November 23, 2024 Convention

Attendees

Executive Committee	Members	New Members	Guests
Mark Snow, Leader Michelle Lashbrook, Vice-Chairman Coreen Corcoran, Deputy Leader Scott Marshall, Secretary (Zoom) Jim McIntosh, CFO Dean O'Reilly, Member at Large	Gene Balfour, Member Angie Dunavant, Member Joseph Nuno, Member Nunzio Venuto, Member (Jay Miller by PROXY)	Morgan Jones, New Member Dr. Kirsten Kelly, New Member Garth Tucker, New Member + 1 unidentified new member	Pierre Desrochers. Speaker Joanne Szurmak, Speaker Nina Bakhsh, Guest

"New Members" joined the Party AFTER September 3, 2023.

No one volunteered to take minutes for this meeting.

9:00 - 10:00 Welcome and Reports of Officer

Leader - Mark Snow

Mark welcomed the attendees and thanked them for coming.

Deputy Leader - Coreen Corcoran

No report

Vice-Chair - Michelle Lashbrook

No report - delete?

Treasurer - Jim McIntosh

Financial summary for 2022 Vs. 2023

Category	2022	2023	Difference
INCOME
By-Election Income	0.00	1,030.16	1030.16
Election Income	4261.51	0.00	-4261.51
Contributions	7020.64	7,015.27	-5.37
Interest Income	8.55	24.57	16.02
Other Income	0.00	50.00	50.00
Transfers Received (Sch 5)	424.65	0.00	-424.65
TOTAL INCOME	11715.35	8,120.00	-3595.35
EXPENSES
Adjustments to Surplus	-285.73	-20.42	-265.31
Bank Charges	265.84	204.89	60.95
By-Election Expenses
By-Election Expenses:Travel	0.00	1,030.16	-1030.16
TOTAL By-Election Expenses	0.00	1,030.16	-1030.16
Election Campaign Expenses
Campaign:Advertising	84.74	0.00	84.74
Campaign:Bank Charges	56.43	0.00	56.43
Campaign:Telephone	1710.31	0.00	1710.31
Campaign:Xfr Paid	3371.85	0.00	3371.85
TOTAL Election Campaign Expenses	5223.33	0.00	5223.33
Furniture & Equipment	91.14	165.43	-74.29
Insurance & Utilities	1074.60	1,074.60	0.00
Interest Charged	0.00	1.82	-1.82
Meetings Hosted	1017.00	1,084.21	-67.21
Office & Equipment Rental	180.80	180.80	0.00
Office Supplies	340.99	-35.24	376.23
Professional Fees	240.00	1,142.92	-902.92
Telephone	45.73	231.61	-185.88
Travel Expenses	82.55	0.00	82.55
Web and Internet	310.67	757.50	-446.83
TOTAL EXPENSES	8586.92	5,818.28	2768.64
SURPLUS	3128.43	2,301.72	-826.71

Financial summary for January - November 22, 2023 Vs. 2022

Category	2023-11-22	2024-11-22	Difference
INCOME
By-Election Goods & Services	1030.16	0.00	-1030.16
Contributions	4545.27	4359.39	-185.88
Interest Income	20.16	17.76	-2.40
Other Income	50.00	0.00	-50.00
Transfers Received (Sch 5)	0.00	633.24	633.24
TOTAL INCOME	5645.59	5010.39	-635.20
Expenses
Bank Charges	174.15	131.41	42.74
By-Election Expenses
By-Election Expenses:Travel	1030.16	0.00	1030.16
TOTAL By-Election Expenses	1030.16	0.00	1030.16
Furniture & Equipment	-50.00	0.00	-50.00
Insurance & Utilities	1074.60	1080.00	-5.40
Interest Charged	1.82	11.05	-9.23
Meetings Hosted	1084.21	291.77	792.44
Office & Equipment Rental	180.80	67.80	113.00
Office Supplies	-35.24	0.00	-35.24
Professional Fees	1142.92	0.00	1142.92
Telephone	207.33	326.01	-118.68
Web and Internet	634.72	145.74	488.98
TOTAL Expenses	5445.47	2053.78	3391.69
OVERALL TOTAL	200.12	2956.61	2756.49

Donations by Month

The numbers below include In-Kind donations and Campaign donations

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	June	July	Aug	Sept	Total
2023	50	1,045	1045	104	260	770	250	685	710	3,924
2022	465	567	1,938	1,468	4,939	400	928	235	550	11,874

Secretary - Scott Marshall

No report - delete?

10:00-11:00 pm Joanne Szurmak, Guest Speaker

Joanne Szurmak, Associate Librarian, Library & Learning Services at the University of Toronto, spoke on her book, Population Bombed! Exploding the Link Between Overpopulation and Climate Change. Here are some of the points she made.

• Simultaneous population growth and fossil fuel-powered economic development is the only practical way to lift much of humanity out of poverty, to build resilience against potential anthropogenic climate change, and to make possible a reduction of humanity’s impact on its environment.

