Liberal Party Renewal Can Begin With The Leadership Election Process

Calgary Grit itemizes a list of potential improvements the Liberal Party can make to repair its declining fortunes. I've been writing of the need for improved and different leadership as a pre-eminant need. But Adam Radwanski and Rick Mercer have highlighted one glaring issue that I think could be and should be improved and as soon as possible - the way we elect our leader.

I missed being a delegate for the 2006 convention in Montreal by one vote. I received more votes than almost all of the delegates who did go from our riding, losing out through a combination of demographics (being in the most competitive category of "adult male") and the proportional allocation of spots according to the leadership candidates. I went to Montreal anyway to be a part of what I expected to be an invigorating and fulfilling process, keen to help my candidate to victory in any way I could. But when the voting started and I had to stand outside, not able to participate, and when the negotiating began to win over freed delegates as candidates dropped off, I was a not a person of interest or of consequence. I was a second class citizen within the party, and it felt terrible. So this time around, be certain I will not be going to the convention unless I'm a delegate.

I outlined my dissatisfaction with our election process after the last convention and advocated for a one-member-one-vote system. I also suggested a different method that could work within the existing framework of our constitution but significantly expand the level of grassroots participation. I would like to reiterate my idea and build on it.

1) We must remove the membership drive as part of the selection process. I understand the benefits of using this opportunity to increase membership, but the process only creates temporary members and does little to strengthen the party. Voting eligibility should require membership of at least 6 months prior to the election of the leader. Membership-building should be an ongoing process within every riding, not just when we need people for a specific purpose.

2) While a central convention could still be held, meetings should also (or in place of a central convention) be held across the country - either per riding, in every major urban centre, or at minimum one per province. Members would gather at these venues to vote, talk and campaign for their candidates. My preference is for one per riding.

3) Getting around the Delegate Selection Meetings and the proportional requirement of the constitution is tricky, so I propose the DSMs be held simultaneous to the convention. Until we can change the constitution, which I hope will happen, this could be done to honour the need for both DSMs and the convention. Nothing says they can't be held together, and the DSM would simply represent the first ballot as it pretty much does now. Centralized policy conventions can and should still happen, but they should be held separate from the leadership convention.

4) Expand the number of delegates so as to render the proportional requirement and notion of delegates as meaningless. If each riding can be allowed 100 -heck, 500 - delegates each then it's likely every eligible voter can be a delegate. This achieves the one-member-one-vote ideal and achieves an inclusive, grassroots process that saves people from feeling like I did in Montreal.

5) Voting will occur in each meeting place and be entered electronically into a central database for tallying. Paper ballots could be used then counted, with just the totals input by the returning officer to the system - this would save the need for an expensive network and interfaces for voters to input into. In between ballots all the same negotiation for freed candidates can occur in each meeting place.

I prefer this process because it increases participation, strengthens people's involvement in the party, is fairer since people don't get left out for either financial (travel costs) or demographic reasons, and maintains some of the attractiveness of face-to-face gatherings during the electoral process. The party could save a lot of costs by not having to stick with Vancouver and maybe even move the date forward since they'd no longer need to find a large convention space. I'm sure most, if not all, ridings could find places for small rental fees or even for free to hold their meetings.

The balloted voting process still leaves the door open for the kind of arrangement Kennedy and Dion made - only the party members can break that by not blindly following their candidate's recommendations or even by prohibiting candidates from pledging their candidates. If we improve the democratic process within our party I think it will improve the image of the Liberal Party, showing it is throwing out the outdated, twentieth century practices for more dynamic and inclusive twenty-first century practices. It could be the first step towards renewal and an immediate way to start re-engaging the grassroots. If we don't start showing we can change, we won't start winning back the wide base of support we once enjoyed.

Saviours Need Not Apply

Today I saw the first reference to the supposed Liberal desire for a "saviour." This is a common theme during Liberal leadership races, in which journalists like to paint the party as "lost in the wilderness" and in search of "the new Trudeau" to rescue them. Give me a break.

