dave what you should be doing instead  is convincing your ottawa buddies to look to the obvious for more money  and stop trying to undermine the real party..the grass roots
I hear they have some private company doing our phone solicitation for funds and they get to keep ...get this ...50 % !!
YES THATS FIFTY PERCENT !!!
 
Now how about we take all those concerned with losing their jobs and let them do the phoning as MEMBERS !!! for their wages instead???????????????
 
The party is and has been mismanaged plain and simple but then I have built many million dollars companies with million dollar budgets and have an opinion based on years of results
I was also by the way in the financial services world for years as a bank manager...a bailiff ...a collection supervisor  and a department head at revenue canada.
 
Whether  you like it or not change will have to come.
It is stupid to ignore your members strengths as we hired close contacts with no qualifications except being yes men and women
 
Read it quick before dave deletes it please

I care about my EDA. We are not rich, either as an EDA or as persons.
I am loath so send money to Ottawa and see it disappear in a black hole.
I have joined in 2008 so maybe I am disqualified to comment.
We need someone with financial expertise at Central (njot saying there is none; I just don't know, but I read the above). It would be that person's job, among other things (Job One being budgeting and internal controls) to repare various scenarios and recommend the best one based on criteria of fairness and... sustainability!
It would be nice to stop the biterness and name-calling. You are begining to sound like the Parti québécois!!! (NOT a compliment of course.) I am not aiming at one person in paricular, just annoyed.

Ken -- cutting into the RSA has been discussed and in fact acted upon. The GPC asked EDAs to voluntarily defer their RSA payments (with interest) until the next election. It just buys them time, but isn't really a long-term solution (they are obviously couting on a new election loan to be able to repay the EDAs). One problem is they automatically enrollied EDAs who did not give them an answer by the deadline, which was something like Jan 1-2 (which didn't allow EDAs much time if any to convene an executive meeting, especially given the holidays). It would have been better politically to assume they did NOT want to defer, but naturally they want as many to defer as possible. So, yes, the RSA is very much up for debate right now.

If we are going to talk about revising the RSA, then all the parties need to put all the cards on the table so that we can have an honest discussion about the finances of the party.
 
The original RSA allotted a third of the vote subsidy to EDAs, a third to Provincial Divisions and a third to the Central Office.  Any monies designated for a riding without an EDA were to go to the PD.  Any monies designated for a province (either directly or from ridings without EDAs) without a PD were to go to Central with the direction that those monies be spent in that province.
 
With a Council motion and a bylaw change at the 2009 BGM, provinces were not allowed to set up new PDs and PDs were changed to Provincial Organizations and not eligible for the RSA money.  That money stayed in the Central Party coffers.  With 241 registered EDAs (78% of 308), there is a chunk of money that is supposed to go to PDs that now ends up in the Central coffers.  If you do the math, Central gets their third, the PD third and 22% of the EDAs third for a grand total of nearly 74% of the vote subsidy.
 
Now, as you mentioned, EDAs are complaining about donor fatigue because Central has been very aggressive with fundraising (not a slight on staff, they are doing as they are told!).  As you have also pointed out on your blog, organizers have been let go due to financial hardships in the Central budget.  Even though the Central Party collects 40% more of the RSA than they are supposed to, the termination of field organizers is clear that they are NOT spending money in the provinces and thus are in violation of the RSA (Item 2.2.5).
 
Another area that Central is in violation of the RSA is with the current plan to ask EDAs to either defer, decline or loan their RSA payments to assist Central in paying off the 2008 General Election debt.  It is spelled out that any debts taken on by Central are not to affect the transfers to the EDA (Item 2.2.7)
 
Now I will conceed that EDAs may not be doing enough to build up the organization and much is left to Central in terms of party building therefore additional funds are required.  However, what is Central's (or Federal Council's) plan to empower the EDAs to do more?  Where are all the organizers that could be training EDAs to do more locally to build the party?
 
