Kyle Harrietha for Liberal national membership secretary

The Liberal Party of Canada’s biennial convention in Ottawa is fast-approaching, and while it’s great to see so many interesting candidates contesting the position of national membership secretary I believe that Kyle Harrietha is the best choice for this position, which will be critical to our rebuilding and future success. 

I’ve known Kyle for several years as a hard-working Liberal who has fought for our cause in the trenches, whether it was on Parliament Hill as a staffer, at the riding level in Scarborough or in his new home, Alberta. I’ve said in the past that character and experience are as important to me as policy, and I like that Kyle has that mix of Ottawa experience and extensive experience at the riding association level. I’ve said before that we must make riding associations the lead in our rebuilding, and I want people on the national board with riding-level experience.

I also like his understanding of both the urban and rural perspective, which we all know can be very different. He’s been an active Liberal in the Scarborough and Greater Toronto area, where Liberals have (traditionally) done well. And since he moved to Alberta a few years ago, where the Liberal experience is very different, he has rolled-up his sleeve in a rural Alberta riding that had little to no Liberal organization has has been doing the hard work of building the team, organizing and growing our support, day by day. That knowledge of the urban and rural Liberal perspectives, combined with an understanding of what works (and what doesn’t) in Ottawa, will be a valuable asset to have on the national executive.

That’s his background, but I also like his ideas. He’ll be releasing a detailed policy platform shortly and I don’t want to preempt his specific proposals, but he outlined some of what he wants to do in a recent open letter to Liberals. When it comes to issues like opening nominations, making membership meaningful and professionalizing our organization both nationally and locally, I think he’s very much on the right track and has a strong sense of what needs to be done to turn our party around and move it forward. I think you'll like what you see when the full platform is released.

I’m happy to be supporting Kyle for national membership secretary, and if you’re joining me as a delegate next month in Ottawa I hope you’ll consider doing the same.


UPDATE: The platform is now online, give it a read.

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Liberal Party is foolishly retreating from social media and blogging

I was disappointed to learn several weeks ago that the Liberal Party of Canada is retreating from its position as one of the early leaders in Canada in recognizing the importance of blogging, social media and citizen journalism to open and fair political debate.

The uproar and bad publicity that ensued when the news broke publicly that the party will not offer media accreditation to bloggers at its upcoming biennial convention was predictable and entirely avoidable, and sends a horrible signal for a party that supposedly hopes to usher in a new era of openness and transparency, beginning with this conference in January.

Liberals an early pioneer


I think some background is on order, because this short-sighted decision by the Liberal Party is all the sadder given our role as an early pioneer in this space. To my knowledge, the LPC was the first major Canadian political party to accredit bloggers to a convention at its 2006 leadership convention, thanks to the efforts of then LPC staffer Tait Simpson and others within the party.

A number of Liberal bloggers, including myself, were issued media accreditation and traveled to Montreal (at our own expense) to cover what (for me at least, as a Stephane Dion supporter) was a pretty remarkable weekend. And it wasn’t just Liberal bloggers. Conservatives such as Stephen Taylor and Tasha Kheiriddin were accredited, as were non-partisans such as Scott Tribe. Scott would later join the Liberal Party, due in part to his experience that weekend.

The blogger accreditation experience was repeated at the 2009 convention in Vancouver. I attended that one as a paying delegate (I wanted to vote for one member, one vote) but a number of Liberal bloggers were issued blogger/media accreditation, as were non-Liberals, such as (usually NDP supportive) blogger John Baglow, aka Dr. Dawg. Bloggers were also accredited to the Canada at 150 policy weekend in Montreal.

The Conservatives followed-up on this successful experience by offering blogger accreditation to their last two conventions, an offer I took them up on earlier this year. I don’t know if the NDP has a similar policy (Halifax was a little far for me to go) but I’d be surprised if they didn’t, and I hope to find out when their leadership convention happens next year.

What is blogger accreditation?


Obviously, you can’t just walk into a political convention and start blogging. You need some form of credentials. You need to be an elected delegate, ex-officio delegate or observer, all three categories which require payment of up to $1100. The other way to attend is a member of the press which, naturally, involves no cost. Organizations generally want people to report on their events. Media generally get a lower level of access (some sessions and events may be off limits), and access to filing facilities and space in the keynote hall to cover the event. Think the press box at a sporting event.

There are different ways to handle blogger accreditation. The simplest is just to issue media credentials. But some parties like to keep bloggers and media separate. At past events the Liberals had a separate filing room for bloggers, and gave WiFi access to bloggers that (I believe) wasn’t provided to media.

I attended the Conservative convention in Ottawa this summer as a blogger, and there it was a little simpler, with no division from the regular media. I shared their filing room and keynote riser, and paid (the convention centre) for WiFi access as they did (or didn’t if they didn’t want to).

Basically, blogger accreditation gets you in the door. Additional support may be offered, but at its basic level that’s all that is expected and required, besides maybe a power bar here or there.

