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.