the Canadian population that is Aboriginal. All delegates, except those with ex officio status and those who won election as independent delegates, were bound to a particular candidate on the first ballot, but all delegates were free to vote as they wished on subsequent ballots. Each candidate had to gather the signatures of at least 300 Liberal Party members, including at least 100 in each of three provinces or territories, and pay a $50,000 fee to enter the contest (down from $75,000 at the previous convention). The spending limit for each campaign was set at $3.4 million, down from $4 million. All of the first $500,000 raised by each candidate was kept by the candidate's campaign, and any amount raised above that figure was subject to a 20% levy by the party. In contrast to the previous campaign when the sale of party memberships was severely restricted, the executive decided to allow party membership to be purchased online. The Convention Organization Committee and the convention proceedings were co-chaired by Dominic LeBlanc and Tanya Kappo. Steven MacKinnon, the National Director of the party, was the General Secretary of the convention. The deadline for candidates to enter the race was September 30. The voting was done in two stages on the ballot: The top part of the ballot listed the names of each of the leadership candidates; party members could vote for a candidate or remain undeclared. The second part of the ballot listed names of prospective delegates who were standing on behalf of the various leadership candidates. Riding associations had fourteen delegate positions: four men, four women, two seniors (over age 65) and four youths (under 26). Women's clubs had two delegate position each. Youth clubs and seniors' clubs each had four delegates, of which two were male and two were female. Ex officio delegates could automatically attend and vote at the convention without the requirement of getting elected. Ex officio delegates included MPs, senators, riding association presidents, immediate past candidates, and a certain number of party executive members and members of the executive of various Liberal Party Commissions (such as the national youth commission, national women's commission, national Aboriginal commission, etc.) and provincial sections of the federal party as laid out in Section 16(13) of the party constitution. At the convention, the first ballot by elected delegates was preset according by proportional representation according to the amount of support each