The Liberal position, and why it’s wrong


I learned a few weeks ago the party was retreating from their previous policy and would not be offering media accreditation to bloggers in January. Their position is as follows: we’ll grant you media accreditation if you have ties to traditional media. For example, I could attempt to make a case based on my occasional scribbling for Macleans and the National Post. Otherwise, you need to be either a paying delegate or observer. The observer fee, by the way, is $1100.

Now, this isn’t a huge issue for me personally as I’ve already decided to attend as a delegate. I want voting rights because there are a number of important issues to be decided (ie. No to primaries). Also, the party has said they will provide some support to bloggers that get their foot in the door, offering a dedicated riser in the keynote hall, for example.

But that doesn’t change the fact that this is a foolish decision. For a party that prides itself on its openness -- we spent half of the last campaign bragging about how open we are and how closed Conservative campaign events are -- its simply baffling. We should want people to attend and write about our discussions, be they Liberal bloggers or bloggers of any stripe.

Why are they ending blogger accreditation? I can only speculate. I believe part of it is money, but that’s foolish. First of all, admitting bloggers isn’t an out of pocket expense for the party. We don’t need a filing room or a supply of soft drinks, just let us in the door and maybe give us a table and chairs at the back of the hall. You could argue lost revenue, but let’s be serious. No independent or third-party blogger is going to pay $1100 to come to our little conference, so you were never getting that revenue anyway. Maybe a few Liberals would opt to go the free blogger route instead of being a paying delegate, but with delegate fees at $400 for Victory Fund members you’re talking a few grand in foregone revenue at the most. Is that really worth the bad publicity we’re getting?

Another excuse I’ve heard is that they could be inundated with a flood of bloggers seeking to cover the conference. First of all, so what? I’d think more coverage would be a good thing. Second, I doubt it. Maybe 10 were accredited in 2006, and probably a little less in 2009. I was the only non-Conservative blogger I know of accredited to their convention this year; if there were Conservative non-delegate bloggers they (unsurprisingly) weren’t hanging-out in the press area.

And third, that’s a simple enough issue to deal with. Put a cap on the number of bloggers you can accommodate and set up an application process. The Conservatives, for example, asked me about my posting frequency and traffic statistics. Screening of this sort is normal and expected; it’s part of the job of a media relations staffer. “It’s too hard” is frankly a pretty weak cop-out for not doing what should be a basic part of the job.

Sending the entirely wrong message


Blogging and social media are increasingly recognized as part of the political debate. More and more people are supplementing their news intake by reading bloggers across the spectrum that write in shared areas of interest. In a fragmented media world, social media is another important way to get your message out, which is why it has been embraced by all the parties.

That’s why it’s foolish for the Liberals to retrench and turn their backs on social media, whatever the reason. The fact that the Conservatives are now more open and accessible on this front should give every serious-minded Liberal pause, if they can take their partisan blinders off for five minutes. Myself and other Liberal bloggers, most of whom it should be noted are paying delegates, tried to overturn this policy weeks ago. Our arguments, and warnings of the inevitable fallout, fell on deaf ears.

If all this talk of building an open and accessible party is real and not just empty platitudes, the Liberal Party should either put up or shut up. Our doors are either open, or they’re not.

UPDATE: Now that he has blogged on it, I can say that it was Steve V that first learned of this policy shift. He has now shared his thoughts.

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Newman vs. Duffy, and a room full of zombies, on the Liberal Party of Canada

Last weekend I watched season 14 of South Park, and in a run of super hero episodes they introduced a character called Captain Hindsight. Basically, he flies in at a time of crisis and tells them what they should have done to avoid it, once it’s already obvious. For some inexplicable reason this character came to mind as I listen to Peter C. Newman speak last night.

Newman’s latest tome, which you may have seen some media coverage of, posits the death of the Liberal Party of Canada after Newman shadowed former leader Michael Ignatieff for much of his tenure. Newman took part in a discussion Tuesday evening at the Toronto Reference Library, with TVO’s Steve Paikin moderating and Liberal strategist/author John Duffy providing a Liberal counterpoint to Newman’s pronouncement of death.

Newman’s thesis actually benefits greatly from hindsight, as he began this book-writing exercise believing Ignatieff was coming home to Canada on the wings of angels and would be welcomed with open arms by grateful Canadians, a triumphant road to Sussex drive he would chronicle in his latest book. When reality turned out somewhat different, he reversed his thesis and pronounced the party’s rot deep and lengthy and obvious and its future undoubtedly dead. He apparently does nothing half-way, this guy.

If I had asked a question last night, it would have been why were you so wrong with your initial thesis, and if you got that so wrong, what makes you think you’re right now? But while the truth likely lays somewhere between those two extremes, moderate positions don’t sell books.

Iggy-bash 2011

Anyway, the discussion began focused on Ignatieff and I thought it was a rather unfair and unfortunate gang-up, with even people in the crowd snickering as both Newman and Duffy took shots at the former leader. Was Igg’s elitist Harvard out of the country background simply unrecoverable for political Igg, Newman was asked? No doubt, he replied. Of course, the fact Peter thought the exact opposite going into the project is left unsaid.

