OTTAWA—The Conservative Party’s 2015 election readiness plans include tapping into Parliament Hill resources, namely MPs and their staffers — a move that may blur the lines between public and partisan political work.

Other plans are to speed party nominations where possible. It is all outlined in secret party documents sent anonymously to the Star. One spells out a need to quickly identify which MPs will not run for re-election and find good candidates to replace them, especially in target seats where the Conservative party has a good chance of winning.

A Feb. 3 memo to Prime Minister Stephen Harper from the party’s executive director Dimitri Soudas and director of political operations Fred DeLorey says everyone in caucus was canvassed and 11 MPs “have told us they do not plan to run again,” while another 16 have said they are “unsure.”

The memo says 130 sitting MPs advise they plan to run again, although 20 expect to be challenged in open nomination contests.

Those not running again nevertheless say they will stick around until the 2015 election and will not leave early, Soudas and DeLorey advise Harper. “The only one who has not made himself available is Minister (Jason) Kenney.”

The memo is marked “Secret” and is written on Conservative Party letterhead. It is the result, it says, of caucus consultations and meetings with Harper’s chief of staff, Ray Novak, deputy chief of staff Jenni Byrne, and party president John Walsh. It is cc’d to others in Harper’s PMO as well as to top Conservative fundraiser Sen. Irving Gerstein.

The memo to Harper says some incumbent MPs want to have nomination contests held “ASAP, including Rob Anders who believes he can win if we open (the contest) now.” It says, however, that once a nomination contest begins, an MP or his staff will no longer have access to a party database that is not available to challengers. The party will not open the nomination in Peterborough until Elections Canada’s charges against Dean Del Mastro are dealt with.

A separate document — titled minutes of a Jan. 21st meeting led by Soudas — reveals the party is looking at ways to maximize the advantages offered by incumbency, the visibility of ministers on tour, and how best to motivate and mobilize regional organizers.

“Everything we do is part of the strategy to ensure we win in 2015 with another majority government,” the minutes quote Soudas as saying.

The Conservative government has occasionally run into trouble when a minister’s office has been used for partisan political work.

This memo outlines a plan to train staffers from all Conservative MPs offices on an upgraded party database, and take advantage of the visibility of ministers on tour.

The minutes indicate clearly that relations have been rocky between Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office, the party’s headquarters and Conservative caucus members: “We need to rebuild confidence with caucus from the PMO and HQ.”

One of Soudas’ tasks is to canvas caucus about “how CIMS (Constituency Information Management System) is going” and draft a letter to them “so we can get an idea of where their heads are at.”

The document came out of an “RO meeting.” The acronym is apparently a reference to the party’s regional organizers. It outlines ways to better incorporate them into the party’s campaign machinery, setting out tasks that include: “catalogue all the incumbency tactics that many MPs may not know they have.”

The meeting in Toronto was attended by at least 10 party organizers, including Colin McSweeney, an Eastern Ontario organizer and MP’s aide and a personal friend of Harper.

Soudas urged them to think in terms of four “categories of ridings we have: ‘All incumbents who are running again; All incumbents who are not running again — high value target seat; Non-held ridings that are targets; Non-held non target.”

The document directly references “Hill training” on the Conservative Party’s computer database used to identify voters, donors and members.

CIMS was to be replaced by a new system known as CVote. That ran into trouble due to cost-overruns and delays. But the party is upgrading the older system, and still intends to use and incorporate both.

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The notes say: “Dimitri take away — When would we be ready to do CIMS training on the Hill for MP offices?”

Soudas wanted to include a date in remarks he planned to deliver to Conservative caucus that at “End of February hill training on CIMS will start.”

It goes on to say that staffers will pick two dates “spread apart by a week and make it mandatory that all CPC MPs must send their CIMS point person to the training.”

The document also references how the party should leverage the presence of ministers when they appear in ridings in a given area, noting for regional organizers it is an “opportunity to go meet minister, shake hands and take picture.”

Soudas intended to have a “discussion with Joseph Lavoie in PMO — create 2 categories of events — open to members or closed to members — drop by and see him at Tim Hortons.” (Lavoie works at Harper’s PMO, integrating strategic communications with social media outreach efforts.)

An annotation in bold typeface that sets out action needed says “Make sure this is in caucus remarks . . . . Make sure director of tour for each minister knows.”

Furthermore, those present at the meeting in Toronto talked about the need to build bridges with the regional organizers who feel left out of the loop in party affairs, talking about a “need to improve 2 way comms.” It says regional organizers can help determine how well MPs and riding association members get along.

“Relationship with EDA/MP; Does the MP attend board meetings? Invite MPs to board meetings; Important that the relationship is a good one.”

They discussed the need to “think outside the box!” in the search for candidates for target seats, noting the mayor of Fort McMurray “would be a great candidate” for a newly vacated seat in Alberta. (It does not name Melissa Blake, re-elected last fall for her fourth term as mayor with 60 per cent of the vote. The Star was unable to reach Blake for comment.)

Much of the discussion centered on the mundane but necessary work of ensuring that the party’s people on the ground are ready for a campaign, know their jobs and know down to the last detail what will be required.

“Lets make sure — we are going to build a travelling road show — every single target seat to have had specific training on every single key function in the local campaign (this will include someone who is great at CIMS training, best practices GOTV (get out the vote), even where to order pizza etc.),” it reads.

The Conservative Party was asked for comment on this story, but has not responded.

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