Tag Archives: liberal party of canada

Democracy vs. Gender: The Liberal Solution

2 Replies

Dion’s most notable promise of the leadership race was guaranteeing that at least 33% of Liberal Party candidates will be women. This is a laudable goal. Moreover, I suspect the press will follow it closely. If the Liberals fail to reach it Dion’s credibility could be seriously undermined. It is would not be unreasonable to ask: if Dion can’t implement change within a party he controls, how does he intend to affect change if in government?

Some people are – justly – worried about how the goal will be met. Obviously there is a tension between allowing open and democratic nomination contests and ensuring that at least 33% of candidates are women. The easiest option would be to appoint female candidates. This however, carries with it some significant costs. In addition to being bad for morale, disenfranchised riding associations may not donate their time, energy and money to an appointed candidate (male or female) thereby diminishing their chances of winning the actual election.

However, what I have seen in British Columbia (so far) has been an interesting and compelling solution to this quandry. Rather than rig nomination processes (or eliminate them altogether) the party is making two smart plays. First, it is aggresively seeking out highly qualified women in an effort to create a rich pool of candidates. Second, (and this is most compelling part) it is making a direct appeal to members. It is, in effect, saying: when selecting who to support we understand that each of you has a criteria by which you evaluate candidates, we would greatly appreciate it if you made gender a stronger component in this criteria. Interestingly, this appeal could be doubly effective because membership lists may remain closed. Consequently, those campaigning for nomination will probably not be able to sign up new members and with thus have to appeal to the current pool of members (who are more likely to take this messaging to heart).

Best of all, I like what this messaging says about the party. Rather than adopt some centralized top-down way to shape and control the outcome this approach is compelling, appropriate and democratic because it does the exact opposite, it respects and appeals to the intelligence and integrity of party members. Very clever, and very liberal, indeed.

[tags]politics, canadian politics, liberal party of canada [/tags]

Norman Spector: legend and expert on gender and politics

6 Replies

At risk of giving this piece more life then it deserves, did anyone else find this Norman Spector column completely offensive? It appeared in the BC section of the Globe so hopefully most of the country was spared.

Believe it or not the same man who, on the air and then in his column, called Belinda Stronarch a bitch over and over and over again now feels qualified to comment on gender and politics. My stomach turns.

If you read further (don’t), you’ll learn how “nice guys” like Stephen Owen “know intuitively that politics is not the right career choice.” This perfect statement reveals little about the nature of politics, but a lot about about Spector. Could he have a more succinctly summed up his worldview and modus operendi?

Oh Norman, just because you are boorish, mean-spirited, and vindictive doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be…

[tags]Canadian politics, gender politics[/tags]

Understanding Ignatieff – The Intellectual Foundations of a Liberal Interventionist

Leave a reply

For those interested in Liberal Interventionists and foreign policy I just finished reading a piece by one of the sharpest minds I know, my friend Mike Morgan. Entitled, Michael Ignatieff: Idealism and the Challenge of the “Lesser Evil” and published in the Canadian Institute of International Affairs‘ “International Journal” it is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the intellectual origins of Ignatieff’s liberal interventionist thinking. Indeed, this paper is so good it was awarded the Gelber Prize, given to the best article by a junior scholar in the International Journal.

For another interesting piece, Mike also had published this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. It explains the importance and power of human rights by looking at the role played by the Helsinki Final Act in ending the cold war. It is another great read and is even more closely tied to his academic research…

A quick thank you to the CIIA (which was also very engaged and supportive when Canada25 released From Middle to Model Power) for letting me post Michael’s article on my webpage.

[tags]Ignatieff, Helsinki Final Act, CIIA, Gelber Prize, International Journal, International Relations[/tags]

Liberal Convention – the aftermath…

4 Replies

It’s over and I’m exhausted.

So many thoughts about the convention and the race… but I’m too tired to think coherently, so here, scattered, are some of them:

  1. Best convention floor tactic: Dion’s neo-green shirts and scarves. In a party where everybody wants to be in red, Dion went neon-green. The genius of this was that in a sea of divergent red loyalties the green sashes stood out. Dion’s delegates became extremely visible, which made them look more numerous.
  2. A nervous NDP?: Somewhere between the surging green movement in the Liberal Party and the emerging Green Party sit a good chunk of vulnerable NDP voters. Forget about driving left, the NDP may be most vulnerable if the Liberals drive green.
  3. Losing Candidates: Some of you have written and asked if Ignatieff and Rae will run in the next election. I’m confident they will, especially after Ignatieff’s speech to his volunteers after the vote. Leadership races are, in essence, about serving as the standard bearer of the party’s ideals and vision. Your volunteers and supporters expect you to reflect your interpretation of that ideal as best you can, be it as the leader or a leader. To walk away now would reflect very, very badly on any of the former candidates. Moreover their supporters would be left holding the bag, having to account for why they backed a man or women who left the party high and dry.
  4. The kids don’t care?: One image that struck me was the number of young delegates crying as their chosen candidate lost. In a day and age when the press keeps talking about how young people don’t care or aren’t active enough it was an interesting site.
  5. Wither LiBlog?: The real loser of the campaign may have been liblogs. A lot of people enjoy liblogs because they make public the party’s internal debates and enable us to participate in them. During the leadership race however, many blogs became specific campaign mouthpieces – closed to real debate where the participants (and the bloggers themselves) remain open to persuasion. I suspect this left many readers bored, and more importantly, asking: why go to a liblog when I can get the same talking points from newspapers or the candidate’s webpage? I have it from a reliable source that many liblogs experienced a decline in hits and pageviews. In time, maybe they’ll recover, maybe they won’t, but one can’t help but ask, did the blogs lose credibility?

I gotta get to bed.

Update: For those particularly interested in point #2 it seems you are not alone… Chiara B. sent me this article from today’s Toronto Star which elaborates on it significantly.

Speeches so far

Leave a reply

So a lot of people I’m running into are hoping that Martha picks up some ex-officio delegates so that she doesn’t come in last on the first ballot. I couldn’t agree more. Martha has earned a lot of respect from people within the Party (very much including me) – I’m hoping she quickly finds a role that enables her to channel all her energy for renewal into reality.
It was odd to see Volpe walk offstage with a baby in his arms… the optics of that scene are not good. My friend commented “Volpe’s carrying one of his financial backers offstage!” Ouch. But it sums up the feeling of the crowd near me.

Third Party Monitoring of internal Elections (cont.)

4 Replies

Okay, so not to talk about my pet peeve again but I can’t help it after running into an old friend at one of the party’s this evening (and yes he was crashing it). He mentioned in passing how he’d been to a conservative party convention as a volunteer with one of the big four audit firms (I believe it was Deloitte). His job with the Deloitte team? To help monitor and facilitate the party’s internal elections and voting process! Better yet, apparently he and the whole Deloitte team had been operating as volunteers. Some of you will recall from a previous post how LPC President Michael Eizenga’s main concern with my question about having third parties monitor internal elections was that the cost would be prohibitive… good to know we can strike down that obstacle.

More on this in the future.

The Last Convention?

1 Reply

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…

Leave a reply

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.

To the Convention

4 Replies

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.”