GPC council problems are primarily due to the structure of council rather than problems with any given individual in the current or previous councils. The size of council (around 25 individuals) is larger than the typical size of most governance bodies. This, combined with the historically small size of our membership base, results in councillors sometimes being elected who are inexperienced or who don't have the right skills for the job. The end result is a weak council that becomes the underlying cause for many other problems in the party.

Although a governance body of 25 councillors is fairly large I don't believe that this size, in and of itself, will result in problems that are intractable in the long term. Half of these councillors are provincial and territorial representatives, and trying to reduce this representation will likely result in a new set of equally troublesome problems. Most Canadians are rightfully proud of their home province or territory and expect it to have a measure of representation in national forums that is equal to any other province or territory. So the party needs to find ways to make a council of this size work.

The first thing to do is implement a comprehensive training program for new councillors. In my experience, many councillors have never been exposed to typical issues faced by a governance body: financial management, meeting procedures, an awareness of major historical events and decisions within the party, an understanding of the relationship between a governing body and staff, understanding how to work well with others, and so on. There is every reason to believe that most councillors can learn these skills. In the long-term, this training will also help to create a larger pool of members with leadership skills that can be applied elsewhere in the party.

The second thing to do is recruit good candidates for each and every council position. This is particularly true for our smaller regions where there may be little competition for the position. In my experience, a single unqualified individual elected to council can cause a lot of harm to council as a whole. All party members need to share in the responsibility for recruiting qualified council candidates, and there should be few or no positions in a council election where a candidate is only running against none-of-the-above.

This is one of a series of articles examining how to fix key problems facing the GPC.