Report To The New Democratic Party Membership On The Events of The Federal NDP Convention in Edmonton Alberta (April 8-10, 2016)
Report To The New Democratic Party Membership On The Events of The Federal NDP Convention in Edmonton Alberta (April 8-10, 2016)
Report To The New Democratic Party Membership On The Events of The Federal NDP Convention in Edmonton Alberta (April 8-10, 2016)
Version 2
Edited and Updated September 28th. 2017
By Dale Jackaman
NDP Member (2003-Present), Federal Campaign Manager 2015,
Federal NDP Candidate (2004, 2008, 2011)
Provincial NDP Candidate (2005)
Chair: Bring Back Tom Mulcair Campaign
Licenced Private Investigator
Many of us were shocked and angry at the leadership review vote results at the 2016 federal
convention in Edmonton. We expected Tom to pass this test handily, but when the results
came out they did not make sense given the national leadership polling results at the time. We
were frustrated and angry along with a lot of other people. Many of us are still angry to this day.
We believe that the integrity of the delegate body was compromised by an unconstitutional
delegate selection system that damaged the integrity of our proportional voting system. Flaws
that were taken advantage of by specific groups opposed to the NDP, Tom Mulcair, and the
social democratic leanings of the party. As a result, collective decisions were made by an
illegitimate delegate body that were inconsistent with the will and interests of the membership.
This report will show just how the corrupted delegate system affected the leadership vote.
From the outset, those of us in the Bring Back Tom Mulcair campaign sought to deal with our
concerns internally. We contacted both the President and Executive Director of the party, made
them aware of the issues described below, and asked specific questions that we hoped would
restore our faith in the integrity of the delegate body and the decisions they made in Edmonton.
Unfortunately, we did not receive a suitable response to our very simple questions. As long time
donors, volunteers, staff, and candidates we saw no reason for the party to deny us the very
basic information we sought. In fact, the reluctance of the party to provide us with this very basic
information increased our level of concern.
The seriousness of the issues we discovered in the delegate accreditation process in Edmonton
compelled us to pursue this matter further. Given that our concerns were not dealt with in a
suitable manner internally, we reluctantly pursued this matter externally and professionally. We
feel that members, volunteers, and supporters of the NDP and this group have a right to know
about these issues. The administration of the delegate accreditation process at the Edmonton
convention violated our constitution, compromised the integrity of the delegate body, and
caused the loss of our leader, Mr. Tom Mulcair.
Sincerely,
Mr. Dale Jackaman
Page 1 of 22
OUR CASE IN BRIEF
Many delegates registered independently online and in person and were given fake
credentials to represent ridings that they did not reside in.
The practice of issuing fake delegate credentials and the location of the convention
created a situation whereby Alberta as a province, and quite likely Edmonton as a city,
was overrepresented in the delegate body.
A Forum Research poll conducted March 15, 2016, less than four weeks before the
Edmonton convention, found that Tom Mulcair had only 19% approval among all voters
in Alberta compared to 67% nationally amongst NDP voters.
The efficacy and accuracy of vetting individuals for political affiliation by viewing publicly
available (open source) social media material is hit and miss at best. As a licensed
professional cyber crime investigator, I doubt if I could guarantee better than a 75% hit
rate for that many individuals over that period of time. Not everyone makes public their
political affiliation over social media. Not everyone is on social media.
Only approximately eight-hundred and fifty delegates voted in the actual leadership
review vote, a number so small that any discrepancies in the process itself would have
made a huge difference in terms of the percentage of the vote.
A number of Tom Mulcair-hostile groups knew of the fake delegate loophole and did
take advantage of the situation to boost their negative votes. Those numbers are
unknown but they primarily came from the Toronto area. Sources have confirmed that
the administration of the party was aware this was going on.
Page 2 of 22
A Closer Examination of the Facts and Implications
The letter and spirit of the constitution of the NDP mandates a proportionally representative
delegate body based upon the number of party members living in each Electoral District
Association (EDA), plus youth and affiliate delegates. The decision to grant accreditation to
individual party members, regardless of their place of residence, to represent EDAs other than
their own, in effect created a new category of delegate - the fake delegate.
With such a small delegate body (1,659) representing a large general membership (60,000+) it
would take very little to significantly alter the votes. Consider the following;
If just 100 fake delegates who intended to vote against the leader in the leadership
review were disqualified, then the results would have been flipped (to 51% against a
leadership contest), and the leader would then have the option to stay on or resign. Or
even less given that only 850 delegates actually voted.
If just 333 fake delegates intended to vote against the leader but were disqualified, then
the result would have 60% against a leadership race. Or half that, that given that only
850 delegates actually voted.
Of course, we dont know how many fake delegate credentials were issued - the party refuses
to answer this question - but it could have been more than 333.
Tom Mulcair had only 19% support in Alberta as a demographic sub group vs 67%
nationally amongst NDP voters as a sub group; the fake delegate situation becomes even
more critical in any close vote as a result of the location of the convention. See polling
results below.
(Forum Research Poll conducted on March 15th, 2016, Less than a month before the
convention). The question was: Do you approve or disapprove of the job Tom Mulcair is doing
as interim leader of the NDP?
