Quick update: albeit by a narrow margin the one-member, one-vote motion just failed ensuring that, for the time being at least traditional conventions have been preserved.
One-member, one-vote fails
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Monthly Archives: November 2006
The Last Convention?
The CBC keeps pointing out that this could be the last great ‘from the floor’ convention… hinting that future leadership conventions will be decided virtually, with delegates voting from computers at home. I’ll admit that conventions feel 18th century but it’s hard to imagine them going the way of the dodo.
I suspect that even if the weighted one member, one vote system – that which is strongly associated with an online leadership election processes – passes it will not end conventions. (Sidebar: I wish I could tell you more about the one-member one-vote resolution but I’m afraid that it is impossible to find the resolution online!) However, it is very unclear to me how the one-member, one-vote system would be implemented and what it would mean for the party, something those in favour of the amendment need to explain better to party members. However, if the resolution passes a number of people are going to be spending the next few months figuring out how to integrate this resolution into the convention process…
Why? Because contrary to the CBC’s musing: conventions are big business for political parties. In Montreal, delegate fees hover around $950 while observer fees are over $1200. With over 4000 (I think!) people in attendance I suspect this convention will generate a tremendous amount of cash for the party. In an era where political donations have been restricted and campaign funds are harder and harder to come by this must be increasingly important in building the party’s war chest.
In addition, conventions bring the party together – they get ordinary party members from across the country together, challenging one another, networking and building relationships. Yes, some of this could be done online but lets face it, it’s a lot more dynamic, personable and fun in person. If we all want to go out for an evening we don’t log into a ‘pub’ chat room – we prefer to meet up because we enjoy the tactile, oratory and visual experience… In a country as large as Canada parties won’t be underestimating the role conventions in building relationships and affirming a sense of identity among its members.
Of course, these expensive fees (not to mention associated travel costs) risk making conventions exclusive events, something that calls for greater examination. And just because meeting in person is ideal doesn’t mean that online technology isn’t going to revolutionize the convention system. The current process for getting resolutions drafted and passed is completely archaic and could use a big dose of online collaboration. What is needed is an some open-source public policy development to supplement conventions and give the debates both greater popular engagement and improved rigour, depth and sophistication. More on that in the future…
Day 1 – The gathering…
So if there is a single word to characterize yesterday’s events at the convention it is nervous. I don’t think I’ve felt so much nervous energy since the grade 8 mixer/dance in my first week of high school. Moreover, I’m not talking about the candidates, they and their staff are too busy organizing and strategizing to be nervous… I’m talking about the convention participants. It’s like a Canada25 forum on the first day, everybody knows (or at least wants to believe) that it is all going to turn out, but no one can see how we are going to get there…
Dean’s speech – which I was very much hoping would get pretty tactical about how to use the internet to drive policy and youth engagement in campaign – was disappointing. I’m not sure how Dean and the democrats can talk about a ‘strategy’ that won them the midterm election when it was a Republican collapse, not Democrat ingenuity, that landed voters in their lap. That said, stylistically he was definitely among the best speakers of the night. That he spoke some decent French and was unafraid to make fun of himself definitely warmed him to the crowd. After being introduced by this super-cheesy video about himself, he definitely seemed embarrassed and, in a nice recovery move, opened his speech by noting the video was one ‘his dad might actually watch and his mom might actually believe.”
But, the show stealer was Bill Graham’s son who, in a thank you speech for his dad (who served as interim leader), seemed to evoke the most genuine emotion (and laughter) from the audience… But then who can resist a speaker with lines like: “such as the time I called my Dad from Fallujah as the marines were preparing to invade and having him say ‘shhh, we can’t talk right now I’m going into the White House!’ It’s just too bad he couldn’t do anything to alter the marines plans.
Review of Bill Bryson's "A Brief History of Nearly Everything"
On the plane ride over to Montreal I finally got around to writing a review of A Brief History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. I hope to write reviews fairly regularly, so here’s a start…
[tags]book review, science, history[/tags]
To the Convention
As the location tracker to my right has ominously highlighted for the past few weeks – I’m off to Montreal and yes, it is for the Liberal Party Convention. I hope to craft a few posts while I’m there and possible even try out posting via email.
In the meantime the frenzy around the leadership continues… Today Ralph Goodale threw his support behind Rae. (Sidebar: Goodale just won the McLean’s/Dominion institute MP of the year award).
Hope to have more news about the Convention, as well as write a post or two on the plane ride over (how’s that for setting expectations?). Look for a few book reviews to be done – I’ve just finished “A Short History of Nearly Everything.”
