Partners

Joseph C. Ben-Ami

Widely regarded as one of Canada's leading conservative voices and political organizers, Joseph Ben-Ami has held senior positions in several local, provincial and national campaigns.
A former naval officer, Ben-Ami has extensive experience in strategic planning and communications in both the private sector and the political arena. From 2008 to 2014 he was President of the Arthur Meighen Institute for Public Affairs, a conservative-oriented think-tank. Prior to joining the Meighen Institute he was Executive Director of the Institute for Canadian Values, and before that, Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the well-known Jewish human rights and advocacy group B'nai Brith. He has served on numerous organizational boards, including the advisory board of Jews against Anti-Christian Defamation. He is currently a partner at Ditchley Public Affairs, Inc.
Ben-Ami served as a policy aid to Stephen Harper, Canada's former Conservative Prime Minister, as well as Stockwell Day, Harper's predecessor as Party Leader. He has also served as a consultant speechwriter for several senior executives and political officials.
Ben-Ami was National Director of the Brad Trost Leadership Campaign for the Conservative Party of Canada. Most recently he was Operations Director for Shelly Glover’s campaign to lead Manitoba’s conservative party.
Ben-Ami is a respected television and radio commentator and regular public speaker, offering insights on public policy and current affairs from a conservative perspective. When not writing or speaking himself, he is sharing his expertise, training and consulting on political and issues campaigns, speechwriting, media-relations, and communications. He also lectures widely on subjects such as civic engagement and leadership.  

Russ Kuykendall

In 2001, Russ was a member of the Stephen Harper Exploratory Committee, and organized Mr. Harper's leadership campaign launch. In the leadership campaign of the newly merged Conservative Party of Canada, he served as convention organizer for the campaign including Mr. Harper’s speech demonstration and presentation. During the 2004 federal election, Russ served as one of a team of speechwriters for Mr. Harper.
From 2004 to 2008, as Research Fellow of Cardus, Russ wrote a book on Canada-U.S. trade, and he saw a series of articles on Canada-U.S. trade and investment published in Policy Options.
In 2006 and 2008, Russ was a field member of the Conservative Party of Canada’s Target Seat Management Team, responsible for the election of new Conservative Members of Parliament in Liberal Party-held federal electoral districts. Russ was a member of the national campaign team that saw the Conservative Party achieve a majority mandate in May 2011.
From December 2008 to February 2010, Russ was Director of Policy to the Honourable Lisa Raitt when she was Canada's Minister of Natural Resources. During Ms. Raitt’s tenure, the commercialization of Atomic Energy Canada was initiated, and responsibility for environmental assessment was re-assigned from Environment Canada to the National Energy Board for natural resources projects and to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for nuclear energy projects.
Russ has continued to be involved in various provincial and municipal campaigns in Ontario and Alberta as strategic advisor, campaign manager, election day chair, GOTV manager and trainer and writer. From 2016 to 2017, as deputy campaign manager he helped Brad Trost secure a surprising fourth place finish in a field of fourteen in the Conservative Party of Canada Leadership Election. In 2018, he managed Tanya Granic Allen’s campaign for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. In 2021, Russ was campaign advisor and voter ID/GOTV manager for an incumbent Conservative MP’s campaign that saw ballot share hold in the face of a strong PPC challenge and vote plurality increase by more than 3000 votes. Following the 2021 federal election, Russ ran get out the vote for Shelly Glover’s campaign for the leadership of the Manitoba PC Party leading to a surprising finish. 
Russ volunteers with several an NGOs doing charitable work in Canada and benevolent work abroad.