Page 3 of 22
Source: Forum Research. Released: March 16, 2016 (in the field March 15, 2016)..
http://poll.forumresearch.com/data/4c0e5363-2f5a-460b-b467-
fe6a2903287aFederal%20Horserace%20News%20Release%20(2016%2003%2016)%20Foru
m%20Research.pdf
The partys decision to grant delegate credentials to party members living in some ridings which
had already filled their own constitutionally prescribed allotment, by assigning them to represent
other ridings that could not send a full contingent, violated the proportional representation
formula contained in Article V, Section 6 of our constitution. This action corrupted the
delegate accreditation process, resulted in a delegate body that was not representative
of the general membership, and this illegitimate body took actions and made decisions
that ran counter to both its will and interests of the general membership.
Article V Section 6
The NDP system of proportional representation at our conventions is, like any other proportional
system, designed to represent in a legislative body (in this case the delegate body) each
individual, political group or party in proportion to its actual voting strength (in this case the
membership in each EDA, and affiliated groups) in the electorate (general membership). Article
V, Section 6 of the NDP Constitution contains a simple formula for the delegate selection
process to ensure that there is proportional representation for each Electoral District Association
based upon the number of members who live within each.
Electoral District Association Delegates: Each electoral district association shall be entitled to: i
one (1) delegate for 50 party members or less; ii one (1) additional delegate for each additional
50 party members or major fraction thereof; and iii one (1) additional credential reserved for a
youth delegate.
This makes it clear that the proportionality for each Electoral District Association (EDA) is based
upon the number of members in the party that reside within their geographic boundary. This
formula was, doubtlessly, enshrined in our constitution to ensure that one or more EDAs did not
have a disproportionate say in decisions made at our conventions. Proportional representation
is an important democratic principle designed to reinforce equality among members of a group
or body, and it is a keystone policy of the NDP, both internally and externally. In the case of the
Page 4 of 22
Edmonton convention, this principle was not upheld. The President of our party has personally
has confirmed this fact.
In addition to accrediting duly elected delegates to represent their own local EDA, the
convention administrators made the inexplicable decision to also accredit members who were
not elected by their EDA. There is no provision in the constitution for granting delegate
credentials to members who were not duly elected to represent an EDA, or who were not
representing an affiliate group. In fact, the administration has created a new category of
delegate, the fake delegate.
The partys decision to accredit these fake delegates - those who lived in an EDA that had filled
their own delegate allotment but who were assigned ad hoc to represent another EDA that could
not send a full allotment - is the root of the problem. Unfortunately, during the course of our
inquiry we learned that this practice of accrediting extra "fake" delegates has been employed in
past conventions as well as in Edmonton. The party admits to this fact and has attempted to use
past precedent as an excuse for this unconstitutional and unethical practice in Edmonton. We
reject this defence. The party membership may not have been burned in the past but it certainly
was in Edmonton.
Breaking a rule, or in this case violating Article V Section 6 of our constitution, in the past does
not make the same action legitimate in the present. This defence is the logical equivalent of
arguing that the offside rule should be removed from the hockey rulebook because a referee
missed several offside calls in a row. We find the argument that weve broken the rules in the
past, so they do not exist in the present. to be unacceptable.
Please examine the following two screen captures from the NDP Convention website
(http://edmonton2016.ca/faq : Accessed March 7, 2017):
Page 5 of 22
The above practice - issuing delegate credentials to random party members to represent an
EDA that they do not live in - is a clear violation of Article 5 Section 6.
We would like to point out that each vote cast by a fake delegate diminished the weight
of every vote cast by an legitimately elected, youth, or affiliate delegates from every other
EDA in the country
It has been confirmed to us by the party that these fake delegates filled slots that were willingly
abdicated or surrendered by EDAs that were unable to fill their own slate. The process
described to us by the party administration was that each of these EDAs was asked to
voluntarily surrender their unused delegate spots to the party. The administration then allocated
those surrendered credentials to whomever they saw fit, or whomever was next in the queue
assembled via the convention website. They claim that since one EDA willingly surrendered
their unused delegate slots, and an individual willingly filled it, that the process is legitimate. We
disagree. We suspect those persons surrendering such unused spots knew not the implications
of such an action, or at least the implications of several ridings doing the same with several
delegate allocations each.
On the surface, this practice looks harmless, but it is far from so. One particular and predictable
outcome of this practice is the inherent creation of bias in favour of the host city and region.
The closer someone lives to a convention, the less likely they are to face obstacles to attending.
It is fairly obvious that if a member is not required to purchase airfare, accommodations, or
prepared meals, the likelihood of them attending rises exponentially. In fact, in a city of 900,000
plus residents with strong party roots, such as Edmonton, it is fair to say that hundreds more
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members would likely be interested in attending a convention than there would be available
slots in their own EDA.
To take this argument to its logical extreme; if 1000 members from a single condo building on
Whyte Ave. wanted to attend the Edmonton convention, and enough delegates spots were
surrendered by other ridings, then there would be no rationale for rejecting those unelected
delegates so long as they were acting in good faith. One condo building, or housing complex, or
EDA could have a majority voice at a convention with a delegate body of 1,800 that represented
60,000+ plus members if they had registered in such a manner and were slotted into enough
surrendered delegate spots. Fair to the membership as a whole? No it is not. And this
scenario is made even more critical when you factor in that only about 850 people actually
voted.