Finally, your suggestion that party fundraising be brought into a new RSA is an excellent idea and one that has been floated for a number of years.  The relunctance to do this has generally been from the central side as it generally encourages EDAs not to do individual fundraising and relying even moreso on Central to do their work.
 
In conclusion, a future RSA discussion would be a valuable one to have but would require Central to open the books more than they have in the past and allow members to directly question spending choices.  With a lion's share of the RSA going the Central coffers and an aggressive fundraising program, people would have to explain why we are in a financial mess.

As may have been noticed, I've blogged extensively on just how tight the GPC's financial position is.
 
I go by reading the financial documents, plus what I pick up here and there. I see what a big chunk of GPC expenses are "Transfers" and I know that would be the RSA.
 
One thing I hadn't heard filtering out of the Council pressure cooker on dealing with the financial crisis, is around those RSAs. Staff cuts and discussions about that; but nothing about the RSAs. While I knew they were a 'third rail' as BGB calls them... I didn't know whether I wasn't hearing because they were not discussed at Council, or simply because I wasn't hearing.
 
So apparently cutting into them has not been 'officially' discussed, yet.
 
What a wonderful coincidence, the timing of Dave bringing up these great ideas about better ways to carve the pie.
 
Nothing to do with the RSAs being a far bigger expense than the staff positions that have been cut.... the savings of which are just a fraction of what is required to save the GPC's bacon.

I don't think a revision to the RSA is a horrible thing but I would like to see a couple other changes made to compensate.
 A competant independant CFO(not a E May hire) who can make a budget and tell head office "Live with it or raise more money"
 A plan to give the  EDAs the tools, training and help to raise money and memberships locally.  You see it's the chicken and the egg thing, if we have only a few members we cannot run a campaign or big events to raise money, awarness and membership.
I'd like to see an E May tour where the Party not the EDA (especially where a small or weak EDA can't manage it) organizes large local or regional events aimed at building membership  and contact lists. This should be one of the regional organizers jobs, money would be shared to cover the cost of the events and the EDAs get a list of people for future fund raising.  Leaving a weak EDA to flounder rather than give it a leg up is stupid, and normal opperating procedure it seems.  It's not just about funding EDAs,  many also need training and organizational help
A 3 person EDA with no volunteers, a memberhip list numbering only a few score yet getting near 10% vote should in theory be able to self fund and grow if given a little direction and help, as I see it we get neither.  Trotting Adriane around was a good move but it seems her advice was based on already having a solid membership base and EDA. For a small, suburban EDAs much of her advice was pointless.  Also charging poor EDAs for advice to make their EDAs better is not a solution.
Perhaps a plan to trim the RSA should simply cap transfers at the level needed to run a minmal campaign, ie full signage, 1 post card mailing, a couple of phones, and a web site,, lets say $3k, the EDAs submit their books and when they reach this magic number the RSA reverts to debt repayment or general revenue.  This way every riding can run a minmal campaign but those doing well simply fund a greater proportion of the costs.  Once I knew a local camapaign was viable , I would not mind getting less from the RSA. 
I'd also like to see the Party own all the Web sites and supply a permanent template,, those EDAs that bought into last elections deal for web design got ripped off as the designers tore out the template and content as soon as the election was over.  Not every EDA has a resident geek and after paying for templates we should have retained ownership.
I don't think this discussion is a bad thing but if bluegreenblogger is correct in his belief you are testing the waters for head office and council I'm dissapointed in them yet again, this time for sneaking around rather than  opening a respectful discussion
Ps not a fan of your new template.
 

Dave, thanks for sharing your constructive thoughts on how the Revenue Sharing Agreement could be revamped. I think that there is merit to some of what you’ve written, and that revisiting the RSA in the future might be something that the Party wants to do.
 
Having said that, I am absolutely against the idea of opening this issue up right now. Clearly, there is too much on the Party’s plate, plus an election looming in the near future. Under no circumstances would it be a good idea to revisit the RSA at this time. Revisiting the RSA will require a lot of negotiations involving party staff and EDA’s. Currently, at least I understood there to be, there’s supposed to be an initiative underway for bringing EDA’s more into the consultative fold of the Party. At the very least, that should be a pre-requisite for revisiting the RSA.
 
