Dear friend of Canada's Conservative movement, and the National Citizens Coalition,
I want to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you, but mainly to discuss the conservative movement, today as I see it, and why your support for the NCC is so important this year and in 2024.
For starters, my name is Ben Lawton. I’m a conservative political consultant and have worked in the conservative political advocacy space for nearly 10 years. My small firm focuses on strategic communications, stakeholder engagement and campaign finance.
I’m a political fundraiser.
But this message is not about me, nor for my firm or any of that, it’s not even really about fundraising.
It’s about where you and I, as conservatives, find ourselves today.
It’s also a message about the organization that you and I support, why it’s so special, and its role in 2024.
I’m writing to you as a supporter of the National Citizens Coalition, and as someone who cares very deeply about our country.
Like you, I’m a movement builder. And that’s where I turn to now.
I support the NCC because of its historical position within Canadian conservatism. In a sense, it’s the father – the original, if you will – of Canada’s grassroots conservative advocacy organizations.
With that comes great responsibility in 2024.
Today, the Canadian Conservative movement has a growing arsenal of advocacy groups like policy think tanks, networking organizations, industry advocates, tax fighters and even media companies – and all that is excellent!
Each different organization has its own function to play within the movement. Rarely are two the same, and, usually, each has their own important contribution to the cause.
I’ve had the privilege of working with many (by no means most) of them and understand the growing complexity of our movement and where it succeeds and fails.
In some cases, many of these organizations owe some small debt to the one that started it all, which provided the original blueprint for much of the fine work you see being done across Canada today: The National Citizens Coalition.
A healthy conservative non-profit ecosystem is vital for our movement’s long-term success.
Organizations like the NCC play three vital roles in our movement:
They:
- Experiment with messaging which advances public discourse by using a variety of different angles on different issues.
- Maintain our coalition of supporters in good times and in bad times, outside of election years. (This is very important when considering the ups and downs of the political cycle).
- Foster issue-based voters by driving ballot questions for undecided voters, and, hopefully, draw undecideds into the conservative camp, serving as a “gateway” to full partisan engagement.
For decades, conservatives were outnumbered by large left-wing, government-funded charities and other non-governmental organizations (sometimes funded by American hedge funds), designed solely to disrupt our economy, spread fear amongst our population, and in some cases directly sabotage political movements advocating for Canada’s national interests.
While we’re still outgunned today, it’s not such a one-way street anymore.
Thanks to an explosion of third parties, Conservatives are learning from our opponents.
And we’re fighting back.
The growth of Canada’s conservative third-party advocacy sphere has now given grassroots conservatism a fighting chance both outside election years and within them.
That’s why your support for the National Citizens Coalition is so critical to the prospects of electing pro-Canada legislators to Parliament – and why the success of groups like the NCC means success for the Canadian Conservative movement.
Since 1967, the NCC has served freedom-oriented Canadians as the preeminent common-sense launching pad for campaigns that criticized failed liberal policies, kept fiscal conservatism on the menu for mainstream political parties, and advanced free-enterprise and freedom-oriented sentiment across Canada.
After all, it was the home of a young Stephen J. Harper, who served as president of the NCC, who would later go on to lead this country for a glorious decade.
Today, the NCC retains its classic flavour of no-nonsense conservatism, highlighting and advancing arguments that, at times, may be perceived as too risky or too politically uncertain for mainstream political parties to uphold.
But this is the beauty of third-party advocacy groups:
While political parties are restrained by burdensome communications staff, issues managers, pollsters, and niche interests (not to mention the hordes of biased media), principled, privately funded, grassroots organizations like the National Citizens Coalition are free to take firm stances for the best interests of Canadians without fear of reprisal from pressure groups.
Yes, political parties have lawmakers.
But third-party advocacy groups like the NCC can publicly pursue truth and influence movements with a fraction of the cost and without the burden of being accountable to competing interests.
Unlike many other conservative non-profits, the NCC is especially positioned to do one thing particularly well…
…reminding Canadians of the inherently corrupt nature of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Growing up, I always sensed something wrong with the left. I always sensed that despite what the media was trying to tell us, Stephen Harper was desperately trying to protect us from some very angry, very short-sighted people…
Learning the history of Liberal Party corruption and Liberal influence in great swathes of our bureaucracy and media started to make sense all of a sudden…
They needed him to lose.
The subsequent years since 2015 would sadly show exactly what Prime Minister Harper was trying to protect us from…
If the NCC serves one purpose it’s this: Never letting Canadians forget that the Liberal Party of Canada is the single most corrupt organization in the history of our beleaguered confederation.
Do you want to help our campaign to remind Canadians of the TRUTH behind the Liberal record serving Canadians? You can fight back against the crumbling and increasingly desperate Liberal political machine with a donation of $25, $50, $100, $250 or $500 to the NCC today. Your donation will go straight to ad campaigns that educate the public on Liberal Party corruption and their relentless pursuit to pillage Canada.
While Liberals like to tout in elite circles that modern Canada exists because of Liberal institutional hegemony, the National Citizens Coalition tells a contrary – and true – counter-narrative.
Canada exists today DESPITE the existence of the Liberal Party of Canada.
As a consultant to the NCC finance committee, I have vowed to both the NCC team, our donors and supporters, that every petition, every ad campaign, every event, every tour, and every email and letter that the NCC produces from now until well after we defeat Trudeau is based on this one premise:
That the LPC, its associated corporate vestiges like the state-owned media (all of them) and their connected industrial client corporations are a cancer and a leech on Canada, not only on our government, but on our economy and even the private lives of citizens whom they stand on each and every day.
Our mission is simple and it hasn’t changed.
It’s to create anti-Liberal Party voters.
And, with your support, we will not stop until every single Canadian in electoral battlegrounds across Canada has an honourary degree in Liberal Corruption Studies.
It’s my privilege to be able to deliver this message to you before the thralls of the Holiday Season. I take your patience and attention very seriously, and for that, thank you.
But I have just one more thing to ask of you: We’re on the eve of a year of the war for the soul of our country. Your input into the conservative movement means more for Canada than ever before.
This holiday season, if you can think of friends or family who would like to make their voices heard, I strongly encourage you to share our message with them, and have them join the NCC.
If you are reading this from my great (if a bit misunderstood) home province of British Columbia, and you know of local stakeholders who would like to get involved with the National Citizens Coalition, please do not hesitate to reach out to President Peter Coleman or myself, as we are drawing plans for serious advocacy advancements in BC.
Also, no matter where you are in Canada, we would like to hear directly from you. You are the Canadian grassroots who make our work possible, and who drive the spirit of our mission for a Canada that has less government and more freedom.
This Christmas will be a difficult one for many Canadians. And I can’t help but feel sorrow for the many young families across Canada who are making difficult decisions between what to include in their Christmas dinner and what gets to go under the tree…
It’s in sombre reflections such as this that I remember why Canadians like you and I fight every day to deliver this nation from corruption, incompetence, and even evil – to restore it to the greatness it deserves.
Finally, I want to thank you for your enduring generosity to the National Citizens Coalition and everything it stands to offer to the Canadian political conscience. It really is critical work. A donation of $25, $50, $100, $250, $500 or even $1000 before December 31st will strongly position our organization in 2024.
Thank you, Merry Christmas, and God Bless,
Benjamin J.E. Lawton
Chief Consultant
Lawton & Co. Campaign Finance
Writing on behalf of the National Citizens Coalition