While we believe this misguided initiative was likely undertaken in an effort to raise funds via the
collection of extra delegate fees, (and to fill otherwise empty seats in low turnout conventions),
and concede that this may have been a common practice at past NDP conventions, we also
believe that it unambiguously compromised the proportionality of the delegate body at this
convention, and perhaps others.
We would assert that the constitution of the NDP was conceived in such a way as to -
deliberately - ensure there was proportional representation of our members at conventions
based upon the number of members in each EDA. There is a proportional formula in Article V,
Section 6 for a reason, and actions were taken by the NDP administration in the lead up to this
convention (and perhaps others) that undermined the rights of the membership as enshrined in
our constitution.
In addition to the online registration of unelected fake delegates, the NDP administration for this
convention also signed up an unknown number of unelected fake delegates at the door. We
believe, and have heard anecdotal evidence from a number of sources, that the vast bulk of the
delegates who signed up in this fashion came from Alberta. This evidence stands to reason
since it would be illogical for someone fly into a convention from another province without
having first secured their delegate credentials. Similar to the unelected fake delegates who
signed up online, unelected delegates who registered at the door were also accredited to ridings
that they did not reside in, but had no requirement to cast votes or assume policy positions on
behalf of the members or the demographic of that riding.
In what can only be seen as a partial recognition of the issues and claims contained in this
report, the party administration eventually put in an ad-hoc rule for this convention stating that
EDAs had to give permission to bring in these fake delegates, and that delegates could only be
transferred between EDAs in the same province. Both are meaningless in terms of ensuring a
truly representative vote on behalf of the general membership. After all, a delegate from
Edmonton no more represents the will of someone from Red Deer, as someone from Toronto
Page 7 of 22
represents Thunder Bay, or from Montreal represents Quebec City, or from Vancouver
represents Kelowna. As such, we cannot accept the notion that the voluntary, random, and
effectively blind swapping of delegates between EDAs within a province, or limiting the
practice to EDAs within the same province, is an acceptable substitute for the proportional
representation of each EDA as enshrined in the constitution.
We would like to add at this point that we believe the EDAs who surrendered their delegates
must be forgiven for granting permission as they were acting in a very selfless manner to -
seemingly - assist our party. Taking a couple delegates at a time from one riding or two may not
seem like a big deal, but as you will see the effects of this occurring in a widespread manner
could prove devastating to very notion of proportional representation, and the idea that
delegates are supposed to reflect decisions that are consistent with the will of the general
membership. In short, these selfless acts, when taken together, may have proven to be self-
destructive.
As we began to discuss this issue with other New Democrats from across the country, and
investigate the publicly available evidence, we eventually decided that our concerns had to be
brought to the attention of the party. We wanted these concerns to be resolved quickly with as
little disruption as possible. As such, we wrote to the President of the NDP to raise her
awareness of them.
In our first email we asked for some non-specific information which would not violate the privacy
rights of our members, but would still shed some light on the geographic composition of the
delegate body in Edmonton. In this email we requested three bits of information to help allay our
concerns; a raw tally of the delegates accredited to each EDA and each affiliated group; a
separate raw tally of all delegates sorted by the first three letters of their home postal code (ie:
K1A, T4A, N3T, etc); and the total number of delegates who voted on the leadership question
and the exact results. All of this information was nonspecific to protect the privacy rights of
individuals, and easily retrievable from our party database. It was my hope that this information
would allay our concerns or indicate if further investigation was required.
In her cordial response to our initial email NDP President, Marit Stiles, offered some information
but not that which we had requested. The delegate information she provided was at the
provincial level; the number of delegates by province. Ms. Stiles wrote: At the Edmonton
Convention, there were 1382 delegates from Electoral District Associations; 416 from Ontario,
354 from the host province of Alberta, 241 from British Columbia, 155 from Quebec and 116
from Saskatchewan, with the balance from the other provinces and territories. This information
did not address our concern, which we had explicitly laid in the original email, namely that a few
EDAs in particular may have had a grossly disproportionate say in the decisions taken at the
convention. Ms. Stiles also provided provincial level information about the affiliate delegates
(,,,the bulk of whom were from Alberta (101), Ontario (98) and British Columbia (44)), and
Page 8 of 22
indicated that no record of the number of votes cast was kept and did not care to offer an
estimate. (See Addendum B for copies of all correspondence)
While I appreciated her taking the time to respond, the information provided by Ms. Stiles in this
initial response did nothing to allay our concerns that certain EDAs may have had a grossly
disproportionate say in the votes and decisions taken at the Edmonton convention, so we tried
again.
Initially, we believed that a tally of delegates by postal code (first three letters and number)
would suffice, but even that would not provide us with an accurate view in hindsight. We believe
the only way to establish the confidence we seek is for the party to provide us with two
tallies; a tally of eligible delegates by riding and a second tally of actual delegates by
their home riding - not the ridings they were issued credentials for, but the riding they actually
live in. As such, there should be two tallies for the 338 EDAs and these tallies should include
the special delegates (ie: Ottawa Centre Eligible = 24, Ottawa Centre Actual = 13). The bare
minimum requirement for confidence in this case would be the actual delegate tally.
