Article 14 Constitutional Amendments and National Council’s
Revised 2025 Rules and Procedures for Candidate Nominations
It is abundantly clear from the 2025 Constitution process that there is a massive grassroots Conservative desire across Canada for changes to the ways in which the Conservative Party selects its candidates for federal elections. In pursuit of such change, 121 out of 134 EDAs participating in the national voting stage of the process voted in favour of some kind of change, specifically, to Article 14 of the Constitution (“Candidates for Parliament”). As a result, numerous Constitution amendment proposals are coming to the National Convention in Calgary at the end of January 2026 for debate and voting.
1. National Council’s Revised Rules
On January 5, 2026, however, National Council issued its own revision of the Rules and Procedures for Candidate Nominations (the RPCNs), putting “rules in place … to ensure that we have a nomination process in place that will help us form government” and declaring that “we are excited to see them in action.” From these statements it would be easy to form the immediate impression that the RPCNs are intended as the final word on solving the problems that plagued the last cycle of nominations, and therefore that debating Constitutional change to Article 14 at Convention is now somewhat beside the point. However, members of the Ad Hoc Committee of National Council that created the RPCNs have stated publicly their belief that they are only the starting-point rather than the end of the discussion about our nomination rules – an ongoing project that will attend in the future to remaining gaps in the rules, necessarily attentive to what delegates to Convention decide to do in amending the Constitution. And the fact is that there are indeed still gaps in the RPCNs that need to be filled. Moreover, amending the Constitution remains the best way of ensuring that they are filled, in a long-term than a short-term manner.
2. Why We (Still) Need Constitutional Change
First, on the Constitution: we need constitutional change, specifically, for two reasons. The first is that National Council can change the RPCNs any time it chooses. It actually changed them twice already at the end of 2025 – once on December 5, and again on December 22. Secondly: without changing any of the rules, National Council can (in accordance with the rules) ignore any one of them (13c): “National Council may waive, alter, abridge or suspend any of these Rules as it sees fit.” And when it behaves in this way, no-one can do anything about it (13d): “Any decision under this Section 13, shall be final and binding and is not subject to appeal, challenge or review on any grounds.” And this is why Conservative Party members who desire certain core principles and practices always and in principle to characterize our candidate selection process need to persist in achieving changes to Article 14 of our Constitution – irrespective of the RPCNs. For it is only the Constitution’s provisions that are permanent and legally binding. The RPCNs themselves are always subject to the Constitution, which (unlike the RPCNs) cannot be waived, altered, abridged, or suspended.
3. The Gaps in the Revised Rules
So even if the RPCNs had in fact solved all the problems that plagued the last cycle of nominations, we would still need to press for changes to the Constitution. But in fact, there are still significant gaps in the RPCNs. They do take steps in the right direction on issues such as fairness to nomination applicants in regard to incomplete applications and the disqualification of applicants and candidates; the length of the nomination process; and the circumstances under which the RPCNs may be abridged. However, the “gaps” – if left unfilled – mean that we are very likely to repeat prior to the next election some of the core mistakes made prior to the previous one – with the great damage that was thereby done to grassroots Party’s members morale and commitment.
a) Respect for EDAs
Each (EDA) is constitutionally “the primary organization through which the rights of members are exercised” (Constitution Article 5.1) and each local candidate nomination committee (CNC) is constitutionally the body responsible “for the administration of the candidate selection process in the electoral district” (Article 14.2). Yet the RPCNs persist in treating the local CNC as if it were in a merely advisory role to the National Candidate Selection Committee (NCSC). Specifically, the RPCNs will still permit NCSC for example
1) to allow nomination applicants (any time it deems it “reasonable” to do so) to evade CNC scrutiny by way of application package and interview – thereby cutting out the CNC entirely from the applicant nomination process (5j); and
2) to disqualify – at any time and as often as it wishes to do so – nomination applicants recommended by the CNC, without explanation to the CNC or any right of appeal by the CNC (5l);
b) Fairness to Nomination Applicants
While the RPCNs provide an opportunity for nomination applicants to correct errors in their applications, no timeline is specified for this (5b), and nothing is stated about the consequences of the Party failing to notify the applicant of any omissions in the first place. In addition, while “all Applicants approved to contest the Nomination shall receive a copy of the current membership list for that Electoral District at the same time on the third (3rd) day following the Close of Nominations” (9a), this will not help applicants not yet approved by the Party on that date, who may still suffer a significant disadvantage relative to their competitors.
c) Nomination Schedule
The RPCNs do not contemplate a nomination schedule that is published in advance of the process beginning. The Executive Director still issues the closing notices at any time he wishes (subject to broad time deadlines), with no requirement of consultation with or approval from local National Councillors – much less the affected EDAs (4a-d). Without a published schedule, nominations could still be called at any time before the next election (or before October 31, 2027), giving candidates no guarantees about timing.
d) Protecting Candidates from Unjust Removal
In the past, sitting Conservative MPs who are in good standing with their caucus colleagues and their constituents have been threatened with undemocratic removal from candidacy, announced at the last minute. The RPCNs do not address this problem. In fact, they appear to give NCSC absolute discretion in disallowing a Candidate’s candidacy (2c/3f/5l, noting also the definition of “candidate” in 1 c). One wonders whether sitting MPs are aware of this.
e) Training
The only mention of training in the rules is a vague note in 8(xi)(E) requiring a selected candidate to undergo party training. No substantive commitments are offered, of the sort that are necessary to avoid the vast training deficit among candidates and campaign teams that existed prior to and during the previous election.
4. Conclusion
Conservative Party members who desire certain core principles and practices always to characterize our candidate selection process need to persist in achieving changes to Article 14 of our Constitution – irrespective of the improved RPCNs, which are in any case characterized by important gaps.