Fund board Nominations Team
Team responsible for Fund functionaries
Qualifications of Directors
1.1. According to the Canada Not-for-profit Act and the Green Party of Canada Fund By-law, nominees for director must:
1.1.a. have been a Member in good standing of the Green Party of Canada for at least 3 months prior to their application;
1.1.b. have given permission to GPC staff to conduct a police check at the cost of the GPC;
1.1.c. have discharged all debts owed to the GPC;
1.1.d. have confirmed in writing that they are willing to serve as Fund Director;
1.1.e. not be less than 18 years of age;
1.1.f. not be incapable;
1.1.f. be an individual, and,
1.1.g. not have the status of bankrupt
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Conversation with Bill Matheson
This is a comment on section 1.1.a., which states that applicants must "have been a Member in good standing of the Green Party of Canada for at least 3 months prior to their application. " Federal Council has 21 members, not including the Executive Director. I haven't been able to determine the maximum number of Directors of the Fund Board, but I'd say that 12 is a reasonable guess. The Green Party of Canada had approximately 22,000 members in 2022. Of that 22,000, only 33 at one time can be members of Federal Council or the Fund Board. In fact, the total is only 32, since the Fund Board Representative sits on both bodies. So, the maximum membership of Federal Council and the Fund Board is only 0.145% of the membership of the GPC. If all the members of the Fund Board were also member of Federal Council (which would clearly be unacceptable), the percentage would drop to 0.1%.
Section 2.1.9 of GPC Bylaw 2 on Federal Council states that "No member may run for more than one Federal Council position simultaneously, or serve or continue to serve in more than one Federal Council position simultaneously." This prevents a provincial rep, for example, from simultaneously being the president or a vice-president of Federal Council. I think this is very wise for several reasons, one of which is that it is more representative to have as many different people as possible on Council. I think parity of reasoning should lead the Fund Board to similarly prevent a Fund Board member from holding more that one position on the Fund Board. And both Federal Council and the Fund Board should have rules or practices that limit the number of people simultaneously on Federal Council and the Fund Board to one: the Fund Board representative.
Thank you so much for your input, @bill_matheson . The Fund's board has encouraged Federal Councillors to join the board to improve perceived issues with communication and trust, but Fund Members could reasonably decide that they instead prefer greater independence between the two bodies. There are trade-offs to either approach.
The Fund Board is unable to do this using policy because it would overrule our by-laws, which allow for multiple offices to be held by the same person:
Offices of the Fund Board are non-voting, non-elected and non-representative positions, unlike Federal Council, so the reasons for restricting Councillors to one position do not apply to the Fund board. Holding a title such as "Vice President and Secretary" is helpful to the functioning of the board and does not deny anyone a voting position.
On the second point:
The Fund Board will likely continue to prefer greater cross-representation, as we've had success with exposing Councillors to the professional culture and strong teamwork that make being on the Fund Board a hopefully rewarding experience. It also gives Councillors useful firsthand experience on the Fund's responsibilities and limitations. We share your concern about there being a risk of too much cross-representation and so have requested a limit to the amount of cross-representation to a maximum of 50% of the Fund Board being represented on Federal Council. The 50% limit could be adjusted, if you felt that was too high. In practice, there aren't many people interested in being on both bodies.
The Fund's board has completely removed itself from making decisions that might prevent people from running to be on the Fund Board (e.g. Fund members now select Fund board candidates, not Fund Directors), so you have three options to codify a more independent Fund Board:
Submit a specific member proposal to the next Fund General Meeting, to ask Fund members to update Fund By-Laws in a Special Resolution. (66% threshold)
Participate in the ongoing Fund By-Law update process and have the by-law updated to direct the Fund board to not allow any cross-representation between Federal Council and the Fund Board, with the exception of the Fund Representative. (66% threshold)
The maximum number of directors on the Fund's board is 9, which you'll find in our Certificate of Continuance in "Related Files": https://wedecide.green.ca/assemblies/green-party-of-canada-fund
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