At this point, it is worth recognizing that the party did not owe us this information, but that we
were hopeful that hundreds of hours of work in service to our cause would at least yield some
information related to my question. We were wrong. We did not receive a response to this email
from Ms. Stiles.
We found the decision to not offer a further response to our legitimate concerns troubling, so we
decided that the issue of fake delegates and the undermining of our constitution was significant
enough to raise with our federal NDP caucus. As such, we sent an email to each member along
with an earlier version of this report. We received a direct response from caucus which
essentially said this was a matter for the NDP executive and had nothing to do with them.
Ironically, after not receiving a response from Ms. Stiles to our previous email that was directly
addressed to her, we received a response to this one which was addressed to others. In her
response she wrote:
The rules that applied to delegate accreditation in Edmonton were the same as those that have
applied in all recent NDP conventions. Past practice provides that EDAs may assign credentials
to any member, regardless of whether they live in the riding. In the event an EDA has unused
credentials the Party has traditionally made these available to other interested members in
goodstanding [sic] And it is standard practice that delegates can register in person at
Convention.It is the norm of course that the host province is well represented. That said, the
participation pattern roughly mirrors the distribution of members across the country and no EDA
had more than its eligible number of delegates
We found this response both disappointing and troubling. First, she employs the fallback
argument that weve always done it this way before, so we were right to do it again. Second,
Page 9 of 22
the claim that no EDA had more than its eligible number of delegates, is presented without the
evidence that we had asked for, which would have validated her claim. Instead of providing
evidence to refute our claim, we were simply asked to accept her response at face value and
politely go away. Had she provided any evidence to address our concerns, we may well have
done just that, but she did not.
Having raised our concerns about the delegate accreditation process and the possible
corruption of the delegate body internally, and having not received an appropriate response, we
feel compelled to share our concerns with you; the members of the Bring Back Tom Mulcair
Campaign and the membership at large. The nature of our investigation and attempts to resolve
the issue internally was quite time consuming, which explains the delay in releasing this
information to our members.
According to a letter from the NDP President Marit Stiles, it is quite normal for a host city and
province to be well represented. Extra representation, however, is something completely
different. Alberta and Edmonton, in this particular case, would already have extra (but
constitutionally protected) influence over the proceedings at this convention because logic
dictates that it is easier and more affordable for delegates to attend from the host region. The
same logic holds true for independent delegates not elected by their EDAs, but who registered
online or in person and who were accredited to represent an EDA other than their own. In
short, NDP members in Alberta had a very disproportionate say in the decisions taken at
this convention compared to NDP members in other provinces.
The reason why Alberta having more delegates than they were constitutionally allowed matters
is that, outside of the obvious moral and ethical issues, Albertans as a population feel less
positively about the current NDP leader than those living elsewhere - by a wide margin. Recall
that the Forum poll results from just a month prior to the Edmonton showed that just 19 percent
of Albertans approved of the performance of the leader, which was 16 percent less than the
national average, and 46 percent lower than New Democrat supporters. In fact, the same poll
showed that of all regions, party supporters, and genders Albertans (19%) were the least
likely demographic subgroup to express approval for the leader - less likely than even
Liberals (37%) or Conservative (21%) voters. Regardless of the case in question, the
overrepresentation of any such outlier subgroup in a delegate body would dramatically
misrepresent the views of the general membership.
Page 10 of 22
provincial party officials, who vetted every new member and delegate (even examining their
social media posts) and disqualified those found to be infiltrators or held ill will for our
movement. That vetting was not completed until after the federal convention. The success rate
of such a vetting process is questionable, in particular if not done by a professional open source
trained investigator.
There was a clear violation of the NDP constitution that lead to the overrepresentation of one
region that could be only be described as being organically hostile in their collective opinion of
the leader, but the truth of what caused the current leadership race could be far more sinister.
The conservative Kudatah movement in Alberta had a very strong motive for infiltrating the
NDP convention, namely to sabotage the operations of our party. This movement had also
recently proven that it had the organizational means to pull off such subterfuge, and the
opportunity to do so thanks to the ad hoc and unconstitutional accreditation of fake delegates
by party administrators The confluence of these circumstances can only be described as
The Alberta Factor and we believe that they, in whole or part, explain the illegitimate
deposition of our leader at this convention.
We all know that Albertans vote differently on a broad range of issues than the rest of Canada,
as do Quebecers and Ontarians and those living in other regions. Indeed, Edmontonians vote
quite differently than Calgarians or those who live in Red Deer or Lethbridge. This, then, begs
the question: Why should one province, or one region in one province have a disproportionate
say in the decisions taken at our convention? There is, of course, no reason why they should,
but especially given that our party has a proportionally representative delegate system for our
conventions.
Every time an extra delegate was assigned from a riding that already had a full slate to a riding
that did not, it diminished the weight of the votes of other elected delegates representing all
other ridings. If one travelled all the way from Newfoundland, and paid their full delegate fees,
then the weight of their vote would be diminished every time the party granted fake credentials.
