conservative movement as a whole. With dialogue severely lacking on left-wing campuses about what it means to be a conservative, we hope OPCCA can help fill that void.
With several months to go before our Annual General Meeting in May, OPCCA still has several exciting new initiatives on the agenda.
Later this month we will be unveiling an issue campaign against McGuinty’s deficit. Our executive believes that youth have a huge stake on this issue. Every dollar of deficit spending by McGuinty is saddled to us in the future, and it is time we communicated that message on campus.
Secondly, on policy, we have launched post-secondary policy consultations through submissions via email or Facebook, and will be co-hosting an online youth policy town hall towards the end of March.
Along with these initiatives, we cannot forget that two by-elections are being fought in Leeds-Grenville and Ottawa West-Nepean. It is absolutely critical that our party succeeds in both ridings, and we can only do that with a reliable flow of volunteers.
I encourage all of you to do your part to help out in order to help pave the way for a Tim Hudak victory in the 2011 election.
Sincerely,
Eric Merkley
President
Ontario PC Campus Association
