To my fellow Victoria Conservatives,

I first and foremost want to tell you all how encouraging it was to see a full house at the Windsor Pavilion for our first townhall meeting of 2020. Even though road conditions weren’t ideal, the fact that there is a passion to discuss the issues that affect us all politically on the national level on a blustery Thursday in January, tells me there is a thirst for more.

I’d like to thank board member Kent Verge for organizing the evening and procuring the venue. Any issues with choice of pizza toppings should be directed towards his personal email.

Also, a thank you goes out to National Council member Don Nightingale for his insight on the current status of the party at the National level, and on the state and structure of the upcoming leadership race.

To me, the biggest takeaways of the event came during the open forum portion of the evening, I was impressed with the depth and breadth of questions and suggestions. A number of you brought some welcome criticism regarding how the campaign went this past fall. In this regard, as the Candidate of Record here in Victoria, I have made a personal pledge to reach out to our younger generation, and start to build bridges. I will engage with the public school sector and our post secondary educational institutions, with a vision of promoting a positive conservative message that such a voter base can hang its hat on.

As well there were some attendees that spoke in regards to the positive direction the party needs to take itself not only in the upcoming political cycle on a National level, but how we as Conservatives in Victoria need to promote this vision to others. That will not only build our strong voter base, but promote a vision of prosperity and inclusion of all, instead of the divisive attitude the Liberals have been touting and exploiting the past 4 years. The points of views were plentiful in the room and have definitely given me much to consider going into this transformative and pivotal year for the party.

Once again, a thank you to all those who attended, and to those that did not have a chance, we are in full gear on having more events of the same ilk. In the meantime, the VCA will be having An Evening with Mark Milke this upcoming Saturday, February 1st. I hope to see you there to keep the conversation going!

Richard Caron
Candidate of Record for the riding of Victoria