In the end, after these fake delegates were assigned, the votes of legitimately elected delegates
from EDAs across Canada were worth less, yet their delegate fees remained the same. This is
unfair to the delegates themselves, their EDA whose voice was illegitimately diminished, and
the general membership that the assembled delegates were supposed to represent.
We argue that the delegate selection formula in our constitution was designed SPECIFICALLY
to prevent such practices, and to ensure that each riding had a proportional voice at our
conventions. This delegate selection formula has, over time or in this instance, been twisted for
fundraising and seat filling purposes to the detriment of the spirit of the party constitution,
proportional representation, and democracy itself. For a party that prides itself on supporting
democratic proportional representation, it smacks of hypocrisy at the highest levels.
In hindsight, given what we know about the corrupted delegate accreditation process and the
publicly available data about perceptions of Mr. Mulcair by the general public and NDP
supporters alike, we believe that the will and interests of the general membership were not
Page 11 of 22
properly represented in Edmonton. We are very confident in our belief that, had our constitution
been upheld, and proportionality between EDAs and affiliates in the delegate body been upheld,
that the decisions made in Edmonton would have differed greatly. Specifically that Mr. Mulcair
would have had the confidence of a critical mass of NDP members across Canada. As a result,
we do not believe that he would have felt obliged to offer his resignation following a properly
delegated convention.
Please read the ADDENDUM at the end of this report to see what can happen under the current
system.
Our Recommendations:
Given that;
At the time of this writing it is clear that Tom Mulcair is leaving politics and will no longer be a
part of our party moving forward. This should never have happened given the circumstances
listed in this report.
Given the information and facts detailed in our report, the leadership review vote in Edmonton
was illegitimate and should have been annulled. It wasnt.
The federal NDP party membership, Tom Mulcair, and all Canadians were denied democratic
due process at the convention.
1) The partys executive needs to accept the results of this investigation and accept full
responsibility for what transpired up to and including the convention as per this report.
2) That the practice of granting fake delegate credentials be stopped, permanently, given that it
clearly violates the proportionally representative formula contained in Article V, Section 6.
3) That a full public apology be made to the full membership of the party, and to Tom Mulcair
personally, and a statement that this will never happen again.
Page 12 of 22
ADDENDUM A
Scenarios that Would Explain the Effect of the Corrupted Delegate Body Upon the
Leadership Review Ballot
We believe that the misguided practice of assigning these fake delegates by the party
administration violated our constitution. If you think the number of those fake delegates was too
small to matter, then you are probably wrong. Just 250 fake delegates could have undermined
the general will of the membership. To illustrate, here are three scenarios where such delegates
could have taken decisions in violation of the will of the general membership.
Enthusiasm in Alberta NDP circles is riding high, and members in that province are mobilized.
Competitive elections are held for delegate spots, but many members wishing to attend as
delegates are left disappointed. They add their name to the non-elected delegate queue that
was publicized on the NDP convention website. Some 250 members from the host region are in
the queue, or plan to try and register at the door.
Other EDAs in Alberta are unable to fill their delegations. In the end, just over half of Albertas
total delegate allotment ends up not being filled by EDAs. At this point, the EDAs surrender
their delegate spaces at the request of party administration and the queue is emptied. The
result is that Alberta fills its allotment of 400+ delegates, which represents approximately of all
convention delegates, but a full 250 members (or 15% of all delegates) end up as accredited
delegates at convention and reside in EDAs that are already fully represented.
The effects on proportionality are very negative and very significant. Those EDAs, already
benefitting from a regional bias, are now further advantaged. Additionally, other EDAs from
outside of Alberta see the weight of their votes diminished. The result is an unintended regional
imbalance that violates the required proportional representation as defined in the constitution.
Given the location of the convention (Alberta) the leader is also faced with a delegate body that
is decidedly less supportive of his ongoing tenure than the general membership, and the
assembled delegates vote disproportionately for a leadership race which is in direct conflict with
the will of the general membership.
A group of NDP members a decide to organize against the leadership, but reside
overwhelmingly in a few ridings that fill their slates completely. As long time activists they are
well aware of the practice of issuing fake delegate credentials and decide to exploit the
loophole to depose the leader.
More than 200 members of this group were not elected, but still have the will and financial
means to attend convention. Many Alberta EDAs have an enthusiastic local membership, but
members find the costs or location of the convention to still be prohibitive in spite of it being
located within the same province. Several Alberta EDAs are unable to fill their delegate slates,
and surrender their credentials. The members of this group opposed to Mr. Mulcairs leadership
Page 13 of 22
then receive their fake credentials. Because of this process, the group now has 150 elected
delegates and 200 additional fake delegates added through the queue process. This group
organizes and has large enough numbers to dramatically affect the votes and defeat or pass
motions or constitutional changes.
The end result is that these motivated and organized members who oppose the leadership went
from having a proportionate voice based on our constitution to a disproportionate one. If some
EDAs had members that wanted to attend, but were unable to due to financial, geographic, or
other reasons they become victims of discrimination, and the well financed and organized
internal group are able to pursue their own agenda, which runs counter to the will of the general
membership.