In my last two posts I've talked about the pre-eminent need for the Liberal Party to get the right leadership. I strongly believe the party cannot make the changes it needs without a leader that can take the party through that change. But let me make one thing clear, I am not looking for a saviour and neither should the party. I imagine a saviour to be someone who will take the party upon their shoulders and single-handedly bring it back to electoral victory. Yes, it's been done before and in many regards it's what Harper has done with the Conservative Party, but that could be the worse thing to happen to the Liberal Party (ok, not quite the worse) at this time.

As has been widely stated in blogs and mainstream media the Liberal Party needs some significant changes to its infrastructure, fundraising and grassroots engagement. What's needed is a competent manager who can bring people together, generate consensus, and competently implement a system of change. Success will breed support and with that will come voter support and cash - which can be harvested through improved methods that fit with the new election finance laws. And while charisma and inspiration are important, they don't have to be at the "saviour" level. Harper is an unpopular individual who is benefitting by reducing people's expectations and keeping the opposition divided and off-balance. A competent, progressive and successful leader of the Liberal Party will not have to be enormously charismatic in order to replace Harper as the most popular in the land.

So saviours need not apply, the Liberal Party is ready for change and has plenty of talent to make this a team effort.

Dion: A Valient Effort That Fell Short

Stéphane Dion’s resignation today closes the book on an interesting chapter in the history of the Liberal Party. Reviewing his time as leader is instructive for our party as we enter into another leadership race just two years since the last and with less seats and less popular support across the country.

Dion’s defenders are rightfully upset that a good, honest, passionate man of integrity was unjustly besmirched by the Conservative Party. Many are also upset at the push the media and many Liberals are giving Dion towards the door; and to this I can sympathize with their frustration at the world of politics but cannot agree with the argument that he should continue on as leader. It’s not Dion’s fault we lost the election but he’s a big reason why we dropped in seats and popular vote. I’m happy to have him continue on in the interim, but new leadership is needed.

In defending the right for Dion to remain as leader his supporters point out the other flaws in the party, arguing that blaming Dion and making him the scapegoat will not help the party and will only weaken it further with another prolonged and expensive leadership campaign. These are valid points but they overlook the importance of leadership. Fixing those other problems, which are unquestionably necessary, won’t happen with Dion at the helm. A new leader can help get people to give money, inspire the grassroots to volunteer more and encourage the party to abandon elite-driven and complacent strategies in place of a more vigorous electoral and policy strategy.

Dion can justly claim the deck was stacked against him from the beginning, I’ll give him that much. His selection as leader was due to his being everyone’s second choice, including mine; therefore despite the excitement of the convention and the romance of his underdog status, he took over the reigns of a party with a lukewarm level of support from his caucus and a majority of the party membership. The Liberal Party’s system of leader selection can be blamed for that more than Dion.

It was not Dion’s fault he took over a party with deep divisions old and new, with poor finances and no credible means to improve them. His ability to hit back with advertising either attacking Harper or marketing himself was limited by the lack of funds – certainly a hurdle but not the game-changer Dion makes it out to be.

I won’t even hold Dion accountable for the lousy performance of the party in opposition this past year. I blame Harper for his corruption of parliament with constant confidence votes for the dysfunction Harper himself complained about.

Finally it was Dion’s misfortune to have an economic collapse unfold at the same time he attempted a bold and admirable new economic strategy which cast a pall of doubt over the timing of such an initiative. History will tell whether Dion was ahead of his time or not, but he certainly gets points for the Green Shift’s unabashed attempt to fuse environmental action with market forces.

So yes, he had a lot working against him in which he can be forgiven. But it’s the things that were under his control that he failed to get traction on that ultimately were his undoing.