A Nation Alone
Barring some dramatic change of heart by one of the main parties it appears the House will pass a resolution acknowledging Quebec as a nation within a nation. Obviously, the news commentary has focused on what this means for the country and its politics. This is clearly a departure from Trudeau’s vision of Canada, but beyond that, it is unclear if anyone understands the implications of this vote. As my friends know, I work as a negotiation consultant, and despite all the discussion surrounding the resolution, from a negotiation perspective, I feel one issue has gone unmentioned.
For many Quebecers this resolution is likely not an affirmation, but a reaffirmation. For declaring Quebec a nation within a nation reaffirms the ‘two’ founding nations vision of Canada. And therein lies the problem. Nationalist Quebecers don’t need Canada to recognize or affirm it as a nation – it already knows it is. The challenge for Quebec nationalists is that they need the rest of Canada to perceive itself as an (English) nation. And yet, most Canadians outside Quebec don’t see themselves as part of any (particularly English) nation. I’m not sure ‘English Canada’ shares a common sense of heritage, destiny, collective identity or any of the other ingredients of nationhood… independent of Quebec. (Sidenote: Some Ontarians who see themselves as part of a nation, might disagree, but I can inform you that Nova Scotians and BCers don’t feel part of the Ontario nation). While this could change, as it stands today ‘English’ Canada appears to possess a largely post-nationalist view of itself. They see their country as composed of 10 provinces and 3 territories that are more or less equal. Shaking them from this view will be neither easy, nor pleasant. Which brings us back to that serious dilemma confronting Quebec nationalists. Specifically, what is the value of being the sole nation in what is supposed to be a bi-national federation? If who you perceive as ‘the other’ doesn’t share this bi-national vision – who do you negotiate with?
Consequently, this resolution doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. It does not reconcile the two competing conceptions of the country (10 equal provinces vs. two founding nations). Instead, the resolution is premised on the assumption that enough soft-nationalist Quebecers will be satisfied with a theoretical reaffirmation of the two founding nation thesis to counterbalance harder nationalist who either want out of the federal structure altogether, or who wish it operationalized and/or re-institutionalized their bi-national view of Canada.
That assumption may be correct – I genuinely don’t know. But is seems to me that, nation or no nation, resolution or no resolution, the real question, and answer, to the issue of Canadian unity remains unchanged: Are ‘English Canadians’ willing to re-cast the federal structure along bi-national lines or do Quebecers believe their national aspirations can be achieved as one of ten provinces within a federated Canada?
[tags]canadian politics, quebec, negotiation[/tags]
Canada and NATO
Veronica Kitchen, friend, scholar and fellow C25er published this timely editorial on Canada and NATO in the Toronto Star today. Foreign Policy buffs take note!
007
So I caught the new 007 movie – Casino Royal – this weekend. If you haven’t seen it yet (although box office receipts suggest you have) you definitely should. Why? Because Bond has been thoroughly renewed, remade for those of us living in the 21st century.
By my estimate the Bond series had come to an impasse. Bond was always over the top, a fantasy series with overblown villains bent on world domination, not a true movie of the spy genre driven by suspense and action.
As a result the series seemed to suffer from two problems. First, with each movie the plots, villains and gadgets become increasingly fantastic and the series risked becoming a parody of itself. Maybe Bond could have stayed the course… But when Mike Myers thoroughly dismantled the series – essentially making Austin Powers one running joke of how dramatically out of date Bond had become – it became difficult, even with a perfectly cast Bond like Pierce Brosnan, to take it seriously.
Second, and interrelated, is that audiences moved on. Bond’s treatment of women and, let’s face it, anyone non-western, belonged to another era. But above all, Bond’s villains were out of date. During the 60’s and 70’s, in the shadow of the cold war, megalomaniac enemies that could outwit the superpowers had their charm. Moreover, competing (and even at times, cooperating) with our allies or ‘real’ enemies against these megalomaniacs was at worst fun, and at best uplifting. Unfortunately, the reason this was fun was, in large part, because the idea of megalomaniacs bent on global domination and/or destruction were so laughable. Today we actually have megalomaniacs bent on destroying the world (or at least dramatically reshaping it). Somehow imagining a traditional 007 like Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan taking on religious fundamentalists doesn’t seem like a winning script.
So Bond had to change. Specifically, the series had to import the ideas and values it could from the original idea, update into the 21st century what couldn’t be imported wholesale, and jettison the rest. This is (more or less) what they’ve done. The result is a much grittier Bond, although still flush with fantastic action sequences, interesting villains and beautiful women. Alas, I don’t think we’ll be seeing a female 007 anytime soon (imagine that!) but at least we once again have a Bond grounded in fantasy reflective of today’s world.