Our conservative opponents have been humiliated by the success of the Alberta NDP
government and vow revenge. In February 2016 some organize and try to infiltrate the rank and
file of membership of the Alberta NDP, obtain delegate credentials, and undermine that party at
its own convention. The Alberta NDP, to their credit, recognizes this movement, closes ranks,
and begin vetting individual members and delegates, examining public statements and social
media posts to ensure they in fact are members in good standing and acting with goodwill. By
June, the Alberta and federal NDP had rejected over 1500 MEMBERSHIPS to protect the
integrity of their convention.
As the loophole for the Alberta NDP convention closes, the conservatives vow to continue the
fight, and some keen eyes read that the federal NDP is coming to Alberta to hold its own
convention in a couple of months. They scan the NDP convention website and see in plain sight
that they can join the party and become delegates even if they were not elected by their own
riding association.. JACKPOT! A few hundred conservatives come together and decide to
register to see if they can get credentials and cause problems at convention. They for sure want
to take out the Leader of the NDP who is responsible for demolishing the credibility of the
Harper Conservatives throughout the Senate Scandal. At the very least, they want to diminish
his stature.
In the end, their plan works better than expected. The convention organizers are overworked
and tired. Many regular elected delegates leave the convention early to catch long flights home,
or because they believe that nothing of consequence could happen in the leadership review,
mostly because nothing ever does. Everyones guard is down. In the end, just 850 votes are
cast, including those of the local conservatives who managed to get in, and the delegates vote
52% in favour of a leadership race.
The true story of how conservatives in Alberta tried to destroy the Alberta NDP by
sabotaging their 2016 convention can be read here:
http://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/a-peaceful-kudatah-ndp-opponents-want-to-take-down-
party-from-within
http://www.calgarysun.com/2016/06/12/alberta-new-democrats-are-not-in-danger-of-being-
taken-over-from-within-says-official
Page 14 of 22
ADDENDUM B
Correspondence Between Dale Jackaman and NDP President Marit Stiles and the federal
NDP Caucus.
Greetings Marit.
Were working hard down here at the 'Bring Back Tom Mulcair Campaign' trying to understand
the delegate assignment process at our 2016 NDP convention in Edmonton. As such, we have
some requests for you to help us facilitate this process.
The members of our group have great concerns about the issuing of '"fake'" EDA credentials to
individual delegates who did not personally reside in those EDA's. Specifically, we have
concerns that this ad-hoc delegate assignment process may have created a situation whereby
some EDA's and regions obtained an undue amount of influence over the events at this
gathering, and that this unbalanced representation of the party's membership resulted in an
inaccurate representation of the will of the membership at large - specifically with regard to the
leadership review process and the vote the precipitated the current leadership race.
We believe that we will be able to get a better understanding of any disparity in the
representation of the membership by obtaining the following:
1) a raw tally of the delegates accredited to each EDA and each affiliated group;
2) a separate raw tally of all delegates sorted by the first three letters of their home postal code
(ie: K1A, T4A, N3T, etc).
3) the total number of delegates who voted on the leadership question and the exact results.
The information requested for point 2 should be easily retrievable from our database and put
into a spreadsheet before deleting all personal information fields except the first three
letters/digits of the postal code. We understand that such information would have to be collected
for the purpose of issuing tax receipts and ensuring compliance with federal party financing
regulations, and generating these simple tallies wont create an issue with regard to the privacy
or confidentiality of individual members since the information released to our group would only
be in the aggregate.
As of Sept 14th, over 2500 New Democrat Party members and supporters have joined our
Facebook group since its inception on August 29th, and our membership continues to grow by
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an average of 130 supporters per day. To put this in perspective, our membership is now
approximately 1/3 the size of the official Facebook group of UNIFOR's (2,451 vs. 7,682), and
the total engagements of posts on our page (likes, comments, shares) this week is just under
1/2 that of the official NDP Facebook page (1.800 vs. 4.100). The 'Bring Back Tom Mulcair
Campaign' Facebook page is growing rapidly and our members are enthusiastic, engaged, and
mobilized. By voluntarily providing this very basic and general information from the Edmonton
convention to our group you will be earning the good faith, trust, and confidence of our members
regarding both the results of the leadership review process in Edmonton, and the integrity of the
party and it's staff and officials.
Thank you for your attention in this matter Marit. The members of our group look forward to
hearing your response to these modest requests.
Sincerely,
Dale Jackaman
The Bring Back Tom Campaign
[email protected]
--------------------
2016-10-12
Hello Dale,
In response to the questions you have raised with respect to delegates to the Edmonton
Convention, let me provide the following information.
At the Edmonton Convention, there were 1382 delegates from Electoral District Associations;
416 from Ontario, 354 from the host province of Alberta, 241 from British Columbia, 155 from
Quebec and 116 from Saskatchewan, with the balance from the other provinces and territories.
As you know, it is EDAs that determine who is eligible to be credentialed on their behalf. With
few exceptions, delegates are normally residents of the riding (or at least the province) in which
the EDA is located. That said, situations arise where an EDA may give a credential to someone
who is not currently living in the riding; for example, because the delegate is studying or working
in another province while retaining a link to the riding and the EDA.
