Centre Ice Canadians: Changing the way we do politics

Yes, that’s right. Centre Ice Canadians.

Four months after a group of us launched what we thought would be a small but interesting little organization called “Centre Ice Conservatives”, we’re today officially changing our name to Centre Ice Canadians.

Why the name change?

This pivot wasn’t initially in our plans, believe me. We launched Centre Ice Conservatives in April of this year simply because our founders are all centrist Conservatives. We had a feeling there were more people like us out there who were looking for a voice. And, boy, did that hunch ever turn out to be a good one.

The list of notable Conservatives signing up for our Advisory Council bears testimony to that. The flood of email sign-ups, media interest and support from Conservatives from coast-to-coast confirmed our momentum in the weeks and months that followed.

Immediately after we launched Centre Ice Conservatives, however, we received calls, emails and heard in private conversations from people from coast to coast who asked us to expand our platform beyond Conservative Party members and change our name to Centre Ice Canadians. We heard from a wide range of people who wanted to participate and contribute their ideas, their money and their social and professional networks in support of our group – but couldn’t do so as long as we were identified with the federal Conservative Party. Or any other federal Party, for that matter.

The success of our “Let’s Grow, Canada!” conference in Edmonton on August 11th truly locked in the change to Centre Ice Canadians. Jack Mintz, one of Canada’s leading economists and political commentators, even openly suggested the name change to us during a panel presentation at the conference. Christy Clark, former BC Liberal Premier of BC and keynote speaker at the same conference, followed up after her speech and urged the same thing. With that done, she’s now joined our Advisory Council. Also stepping up for an Advisory Council role for us are Erin Campbell, CEO of a Vancouver-based capital markets advisory firm, and Tom Dyck, former TD Bank executive.

So, with the unanimous approval of our directors and our Advisory Council members, we’ve undertaken the steps to formally change our platform name to Centre Ice Canadians. And as co-founder and director Michael Stuart outlines in this video our core mission and core goal of changing the way we do politics in Canada remains the same.

What’s next for Centre Ice Canadians?

We’re moving full speed ahead to organize our “Kickstarting Canada” conference for Friday, October 28th in Halifax. We’ll be focussing on coming up with practical solutions and ideas that can immediately be implemented by any federal government in helping kickstart reforms to our health care system, to our military & foreign policy profiles, as well as to helping provide catalysts that propel Atlantic Canada to reach its full economic potential.

Details on ticketing, panelists and our keynote speaker will be coming soon. As well, over the next few weeks you’ll see that we’re putting into place an organizational structure in

each province and the territories that will harness the energy and ideas of the volunteers and supporters who have contacted us wishing to help in their communities.

We’re on a roll – and all of this from a standing start just four months ago. By providing a strong and bold voice for pragmatic, centrist Canadians, it’s clear that this effort is clearly a first step in “Changing the way we do politics” in Canada today. That’s what we’re now focussed on doing here at Centre Ice Canadians. We hope you’ll join us.

Rick Peterson is an Edmonton-based businessman as well as co-founder & director of Centre Ice Canadians.