Edmonton businessman Rick Peterson said the Tory party’s refusal to change the rules of the leadership campaign means he is withdrawing..Despite the virus crisis sweeping the country, the Conservative Leadership Election Organizing Committee has refused to budge on the March 25 deadline for candidates to pay $300,000 in charges and submit 3,000 signatures to be eligible to run..Peterson says the decision “flies in the face of common sense” and called it “fundamentally flawed.”.He noted he didn’t ask the final June 21 vote to be delayed but only wanted flexibilty in the way they could gather signatures..Peterson passed the first qualifying point on February 27 by having more than 1,000 signatures..“Signatures are a bigger problem than the money,” Peterson said..“Shortly after, a systemic meltdown of the economy in Canada as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic severely hampered the chances of a number of us to reach the second stage of qualification. We’ve been effectively sidelined since the first week of March.”.When the party rules were first announced, Peterson told the Western Standard they were brought in to favour an insider..In the 2017 leadership contest, entrants only had to come up with $100,000 and 1,000 names. A total of 14 people entered..Peterson also entered, finishing 12th with 0.7 per cent of the vote. He noted a total of five candidates finished with less than 1 per cent and he was the second choice of most of Maxime Bernier’s supporters. Bernier finished a close second to Andrew Scheer..After winning a national hockey championship at the University of Alberta, Peterson moved to play professional hockey in France. That’s where the economist and political scientist learned French and is now completely bilingual..After watching Kinder Morgan pull out of the TMX project, the businessman founded a group called Suits and Boots, which now boasts over 5,000 members to lobby on behalf of the industry and its workers..As founder of the group, Peterson spoke in front of a Senate committee on Bill C-69, known as the “no-more-pipelines bill”..Dave Naylor is the News Editor of the Western Standard.dnaylor@westernstandardonline.com.Twitter: Nobby7694
Edmonton businessman Rick Peterson said the Tory party’s refusal to change the rules of the leadership campaign means he is withdrawing..Despite the virus crisis sweeping the country, the Conservative Leadership Election Organizing Committee has refused to budge on the March 25 deadline for candidates to pay $300,000 in charges and submit 3,000 signatures to be eligible to run..Peterson says the decision “flies in the face of common sense” and called it “fundamentally flawed.”.He noted he didn’t ask the final June 21 vote to be delayed but only wanted flexibilty in the way they could gather signatures..Peterson passed the first qualifying point on February 27 by having more than 1,000 signatures..“Signatures are a bigger problem than the money,” Peterson said..“Shortly after, a systemic meltdown of the economy in Canada as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic severely hampered the chances of a number of us to reach the second stage of qualification. We’ve been effectively sidelined since the first week of March.”.When the party rules were first announced, Peterson told the Western Standard they were brought in to favour an insider..In the 2017 leadership contest, entrants only had to come up with $100,000 and 1,000 names. A total of 14 people entered..Peterson also entered, finishing 12th with 0.7 per cent of the vote. He noted a total of five candidates finished with less than 1 per cent and he was the second choice of most of Maxime Bernier’s supporters. Bernier finished a close second to Andrew Scheer..After winning a national hockey championship at the University of Alberta, Peterson moved to play professional hockey in France. That’s where the economist and political scientist learned French and is now completely bilingual..After watching Kinder Morgan pull out of the TMX project, the businessman founded a group called Suits and Boots, which now boasts over 5,000 members to lobby on behalf of the industry and its workers..As founder of the group, Peterson spoke in front of a Senate committee on Bill C-69, known as the “no-more-pipelines bill”..Dave Naylor is the News Editor of the Western Standard.dnaylor@westernstandardonline.com.Twitter: Nobby7694