On the 1382 delegates attending the 2016 Convention, 19 were from provinces other than the
province in which the riding was located. As you would expect, 10 of those delegates were
currently living in the host province, Alberta, with the remainder coming from British Columbia,
Ontario and Quebec.
There were 277 delegates representing Affiliate members, the bulk of whom were from Alberta
(101), Ontario (98) and British Columbia (44).
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In addition, delegates included members of Federal Council, Young New Democrat delegates,
members of the Federal Caucus or former Party Leaders, drawn from across the country.
You had also asked about the specific vote count. I understand the tally sheets were destroyed
with the ballots and so I dont have that information, only the percentage outcome of the
leadership review. As you know, 52 per cent of voting delegates supported a review.
I am confident that the process followed in Edmonton respects the letter and spirit of the NDP
constitution and that the outcome fairly represents the views of the eligible delegates.
I understand your position that responsibility for leadership review should be vested in the
membership on a one-member/one-vote basis, as with the selection process. I expect this issue
will be addressed at the 2018 Policy Convention.
Please feel free to contact me or Robert Fox, National Director, should you wish to discuss this
further.
In solidarity,
Marit
--------------------
Hello Marit,
While we appreciate the information that was provided, it does not allay our concerns about the
legitimacy of the Edmonton convention. Nor does it allow us to conclude whether or not the
delegates that assembled were truly representatives of the membership and entitled to make
decisions on our behalf. We would like to know the relative influence that each EDA, in actuality,
had over the proceedings and the decisions that were made at this convention.
The spirit of the Constitution dictates that, since the New Democratic Party of Canada is a
democratic organization based upon local membership (EDAs), no one group (regional, local,
or other) should have undue influence over the proceedings apart from explicit exceptions.
As such, two questions remain for us: Did some EDAs have a disproportionate say in the
conduct and decisions made in Edmonton?; and if so Was this disproportionate voice
significant enough to undermine the letter and/or spirit of our Constitution? These are the
questions were would like to have answered so that we can have complete confidence in the
delegate selection process and the serious decisions and their consequences that were taken at
the Edmonton convention.
While the provincial numbers are useful, and we appreciate the disclosure, they do not provide
the information we are seeking as it relates to the residency of the delegates. Initially, we
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believed that a tally of delegates by postal code (first three letters and number) would suffice,
but even that would not provide us with an accurate view in hindsight. We believe the only way
to establish the confidence we seek is for the party to provide us with two tallies; a tally of
eligible delegates by riding and a second tally of actual delegates by their home riding - not the
ridings they were issued credentials for, but the riding they actually live in. As such, there
should be two tallies for the 338 EDAs and these tallies should include the special delegates
(ie: Ottawa Centre Eligible = 24, Ottawa Centre Actual = 13). The bare minimum requirement for
confidence in this case would be the actual delegate tally. Given the growing membership of our
group and the level of mobilization within our membership, we believe this is a reasonable
request and we are certain that this information is easily extractable from the database.
We would like reiterate our thanks and appreciation for the information that you have to date. It
is very encouraging. However, it has not allayed our concerns about the legitimacy of the
Edmonton convention, and does not in fact allow us to conclude whether or not the delegates
that assembled were truly representative of the membership and entitled to make decisions on
our behalf.
For us to have confidence in the decisions taken by delegates in Edmonton it is crucial for us to
examine the two tallies requested above to ensure that the letter and spirit of our constitution
were respected. Given the current state of our party, by every metric and standard, we feel it is
important for the membership to have confidence in the executive, administration, leadership,
and mechanisms that govern us.
Regards
Dale Jackaman
Bring Back Tom Mulcair Campaign
[email protected]
--------------------
To <NDP MP NAME>
I am writing you today because of an urgent and serious internal party issue that requires your
immediate attention. This letter is exclusively intended for and addressed to all federal NDP
MPs, so please feel free to discuss its contents openly with your colleagues.
My name is Dale Jackaman. I am an NDP activist and a three-time federal candidate in the
Richmond BC riding during Jack Laytons era. Professionally I am a licensed private
investigator in the province of British Columbia and am the President of Amuleta, a private
investigation firm based out of Vancouver, BC.
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We have good reason to believe that the delegate selection process at our most recent federal
convention in Edmonton was corrupted, and that his process allowed the unethical registration
of hundreds of fake delegates. This corrupted registration process allowed these fake
delegates to cast votes and make important decisions on behalf of the general membership in a
manner that was not in keeping with the spirit and letter of our partys constitution.
Following up on some tips received from other properly credentialed delegates and party
members, we recently conducted an investigation of irregularities, and have documented the
findings in a short report copied in below.
I have also included pertinent correspondence between myself (on behalf of a group of activists
and party members) and current party President Marit Stiles and current National Director
Robert Fox. In my initial contact with Ms Stiles and Mr. Fox we raised our concerns and
requested some non-personal data about the accredited delegate body at the Edmonton
convention. In response, I did not receive the basic information that was requested. Their
responses, and the omission of easily retrieved and non-personal information requested about
the delegate body, raised more questions and has further undermined my faith in that
administrative process. However, given what I do know now, that data may not be needed other
than to better determine the damage caused by the issues detailed below.