It was all a fantastic risk, and good on them, because it worked.
My Faith in Humanity…
… has been tested.
I love my city. I love the people here. Obviously I’m biased – but I think Vancouverites are among the friendliest people in the world. Sadly, this has been a rough week. Not because of the storms or excessive rain (we can tough that out). No, I’m talking about the frenzy a handful of my fellow citizens have worked themselves into over the issue of turbid water.
For those not in the know, the excessive rain has caused increased ‘turbidity’ (or sediment) in the water supply. This hasn’t made the water anymore dangerous but, to be safe, the local government has advised that people drink only boiled or bottled water. As this Sun article points out, city health officials are stressing that no harmful bacteria have been found and there are no reports of illnesses caused by the water.
So let’s be clear, for the household user, there is no water shortage (god knows that is hard to imagine in Vancouver). We still have virtually limitless water, it just needs to be boiled. Indeed, given the rain, putting a bucket outside would probably yield a fair amount of clean water in short order…
So it is crushing to read a story like this. Fistfights over bottled water? This would be at best childish, and worst sad, if it weren’t for the fact that Vancouver can expect to be hit by a major earthquake. Yes, it is only a handful of people, but if we react like this to what, at worst, is an inconvenience, how will we react when confronted with a real crisis?
I still have faith my city won’t turn into a bad post-apocalyptic American TV show… but I’m not longer confidently wandering around believing ‘it could never happen here.’
Transparency around organizational elections
Went to the Liberal Party homepage today to join the online dialogue on Liberal Party Reform with Liberal Party President Michael Eizenga and National Director Steven MacKinnon. The good news: this was a great example of how the party can reach out to members to discuss basic issues, like reforming the constitution. The bad news: the party still doesn’t understand the internet. Nowhere on the dialogue webpage, or on the press release announcing it, was there a link to the proposed constitution or the Red Ribbon report. After some brief searching I found the Red Ribbon Report but the proposed constitution remains elusive…
I seized on the dialogue to grind my favourite axe: internal party elections.
Me: “One issue that turns people off political parties is the selection process for party officials and candidates. Anytime an organization elects officials it risk creating a conflict of interest (real or perceived) that those currently elected will use their influence to ensure they, or their allies, are (re)elected. One need only look at the BC executive elections (which seem to be held in obscure locations and at awkward times) or the Vancouver-Kingsway nomination process (which has damaged the party’s reputation in that riding and across the city) to see how this issue has negatively impacted the party.
Why not have third party outsiders, such as a Deloitte or Elections Canada, monitor our internal elections. Numerous organizations – Mountain Equipment Co-op, the Canadian Wheat Board, and many large companies – do just this. Why not the Liberal Party?”
Eizenga: It is often true that some of the toughest election battles can occur within any organization – but especially a political body. Supporters on all sides bring all their campaign experience to bear, and give it their best volunteer effort. Importantly, most will always look to bringing people together after an internal election and ensuring that we are together to fight other political parties come a general election or by-election.
Although there have been problems, these really are exceptions and in most cases, I can say that our party officials conduct themselves in a neutral and highly competent fashion. For the current leadership process as well as the election readiness process, for example, we have required all party officials to sign declarations of neutrality.
I would be concerned about the cost of outsiders running our processes (keeping in mind that increasingly Elections Canada is involved by virtue of its rules now applying to certain aspects of nomination races) and would hope that the party itself could address any abuses.
I do know that we have some very good volunteers who are always there to assist in our internal election processes. We need only to look to Sukh Dhaliwal’s nomination in Newton North Delta, where over 6,000 people voted on the day, to know we have capacity to do the job ourselves.
I’m still digesting this response. I recognize the costs may be prohibitive, particularly if it were run by elections Canada. However, I’m not advocating that we involve third parties in every internal election, it might be ideal to limit it to Provincial Executive and Party Leadership elections. Nor does the fact that the problem is the exception and not the rule minimize its importance – it only takes one or two bad experiences to turn members, not to mention the public, off of a party. Food for thought nonetheless. Any volunteer driven entity, be it an open-source community, charity or political party, needs to constantly renew the trust of its members, otherwise they will leave. I’m increasingly certain that complete transparency is the most important prerequisite to maintaining that trust. I’m open to the possibility that third party elections are not the way forward, but any alternative must achieve this bar of greater transparency. If not, people will walk.
eaves.ca 