• A larger population that engages in trade and the division of labor will create more prosperity, per person, than fewer people working alone. A larger, denser population creates economies of scale that make both resource use and human labor more efficient and productive.
• Human creativity delivers increasing returns. Human beings routinely come up with progressively less damaging ways of doing things that increase the efficiency of agriculture, resource extraction, industry, transportation and communications.
• Human standards of living are not completely constrained by local resources. Biological metaphors and ecological concepts such as carrying capacity do not apply to economic systems because of trade, innovation, and ongoing optimization of resource use.
• Past successes are grounds for optimism. Of the 7.6 billion people now alive, fewer live in abject poverty than ever before; nature is rebounding despite larger and wealthier populations.

11:15-12:15 am Pierre Desrochers, Guest Speaker:

Pierre Desrochers, Associate Professor of Geography, Geomatics, and Environment at the University of Toronto Mississauga, spoke on the negative environmental consequences of banning carbon fuels and plastics. He is currently researching this subject.

• There is a widespread call for action to ban synthetic (plastic) products in the name of environmental remediation.
• While there are some plastic pollution problems in less advanced economies, in advanced economies such as Canada the benefits of plastics greatly outweigh the almost non-existent environmental damage they cause.
• The presentation covered the historical development of plastic products and illustrated through various examples that plastic products provided better substitutes to products once manufactured from flora and fauna grown or harvested from the surface of the planet.
• Plastic products also opened new possibilities that could not have been met with wood, metals, glass, animal products and plant fibers, either because of their unique characteristics or because there would not have been enough room to produce them on the surface of the planet.
• The creation of new resources from materials extracted from below the surface of the planet to substitute for materials produced on the surface of the planet was once celebrated as an important development that benefitted both humans and nature. The case of the forest transition (i.e., the expansion of the forest cover in economies where people increased in numbers and became wealthier) was used to illustrate this point.

1:00-2:30 pm - Elections

Chair

Nominee	Votes
Michelle Lashbrook	9
NOTA	0
	9

Jim McIntosh did not vote his Proxy.

Vice Chair

Nominee	Votes
James Jolley	10
NOTA	0
	10

Secretary

No one at the AGM volunteered or was nominated for this position.

Recording Secretary

No one at the AGM volunteered or was nominated for this position.

Campaign Director

Nominee	Votes
Scott Marshall	10
NOTA	0
	10

Treasurer

Jim McIntosh served as Treasurer until 2017. He retired at the 2017 convention, but had to continue performing the duties while his replacement signed the Elections Ontario Paperwork. In 2018 another member was elected as Treasurer but resigned after one session with Jim because his business took him out of the country 2 weeks each month. In 2019 Keith Komar was elected Treasurer. He bought a "Treasure's" laptop and installed Quicken. In 2020 he was elected Leader, and Andrew Allison was elected Treasurer. As a result of some malfeasance, the Leader, Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer and a Member at Large all Resigned. Jim agreed to take over as Treasurer. The Executive Committee never made a Motion to appoint him a Treasurer, and has not been elected at an AGM or Convention since 2017.

Jim will train anyone who is willing to add the function of Treasurer to their Resume.

Nominee	Nominator	Votes
Jim McIntosh	Mark Snow	10
NOTA		0
	TOTAL	10

Members at Large

Two to be elected for a 1-year term.

Nominee	Votes
Dean O'Reilly	10
NOTA	0
	10

Ethics Committee

Two new Members are normally added to the Ethics Committee for a 1-year term each year to maintain a committee of 6. Only 3 Members of the current committee have have served for less than 6 years, (Mark Dixon, Gene Balfour, and James Jolley). Since James Jolley has been elected to the Executive Committee he is no longer eligible to serve on the Ethics Committee. Four additional members are required.

Jim McIntosh confirmed by phone that Jean-Serge Brisson and Paul Herriot have agreed to run for the Ethics Committee.

Nominee	Votes
Jean-Serge Brisson	10
Paul Herriot	9
Gene Balfour	9
NOTA	0
	28

All 3 were elected.

2:45-4:30 pm - Other Business

Dr. Kirsten Kelly, recounted her success at raising $40,000 dollars and ....

Gene Balfour has discussed changing the name of the party from "Libertarian" that few voters understand to "Less Government." He understands that few people in the Libertarian Party are in favour of this idea. He had some suggestions as to how the Party could attract new members. ...

Jim pointed out that politics follows culture, and the current culture today is that the purpose of the government is to "help people." He suspects that it started when Edgar Ryerson, now "cancelled," convinced the government to provide free education to all the children in the early 1900's. Voters like free stuff, and politicians discovered promising voters more programs that relived individuals of a personal responsibility would get them re-elected. Sometimes 'helping people' means helping them avoid facing the consequences of bad decisions and actions. And now the government is promising we wont need to be responsible for determining fact from fiction and 'misinformation.' If we are ever going to achieve our Mission "to enable endless possibilities through recognition of, respect for, and protection of individual liberty" we ill need to change the culture. And we are unlikely to do that with any success during election campaigns.

Adjournment

MOVED BY Jim McIntosh, SECONDED BY Gene Balfour [ this meeting be adjourned. ] 10 in favor, 0 opposed, 0 abstained. Carried

The meeting was adjourned at ______ PM