We believe, explicitly, that there was an ethical breach and a violation of the letter and spirit of
the NDP Constitution during the delegate selection and accreditation process at the Edmonton
convention. Furthermore, we have discussed our concerns and the collected information
with legal counsel, and believe that we have enough evidence to take this matter before
the courts - if we so choose. We are cognizant that this may not be in the interest of any
party, at this particular moment, but that fact does not undermine our commitment to resolving
what we see as a clear violation of our partys constitution and a massive breach of the rights of
the general membership.
It is clear that the constitution of the New Democratic Party of Canada was violated as a result
of decisions made by the party administration at the time. The desire to accredit as many
delegates as possible for fundraising purposes resulted in the convention being stacked with
fake delegates from Alberta, and most likely a few ridings within that province. Do Alberta
voters vote the same way as the rest of the country? No. Are they representative of the
membership as a whole? No, they are not. Falsely accrediting candidates from one region, or
just a handful of ridings, clearly violates the letter and spirit of our constitution whose goal is to
provide proportional and equitable representation for members across the country.
Finally, if you think these claims are outrageous or implausible, please consider the eerily
similar example of corruption of the NDP delegate selection process at the provincial level in
Alberta. For more information about this similar and unfortunate incident, please read: NDP
beats back attempts at 'kudatah' infiltration. Calgary Herald, June 13th, 2016
(http://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/ndp-beats-back-attempts-at-infiltration)
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The information contained in these articles begs the question; Was our federal party a victim of
a nearly identical attack upon our institutions just two months earlier in that same province?
The ad-hoc delegate selection process at the Edmonton convention would certainly have
allowed it, and only the suspension of the current leadership race and a thorough investigation
of the delegation and the selection process at that convention will tell us for sure.
The tainted decisions made by this body of delegates - including the fake delegates who
should never have received their credentials - have cost our party dearly. They have taken
radical decisions on behalf of an unsuspecting membership, not the least of which includes a
new leadership race. It is our firm belief that the decisions taken on behalf of the general
membership by the tainted delegate body, including the leadership review ballot, be
discarded. At the very least and given the existential nature of the claim, we believe that the
current leadership contest ought to be suspended while this matter is fully investigated in an
open and transparent process on behalf of the membership.
As Members of Parliament, and after careful analysis and consultation with other delegate
members, supporters, and part activists I ask you to look into the above stated matter and help
resolve this very serious and urgent matter as quickly as possible for our members.
Sincerely
Page 20 of 22
The NDP administration signed up an unknown number of people at the door. They do this to
bring in the registration fees, of course, but it does not make for a reasonable democratic
representation of the NDP national membership as the bulk of these sign up came from Alberta.
EDA Issues
We have asked for specific data from the NDP administration that has so far has not been
forthcoming. We have copied below our correspondence with Marit Stiles, the new NDP
President, and Robert Fox the NDP's new National Director. The details of these requests are
in the letters we have written.
Aside from the fake delegates issue, the "delegate" numbers from Alberta, both real and fake,
were disproportionately high compared to the national membership. We all know Albertans vote
differently on a broad range of issues than the rest of Canada and we also know the federal
NDP is at odds with the Alberta NDP on some key issues. Certainly, an unfairly weighted
Alberta vote would not have been in the interest of the membership as a whole or to Mr.
Mulcair.
We are confident from the numbers we have gleaned elsewhere, that the results in all the
delegate votes taken at the convention would have been significantly different from a full
membership vote. And this includes ALL the elections done at the Edmonton convention and
not just the leadership review.
--------------------
2016-11-03
I write to address the concerns you raise in your letter to Members of the New Democratic
Caucus dated January 27, 2017.
You allege there were irregularities at the 2016 Edmonton Convention in contravention of the
constitution and there were delegates who were not properly accredited but you provide no
evidence to substantiate this claim.
Page 21 of 22
The rules that applied to delegate accreditation in Edmonton were the same as those that have
applied in all recent NDP conventions. Past practice provides that EDAs may assign credentials
to any member, regardless of whether they live in the riding. In the event an EDA has unused
credentials the Party has traditionally made these available to other interested members in
goodstanding [sic]. And it is standard practice that delegates can register in person at
Convention.
In the case of the Edmonton Convention, Federal Executive placed two additional constraints on
the accreditation of delegates. Prior approval from the EDA leadership was required before a
credential could be reassigned. And a credential could only be reassigned to a member from the
same province.
You have expressed concern that Alberta delegates were over-represented at Convention.
It is the norm of course that the host province is well represented. That said, the participation
pattern roughly mirrors the distribution of members across the country and no EDA had more
than its eligible number of delegates.
Having considered the constitution and past practice we find no grounds for a challenge to the
eligibility of the delegates nor the legitimacy of their decisions.
Any EDA that believes we should change the rules governing accreditation of convention
delegates is free to bring forward a resolution to Convention in February 2018. But in the
interim, we are bound to abide by the rules and honour past practice and we are confident that
the Party did both in Edmonton.
In solidarity,
Marit Stiles
President
Canadas New Democrats | Le NPD du Canada
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COPE225:JL / SEPB225:JL
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