I found Newman’s rant against intellectuals and the establishment refreshing, as no one represents the anti-intellectual, anti-establishment Canadian better than Peter C. Newman. Amusing that as he ranted against current Liberal elites he expressed longing for the Liberal elites of the 60s, but of course they weren’t elitists but good guys all. Maybe his issue shouldn’t be with elitists, but with incompetent elitists.

Newman says he has “discovered” the Liberal Party actually had tons of money ($23 million, to be precise) that it could have used to fight the Ignatieff-defining attack ads. Maybe it’s stashed behind the drywalls at Metcalfe, but I’m confused. Given that the time frame he referenced is “when the election started” maybe he’s confusing some fictional slush fund with the money saved to, you know, run the election campaign. Anyway, he also wants to get rid of the LPC’s provincial and territorial associations and has no time for the commissions either, seeing them all as money drains and power fiefdoms.

Other Igg observations from Newman: all of his leadership he only talked to Liberals (if only all those people were Liberals, Peter), he never caught on to the dark side of politics (like giving Peter access to write a book?) and he absolves Ian Davey for Ignatieff’s downfall and blames Peter Donolo. I have no desire to wade into such inside baseball mud-slinging, so I’ll just say there’s blame for everyone and leave it at that.

Before we move away from Ignatieff, let me just say I found the snark and derision around the analysis of his tenure at this event, and not just from Newman, to be unfair and inaccurate. I was never a true-believer myself, not like I was with Stephane Dion who I supported in 2005. I supported Michael in 2008 because he was the best candidate on offer. But whatever his decisions and despite how it turned out, he was a good and honest man who came into politics with the best of intentions. One incident is illustrative for me. During his tenure he was being pressured by party strategists to flip-flop and stand in opposition to the Afghanistan mission, because they had polling that showed such a reversal would poll well with key segments of Canadians. He refused; he genuinely believed staying in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people may not be popular or politically expedient, but it was the morally correct thing to do. And while these strategists would later savage him for it, whether or not I agree with his decision I find it hard to faulta leader for putting conviction ahead of opportunism.

The Liberal decline and fall

Moving past Ignatieff’s tenure to the longer Liberal decline, I found Newman’s analysis interesting since he apparently didn’t see a decline until a few months ago. In fact, many of his comments and observations led me to place even less confidence in his thesis.

For example, he pined for the Liberal“glory days” of the 1960s and seemed to view the decline as a more recent phenomenon, perhaps to 2000 or so. If you look only superficially at election results, sure. But the previous results were masked by any number of factors, such as a divided-right. Duffy was right in saying a more accurate analysis would trace back to those glory days Newman fondly remembers, when Trudeau lost the West and power became more and more centralized with group of smartie-pants elitists (the ones Peter likes), allowing a deep rot to set in.

As another example, Newman also declared Liberal infighting began with Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. I think I literally laughed out loud at that one. Has he never heard of John Turner, who Chretien battled with mightily, setting the stage for the next generation as the former Turnerites became Martinites bent on revenge? I think you can actually trace it all back to Wilfrid Laurier not tipping 15 per cent at a tavern in 1888. A newish phenomenon it’s not.

I started agreeing with Duffy now more than I did during the Ignatieff analysis (when he pointed-out several times he sat that period out and was a Rae man in 2005). He said Liberals have lost touch with their core constituency by constantly swerving for flavour of the month policy and not standing for anything consistently. The LPC, said Duffy, became to be seen not as a movement but as a vehicle for electing people that you could slap any coat of paint on you wanted.

I wholeheartedly agree. People can tell when you’re faking it and don’t really have any core beliefs, and sincerity is hard to fake. The first part of our rebuilding must be figuring out who we are, what we believe in and what we want to do. Until we do that, all the fancy primaries in the world aren't going to interest Canadians.

Paikin piped-in with a quote from Trudeau-era elite Ray Hard (who was apparently in the crowd) blaming all Liberal woes on the “Earnscliffe boys” (aka Paul Martin supporters). I think this quote was demonstrative in a way that Paikin, and certainly not Heard, may not have intended. Such infighting and finger-pointing, Ray, is the real problem.

But back to baffling arguments from Newman, he told us the reason Liberals can’t raise any money is because people expect pork like ambassadorships for their donation and LPC has none to dispense anymore. Apparently no one told Peter that corporate donations were banned years ago, personal donations capped at just over $1000, and most Conservative donations are around $20. Are all those $20 donors expecting Senate appointments, Peter?

Paikin asked the room if Dalton McGuinty, the most electorally successful Liberal in the country at the moment (and a compelling counter-point to the zombie party hypothesis) could save the federal party as leader. The room was un-enthused. This shouldn’t be taken as a lack of love for Dalton. I think he’d do a great job, and while there’s no earthly reason why he’s want to run but if he did, I may well support him, the fact is no leader is going to save the Liberal Party. The LPC will be saved by its members, or it won’t be. It’s that simple. No messiahs.

The future

Newman has to sell books, but while he had some prescient observations I found his thesis to have more holes than Swiss cheese and his analysis superficial and often farcically wrong. Are the Liberals a dead party walking? Maybe. But we’re not dead yet, and any obituaries are rather premature. The next chapter won’t be written by Newman, but by the party itself, based on the decisions we as members and supporters make in these next few years. Only time will tell.

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