Dion never got the party fully behind him. I think the party likes him but he never overcame the “second choice” status of the convention. This was perhaps most fatal once the attacks started because it allowed the “not a leader” moniker to stick. MPs talked a good game but there were too many underground rumblings that showed there was not enough cohesion and solidarity in the party ranks. Dion gave his leadership opponents places of prominence in the party but there’s not enough evidence that he listened to them once they were in place, leaving the postings to look more like hollow gestures.

Today in his press conference and also in an e-mail sent to party members Dion decried the party’s ability to help him defend himself. While he took responsibility for the fortunes of the party he also heaped the majority of the blame on Stephen Harper. Blaming your opponent is not leadership. I agree that Harper’s brand of politics is despicable and is lowering the tenor of our politics, but he was playing the game and he beat us. I’ve read in several places that Dion never bought into negative advertising and refused to play that game, first as a non-believer that such advertising works and then in pursuit of a more noble brand of politics. It wasn’t until the election that he started to take the gloves off but by then it was too late. I don’t fully buy into the “not enough money” excuse for why Dion stayed silent for so long in the face of the Conservative attacks. I think he wasn’t politically astute enough to fight back with whatever means he had.

On the policy front, the platform took too long to be developed and then the Green Shift was poorly launched. Most telling of the failed launch was the fact that Dion had clearly not won over his own party. By election time the party’s central plank in their platform was missing in most candidates’ election literature, leaving the leader on his own to sell it.

Most tellingly, after almost two years Dion steps down with the party facing the identical problems it faced when he assumed power – a sure sign he is not the leader for the future. If he’d made progress on one thing it would have given us hope, but alas all he’s done is leave us with sorrow that a good and honourable man couldn’t realize the hopes and dreams launched in a sea of green back in Montreal.

Good Riddance to Election 2008

Here are my contributions to the avalanche of post-election commentary. These are topics running through my mind…

Trinity-Spadina
I’m proud to have worked on Christine Innes’ campaign. Though she wasn’t victorious she did the Liberal Party proud and kept things close with Olivia Chow. Though Ms. Chow doesn’t do much beyond talking a lot and endlessly promoting herself in the riding with vacuous fliers, she does have a national profile and the advantages of incumbency. The riding is changing with a large influx of new voters in condos and townhouses, but there’s still a large base of NDP voters. So given the generally poor showing for many Liberals across the country combined with the uphill battle in the riding, Innes’ showing was very respectable and keeps the Liberals in a viable position for the next election.

Electoral Reform
As usual, after an election with skewed results there are the calls for proportional representation and electoral reform. After the debacle of the Ontario referendum on MMP and the complete lack of discussion on the federal level, except for the occasional plaintive cries of the NDP and Greens, I’m highly cynical of there being any chance for electoral reform at any level in Canada. But I’ll take this opportunity to reiterate my views that electoral reform is necessary and MMP is the best option. I would have felt better knowing my losing vote in Trinity-Spadina might have helped the Liberal Party nationally.

Minority Government
This brings me to my next topic of minorities; because if there was electoral reform then minorities would not be an occasional but a consistent result. I understand why this is a scary prospect for Canadians based on the performance of our recent minority parliaments. But I maintain that the problems with the current minority exist because of the ever-present potential for a majority, which is the real fixation of the parties – in particular the Conservatives and the Liberals. Conservatives governed for the past year and then called this election all with the achievement of a majority in mind. Liberals abstained from votes or voted for bills they had issues with because they didn’t want to go into an election unprepared and cost themselves in the long-term game for a majority, not to mention keeping the Conservatives from one.

Both game plans cost the parties in the end which I hope they learn from, because the more the parties work together the more Canadians will benefit and the more the parties will gain both in terms of legislative and electoral gains. The parties will worry about staking out their territory and differentiation, but that’s the talk of the majority game. We need a new dialogue given the economy, foreign policy, and Canadian regionalism – we need leadership from all the parties and not the usual partisan bickering.

