The First Entry of the Official NL First Blog

So hi everyone, i'm not sure how many of you have ever heard of the NL First Party. However, The NL First party came into existence into the Fall of 2004 in response to an Editorial that was posted in the daily NL paper "The Telegram" posing the question of whether we ought to be putting NL First. A member of the Executive-Youth James Upshall told me that Mr. Tom Hickey (the current president of the NL First Party) and 4 or 5 other people meet to discuss what they were going to do: were they going to be an advisory or lobbyist group, or were they going to be a political party?

It was decided in late 2004 and early 2005 that they were going to be a Political Party that was going to be a Federal Party party within Canada. With the issue of the re-negotiations of the Atlantic Accord deal coming up in 2005, the NL First Party threw it's support "100% behind the 100%" [as the NL First Party website put it!]

From there, the party began to get members, elect people to the executive and soon on.Sadly, the 1st president of the NL First Party had to resign for personal reasons: it was at this point that the NL First Party elected Tom Hickey as president of the party in 2005/2006.

In January 2005, the NL First Party leader/president Tom Hickey, with the consent of the NL First Party, was elected the 2nd president of the NL First party. In January 2006, under Tom Hickey's leadership, the party proceeded to succesfully register as a Provincial (NL) Political Party in order to run a candidate in a provincial by-election in ' Placentia-St. Mary's' when Independent Conservative MHA Fabian Manning vacated his seat to successfully run as the Cons MP for the Avalon Peninsula in the January 2006 Federal Election.

It was then decided in late January that since noone else stepped forward as a candidate, NL First Party president Tom Hickey put himself in the 2006 provincial by-election as the NL First Party candidate: although mr.Hickey lost (since the vote split between the Independent Candidate, the PC Candidate, the Liberal candidate, the Green Party Candidate and himself, PC Candidate Felix Collins was elected to the seat in 2006.

However, the NL First Party then decided to use the new publicity the party received as a result of the Provincial by-election to focus on registering the party federally (although it missed an opportunity to do so before the 2006 Federal Election for 2 reasons: 1. the executive of the party thought they had to deposit a $1000 fee in order for the party to become federally registered (this was later discovered to be false as this fee is only needed for a candidate to run by a political party, NOT for a political party to register) and 2. the membership cards that the NLF Party was giving out before didn't meet Elections Canada standards.

In the last year or so, the NLF Party had spent most of its time organizing a Federal Organization Committee to organize the Federal Branch of the NLF Party (in preparation for registering it federally) with two goals: 1. getting the party Federally Registered and ignoring the Provincial front until it has done so (because the original mandate of the party was to be a Federal Party, with the Provincial part of the Party being only a new idea as some people would only join the NLF PArty if it was a Provincial Party as well, 2. To fill out 200+ forms to get the NLF Party Federally registered (although 420 was recommended to make sure enough people ratified this decision by filling out a special Elections Canada package that each person will receive).

So ya, where do you ask did I (JWL) come on the screen of this party? In the middle of January 2007 to be exact! When I checked out the NLF Party website, I realized it hadn't been updated for a whole year. So, I decided to e-mail the party: getting a response from the NL First Party President Tom Hickey, a follow-up e-mail by Ellsworth Penney ( a member of the party and on the Federal Organization Committee of the party) who told me there was someone by the names of James U. on the executive who also lives in St.John's and whom I ought to meet. So, upon having my meeting with them, I vowed to leave the YLC (which I had sent in my membership for 2-3 weeks earlier) to Join the NLF party and to fill out a form to help them register. Since then, I contacted my P/T O (Provincial/ Territorial Organization) of the YLC/LPC and told them that I was giving up my memberships in the YLC in order to join the NLF Party.

So ya, since then, i've started 2 groups of the name the "NL First Party Supporters Site" on both Facebook and Hi5 in order to give youth people like myself (i'm only 18) a chance to learn about the party, to help the party get federally registered, to discuss issues,etc.. ( I noticed that in November of 2006, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May had successfully use new technologies such as YouTube and Facebook in order to help her get 22/25% of the vote in an Ontario Federal by-election): this convinced me that the NLF Party could take advantage of the same technologies to help build up the party. After meeting them, I was also told that James U. was going some exploratory work at MUN to establishing a Youth Wing HQ on the 6th floor of MUN for the party as well.

So ya, here I am: letting people know that even though some people who're writing into "The Telegram" Think the NL First PArty died in 2005, this party is still alive and well: with the 2 groups on Hi5 and Facebook, organizing work within the party and this blog as living proof that this party is far from dead!