From February 20-23,
federal Liberals will gather in Montreal, and one of their tasks will be to
elect a new national executive. In the coming days, I’ll be publishing
interviews with some of the candidates seeking election to the party’s national
board.
Maryanne Kampouris won a contested election at the 2012
Liberal Party of Canada biennial convention in Ottawa as national policy chair
and, with no one stepping forward to contest the position, she’ll begin a
second term later this month in February. Kampouris, who calls a farm between
Ottawa and Montreal home, is a former LPC(Ontario) policy chair and made national reform
of the policy process a priority. The fruits of much of that labour will come
together at the Montreal biennial, but Kampouris says there is much left to do.
I recently spoke with Kampouris about her first term as
national policy chair, what we can expect on the policy front in Montreal, and
her plans for the next two years. The following is an edited transcript of our
conversation.
How would you
describe the role of national policy chair?
The role of the national policy chair is to find consensus.
It’s to give our members a voice within the Liberal Party of Canada. Part of
what you need is an understanding of how the party work and the various
components. In my world, policy is the engagement mechanism for the party, so
you have to make sure people are equipped to do that. It’s build the
architecture for that voice, building so the capacity at the EDA (electoral
district association) level so we can talk with Canadians, not just talk at
them but have them talk to us.
The job is to work with the PTAs (provincial and territorial
associations) and the commissions who are then given the capacity to work with
the EDAs to make sure the capacity and tools are there, whether its access to
expert information or research. The national policy chair is the glue that
brings all these things together.
That’s the job. And then there’s the minutiae. The national
policy chair does chair a committee that includes caucus chairs, as well as
commission and PTA VPs of policy. Its job is to build consensus on the process,
not to develop policy. I’m not supposed to pass judgement on someone’s policy
position; I’m supposed to facilitate the discussion.
The national policy chair is one of five table officers, so it’s
not just about policy. It’s about budget. It’s about everything. To be aware of
and respectful of the different components of the party, and be part of the decision
making process on almost everything.
It’s a very hands-on job that’s all about the members.
What was your plan
and what were your priorities going into your first term?
My plan going in was very ambitious. I worked with the
national policy and platform committee members to create a four year plan; we’re
now ending year two and I’d like to finish it.
The first year was all about engagement, and building the
capacity to do all the things (described above). That meant also training the
VPs of policy at the PTAs to train EDAs in what we call Policy 101. It’s policy
as engagement, the tool by which every policy chair at each EDA should be part
of the engagement, the events management, and the guts of the management of
each EDA. How do we reach out to Canadians, and how do we hear them? At the
national level, we had planned to update the Have Your Say manual, which didn’t
get done. We got more involved in coordinating the missions and values
statement of the party. Have Your Say is updated, but we haven’t done the
detailed job we’d like to do. That will be for the second term.
In refocusing people from resolutions to open policy discussions,
we have worked within the party but haven’t put online (publicly) yet some of
the discussion groups. We do have discussion groups at
liberal.ca/groups, with 15
themes where we talk policy and moderate the discussions, but we need more
people there.
What I want is a policy tab, one tab where you get all the
policies summarized, and all the information and research related that, with
links to white papers and research, and its open for people to come to. Another
part of the (planned) architecture is getting members of the party active as
experts. That’s a component we’ve wanted to build in, but we’ve been so focused
on rebuilding in other ways that will be for the second term. We’ll put the
call out to members to self-identify as experts so they can peer review papers
and participate in discussions as experts. It’s not about book learning; it’s
about life experience. If you’ve been homeless, if you’ve had a student loan,
those are things you can weigh in on as an expert when we get to those topics.
The first year was building the architecture, and the second
year was preparing for convention. I’m really happy to say we’ve had 152
resolutions submitted. I’m very proud of how the party submitted these ideas.
Before they got here, they spent a lot of time consulting and discussing and
blending, so a lot of the material coming to convention has been blended by the
participants, not by us in the back room. That’s another win.
Going forward, the third phase will be turning policy into
platform. That’s a collaborative effort between the policy committee and the
caucus, and the leader has the final word. We now have a caucus accountability
officer, who will report to membership on what has been achieved vs. what
members submitted to us (at the last biennial) in 2012.
With experience, I wouldn’t have set as ambitious a timeline
as I did going in, but I’m very confident we can get the full engagement
process out there and modify the policy development process in such a way that
people don’t feel they’re left out. Canadians’ ideas need to be reflected in
who we are as Liberals.
What can we expect at
biennial, policy wise? Will there be prioritization workshops?
There will be prioritization workshops. We’re still working
out numbers, but we’re looking at seven or eight workshops. Every submitting organization
within the party was able to identify one priority resolution that will go
directly to plenary. This is very much an old style convention. We hope to have
as many workshops as possible as one offs, so people don’t need to choose
between one topic or another. LPC(Quebec) has also proposed a couple of open
policy discussions, and we’re trying to find a spot for that in the program. They
want to talk about our ageing population, and the impacts and different policy
components that matter.
Once biennial in
over, what’s your plan for the next two years?
I want to implement more of the online architecture, such as
the research and party expert functions. The party expert functions is one
initiative that will allow us to have an in-house think tank-like methodology.
Second is to get us to the platform. There’s a subcommittee of
the national policy committee led by caucus to get us to the platform. That
includes having information for EDAs, talking points for candidates, and information
not just about the details of the platform, but of the broader Liberal
platform. And supporting the on the ground campaign with information and, god
willing should we win, helping with the implementation plan.
All along I want to increase the number of people who use
policy as their engagement process. I want to not just create the consultation
process but be accountable for that to the board, and actually have performance
indicators on how many people are engaged, are using the policy engagement
mechanisms, what kind of events, that kind of thing. And accountable to
responses from individuals, and actually coordinating the information we get so
we have an evergreen process.
People shouldn’t be dependent on EDAs to influence policy. The
party needs to hear from Canadians on an ongoing basis. The biennial isn’t the
be all and end all. It’s about our communities.
How do you balance
member-driven policy passed at biennial with the leader’s desire to put their
own stamp and own priorities into the platform they run on?
The basis of the platform has got to be in the direction we’ve
heard from our members. It can’t cover off every resolution and direction we’ve
received from members, or we’d end up with a shopping list of a platform that
doesn’t resonate with Canadians. And we have to have a platform that resonates
with Canadians.
When I do Policy 101 workshops, I say we have to look at
what is practicable, what is legal and within the federal jurisdiction, and we
have to look at costs. We also have to look at what will resonate with
Canadians.
We put out a platform of very focused ideas, but there’s a
whole subgroup of directives the party gives us that we can work on whether we’re
in a campaign or not. Caucus works on it in private members bills, in
committee, working with the government where possible, and in their own
communities to get things one. And we report back to members to tell them what
we did, what we didn’t do, and why.
Ultimately, the leader has to be comfortable with the
message. And there’s accountability after the campaign, formally required at
each biennial, and at every board meeting.
(Other party office interviews)
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