With regards to some of the more substantive items you’ve raised, I agree that sometimes EDA’s are using revenue transfers from the Party as a reason not to engage in fundraising. That being said, though, we have a number of small EDA’s with only a few committed volunteers. And those EDA’s have been troubled over the past year as members have left the party. Now, this isn’t an excuse not to engage in fundraising; it’s only to suggest that in those circumstances, raising funds for the EDA has become increasingly challenging.
 
That coupled with the fact that our Leader, who would otherwise be one of our biggest fundraising draws, has been focussing on her own riding of SGI, rather than travelling across the country to assist local EDA’s with fundraising efforts. This strategy, of course, is in keeping with the Campaign Plan, and I for one am in support of it, even if it means fewer opportunities for local high profile fundraising. And the Party needs to keep that in mind.
 
I do, however, take issue with your assertion that the RSA is a "huge drain on party finances". I’m not at all sure where you’re coming from with that establishing remark, given that all of the revenues transferred from the government remain within Party coffers; they’re just redistributed amongst the different units of the Party. I can’t help but wonder if, by making such a bold and completely unsubstantiated statement, you’re presenting a misleading line of thought here to those who read your blog.
 
As far as changes being made to the RSA which might "kick-start" some of the smaller and medium-sized EDA’s into action, my concerns would be that, without additional Party resources, the opposite might actually happen, and that we’ll lose those EDA’s altogether. I think that one of the things which would help to address this, though, would be for our Party to begin experiencing electoral success. If we can elect an MP or two in the next election, and present ourselves as a sincere and viable choice to the electorate, it may be possible for EDA’s to grow with their present resource allocations, and perhaps even should those resource allocations be reduced. If, however, we don’t experience success, and the Party claws back sharing revenue with the EDA’s, it will be a disaster for the majority of our EDA’s.
 
Right now, EDA’s are largely saving their revenues so that small campaigns can be financed for local candidates in the next federal election. Without even these under-funded campaigns, we will not increase our vote. Our candidates need to be active during (and preferrably before) a campaign; they can’t simply be a name on a ballot. To be active, though, requires money, and without the volunteer workforce to engage in significant local fundraising efforts, of course EDA’s will fall back on RSA revenues.
 
That’s the reality. EDA’s in this situation can’t expect to be helped by the Party during the writ period; the Central Party’s resources wisely need to be focussed elsewhere. This leaves most EDA’s largely on their own to fight an election, and I think that’s probably the way things need to be right now. That’s the current circumstance we inhabit.
 
Talk of taking away funding from EDA’s in this circumstance, though, simply needs to cease, as it does the Party no good.
 
Discussions which start with the idea that our Federal Council can unilaterally change the current arrangement without the consent of EDA’s would be especially problematic for the Party in this current circumstance, and really should be avoided at all costs. We’ve got enough on our collective plates to deal with, we don’t need that sort of internecine struggle to erupt (and erupt it will).

Dave, I suspect that you sometimes feel an almost unconquorable urge to touch the third rail. Oops! You did it!
It`s obvious that you haven`t been around the GPC for very long, or you wouldn`t have been floating this trial balloon for Elizabeth May. She obviously is aware that you are about to get burned, or we would have seen more from council on this.
The whole world knows that the GPC is in dire financial straights. I have frequently commented that there is little in the way of management expertise at the Ottawa office. They had predictable revenues, but they ramped their expenses way way beyond what they could afford. Now their world is crashing down, but rather than right the ship, and figure out how to do their work more effectively, they want to grab what isn`t theirs. If you knew how intense the RSA issue was, you wouldn`t touch it. Lot`s of people who aren`t very interested in blogs, or central Party shenanigans are about to come out of the woodwork, and get very interested in our unfolding financial disaster.
Thanks for the heads up about what the status quo leadership is planning.
Bluegreenblogger