Campaign Research fires back at Martin

Campaign Research is firing back at Pat Martin for comments the NDP Winnipeg MP made on CTV’s Question Period yesterday.

Campaign Research writes to Martin,

“we ask that you immediately provide a writtenstatement to be published on your MP website and provided to media, correcting the record,apologizing for your mistake and retracting your false implication which was made in the absence of anyevidence whatsoever. Please note that if we receive no response from you, and/or no written statement is made public by 5pm EST on February 28, 2012, we will be proceeding with the filing of a Statement of Claim”

NDP Membership numbers – comparison

The NDP just released their membership number totals prior to the upcoming vote for NDP leader. The number just released is: 128,351

For comparison, let’s look at CPC and LPC numbers during leadership races in the respective parties.

CPC sold memberships over a three month window December 2003-March 2004.
251,000 members, 109,000 new members
(source: Globe and Mail. March 12, 2004)

LPC sold memberships over a three month window April 2006-June 2006.
185,000 members; 92,000 new members
(source: Canadian Press, July 15, 2006)

Comparatively, the NDP sold memberships over a five month window October 2011-February 2012.
128,351 members; 39,219 new members
(source: NDP, Pundit’s Guide reports 44% increase from September 1 2011)

UPDATE: Chantal Hebert reports that fewer NDP members will vote for that party’s new leader than Bloc members voted for a new BQ leader. The NDP has 42 MPs in Quebec while the Bloc has 4.

These are not at all great numbers for Canada’s official opposition.