Partisanship
When it comes to partisanship I look squarely at Mr. Harper. Canada is more partisan than ever before and I blame the wedge and regional politics of the Harper Conservatives. The rise in inflammatory rhetoric on blogs and the comments sections of online newspapers has been alarming and is not helping our political climate. I’m certain the Conservative War Room and their Conbots (a term I picked up from a blog’s comments) are largely behind this and have emboldened others from the left and right in the process. In this election we saw politically motivated vandalism, which I don’t directly ascribe to any party but I can’t help but wonder if it’s a symptom of the increased partisanship driving the Canadian political climate. If this continues, what hope does any party have in bridging the gaps between Alberta, Ontario and Quebec? So, enough with the Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove politics that have damaged the US; Canadians’ ability to compromise and work together have made this country great and it’s something we need to restore.

Harper
I don’t like the way Harper does politics, the way he governs or his policy approaches. He’s too ideological and with an ideology that has damaged the US under George W. Bush. However, he’s smart and tactical so I hope he changes his ways in pursuit of his self-interests and listens to the 62% of voting Canadians who didn’t support him. I’m willing to see the Liberals work with Harper to improve our economy, but not if he wants to continue bullying us and belittling our values.

Dion
On the flipside, I like Dion. I like his politics, his approach to politics and his intellect, honesty and integrity. I echo the comments from others that Dion must be given time to study his options and come to his own decision. The practice our party has of eating our own has to stop. The attacks on his persona from within the party and without, and now the anonymous and public requests for Dion to step down are, as Ignatieff called it, indecent. Dion has done his best for our party and we need to respect him and show him the respect and courtesy our leader, indeed the leader we chose, deserves.

The Liberal Party
What it is the time to do is re-examine our party and identify what needs to be done to get back on top. The party must change its structure and listen to its ridings more, diversify and improve its fundraising abilities and develop a strategy to rebuild in Quebec and make inroads in the West. We’re a big tent party with a shrinking base and that needs to change, which means winning back those moderates who have gone to the NDP and Conservatives. It may seem contradictory to gather from the right and left simultaneously, but we’ve had them before so it can happen again.

My analysis has been partly pre-empted by a good analysis done, in all places, the National Post. But what is clear to me is that for all of the above changes to happen the Liberal Party needs better leadership. If Dion can grow and fill the gap, fantastic, but if he can’t – and it’s likely he won’t be given enough time to do so – then we need a leader who can take the party forward. Despite being a system of parties, history has shown that electoral success in Canada comes down to the party leaders.

The Liberal Party has not had strong leadership since Pearson. Trudeau’s success derived from a strong personality and the inspiration of his vision of a just society. But for all his political success he also devastated the party in Western Canada and weakened the base in Quebec. Further, he left the party divided – a rift that to this day is not healed, which more or less speaks to the failings of all the leaders that have followed. Chretien was politically shrewd but a good leader should never have had a coup such as what Paul Martin organized. Martin’s rise to the top was Machiavellian but his leadership was not, so he was forced to lie in the bed he made.

So we as a party can invigorate the grassroots and set-up more sophisticated fundraising mechanisms and reach out to Quebeckers and Westerners, but all our efforts will fail unless there’s a leader to inspire the membership and reclaim the support that’s been lost. As long as Ignatieff and Rae refuse to compromise and Kennedy’s backroom deal in 2006 continues to be a drag on his potential, then I don’t see any of the past leadership candidates filling the void in the way that’s needed. So if there is a leadership convention, it’s the ability to unite and inspire that I’ll be looking for more than anything else.

The Liberal Party does not need to be reinvented or rebuilt. We have a long, strong and proud history that should be honoured. It’s also a history that should be understood and used to learn from and build on. Our values – prosperity and compassion – are strong and very attractive to Canadians; we just need the infrastructure and leadership to get Canadians back on board and to restore the Liberal Party to power.