Dear Editor,
In response to Delbert Doll鈥檚 letter to the editor published in the Comox Valley Record on March 19, 2025 re Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) leadership race.
In this day and age, we unfortunately find ourselves in a position of not being assured as to the accuracy of what we read. I hope to provide some information in order quell some of his conspiracy suggestions.
The LPC Constitution Bylaw 4 states that any person may register as a Registered Liberal, provided that they are at least 14 years of age, support the purposes of the Party, are a Canadian citizen, have status under the Indian Act or a permanent resident of Canada and not a member of another political party in Canada.
A person wishing to vote in the leadership contest once confirmed by the Party as being a Register Liberal, was sent via PDF, a unique verification number (bar code).
That person then had until March 7 to verify their eligibility to vote by going to a Canada Post outlet with their unique verification number, a government issued photo ID, containing their address and date of birth along with a secondary ID proving their Canadian citizenship.
Once a Registered Liberal鈥檚 identification and address was confirmed they were able to vote between the dates of February 26 and March 9 for their choice of leader using the preferential ballot system.
The 400,000 number quoted by Mr. Doll as being those who had signed up to vote is to me misleading. Rather I am inclined to be of the view that it was comprised of pre-existing Liberals, non-verifiable registrants along with the recent notable addition of new registrants.
The significant effort to confirm my own eligibility to vote surely could have discouraged a large group from doing so. My guess is that the Liberals wanted to avoid foreign interference and financial irregularities as suggested in the most recent Conservative party leadership race.
With respect to Mr. Doll鈥檚 suggestion that Ms. Dhalla鈥檚 disqualification due to financial irregularities had disenfranchised a significant number of voters, Elections Canada records state that Ms. Dhalla had 107 financial contributors compared to 19,882 for Mr. Carney.
