Briefly, on "cooperation"

I've been firmly on the record against merger, or a non-aggression pact (deceptively called cooperation -- who doesn't like cooperation?) for at least a year or two now.

I've outlined my reasons at length, from the fact that most statistical evidence indicates it just won't work (you'll lose centre-right Liberals to Harper and strengthen his vote count) to my belief that not having Liberals on the ballot in half the country would be kind of bad for those who think our party should still exist. There's also the somewhat awkward reality that there's no one to cooperate with.

I don't want to rehash all that. I've made my arguments, and I'm happy to let the debate play out and the people have their say.  I think those that argue for it come to their views honestly and, while I disagree, I respect their position.

I do, though, want to address one talking point I've been hearing more and more from Team Non-Aggression Pact: that those who oppose their non-aggression pact are somehow putting "narrow partisan interests" ahead of the greater good, poutine, hockey and all that is holy. Besides being insulting, that argument is nonsensical.

Let me submit this: IF a non-aggression pact was indeed the silver bullet to defeat Stephen Harper, reform the electoral system and return our party to national relevance, and IF I was an unthinking uncaring partisan drone, why on Earth would I NOT support it? Surely it would be the quicker path to redemption, glory and an Ambassadorship to the Federated States of Micronesia than slogging it out as a third place party?

I am opposed to a non-aggression pact precisely because I am NOT putting narrow partisan interests first. Instead, I choose to take the harder road. Not the road of restricting voter choice, not the road of fiddling with ballots behind the scenes to leave people with no choice but to vote the way I want.

Instead, I want to take the harder road, the road of building an alternative vision, of winning the support of Canadians not by restricting their choices, but by offering them a BETTER choice. Because I believe THAT is how you win the lasting and durable support of the electorate.

It is not narrowly partisan to say that just because I don't like Stephen Harper's vision for Canada doesn't mean I like Tom Mulcair's. I believe in a vision of Canada that neither of them shares. That's why I'm supporting a candidate, and a party, whose vision I do share. It is not narrowly partisan to say my be all and end all isn't defeating Stephen Harper; just the opposite, in fact.

There are lots of arguments to make for non-aggression pacts. Accusing those that oppose them as being narrowly partisan is not one of them.

And lastly, it's there's one thing we "narrow partisans" need to stop doing, it's thinking that everyone thinks Stephen Harper is the devil. I assure you, they do not. Most Canadians, while they disagree with many of his policies, and didn't vote for him, think he's a reasonably competent if somewhat stern fellow who has done a reasonable job, all things considered. Thinking otherwise is the biggest mistake we continually make.

Make no mistake -- I fundamentally disagree with him, and I think he should be defeated. But as long as our narrow partisan goal is just to defeat him, we will lose. The non-partisans just don't share that motivation. Until we offer Canadians something better, we're doomed. That's this narrow partisan's take.

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Question for Liberals isn’t should we merge, it’s should we exist

An Ipsospoll released over the weekend claiming a majority of Liberal and NDP supporters (voters, not necessarily activists) favour merging the parties has re-ignited the debate about whether or not a merger of the parties makes sense. Well, at least online, as I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve met offline that support the idea. And at least among Liberals on Twitter, because NDPers are too busy being the official opposition and leading the polls at the moment.

Sixty-four per cent of Liberal supporters and 57 per cent of NDP voters said they "strongly" or "somewhat" support their parties merging into a single party.

Needless to say, I’m skeptical of these numbers (I’m just not hearing it on the ground) andI’ve long been sceptical of the very idea of a merger. Besides the parties being rather different (remember, the PCs and Alliance were formerly the same party), the math doesn’t work either. While proponents say a “united left” would defeat Harper, those Ipsos numbers show 36% of Liberals and 43% of NDPers don’t support merging. Some would stay, but a significant chunk of those 36% of Liberals would go Conservative. Look at where Liberal votes in Ontario went last year as Liberal support collapsed and the NDP surged: much of it went Conservative. And as for the 43% of NDPers, many would stay, but some would look for a more purist left-wing option And let’s not forget, in B.C., for example, many NDP voters went Reform/Alliance for years. Point being, it’s not 1+1=2. Anything could happen, but a merger would be messy and is no stop-Harper silver bullet.

Enough about math, though. I think there are deeper issues that the merger discussion serves to underline, and that are highlighted by other findings from this Ipsos poll:

Overall, a majority of Canadians "agree" either strongly (19 per cent) or somewhat (38 per cent) that they consider the Liberal Party to be a "party of the past, not a party of the future," according to the poll.Among Liberal supporters, 21 per cent believe their own party is a party of the past.--Canadians as a whole seem divided on whether a new Liberal leader will make a difference: one half (52 per cent) agree that regardless of who the party chooses as its next leader, they have "pretty much written off the Liberals."

Among Liberal partisans that support looking at a merger, motivations range from believing it’s the only way to stop Harper to feeling it’s the best short-cut back to relevance. I disagree with the first and find the second emblematic of everything that’s wrong with our party (short-cuts to power instead of hard work rebuilding). But amongst voters (this poll is if people that have voted for the party in the past) I think the support for merging is driven by another factor: the Liberal Party of Canada has become completely irrelevant to them, and so they don’t particularly care if it merges or fades into oblivion.

If the Liberals were still relevant, these numbers would be different. If voters had a sense of what the party stands for, if we were effective at opposing the government’s agenda, offering alternative policies that spoke to both the challenges of the country and their everyday lives, and if we were seen as a credible alternative government, then people would see the value in keeping us around, and maybe even voting for us one day.

Instead, as I argued recently, we’ve become an increasingly unheard voice in the wildernessabsent from the national debate, as the NDP on the left and the Conservatives on the right polarize and simplify the debate. 

And it’s not a recent phenomenon. Our inability to connect in a relevant way to Canadians has been growing for years.

So there’s two ways to look at these numbers: either we throw our hands up and get swallowed by the NDP in the hopes that will stop defeat Harper (a rather short-term vision, frankly) or we take these numbers as an affirmation of what needs to be done.

Polls are a snapshot of today. Leadership isn’t about taking a poll, guessing where the parade is going and jumping in front of it. Leadership is about having a vision that you believe in, popular or not, and rallying the people to your cause.

The question I’d ask Liberals to consider isn’t to merge or not to merge, it’s to exist or not to exist. Think beyond the short-term, beyond the next election or the current Conservative leader. Do we think a polarized political arena of left vs. right is what’s best for Canada? Or do we believe there needs to be a third voice, one not wedded to ideology, one that can offer practical, pragmatic solutions for our country and for its people, taking good ideas wherever they come from?

If it’s the former then sure, why not merge. Although, frankly, I’d rather we just fade away (the free market solution). But if it’s the latter, and I believe it is, then we must redouble our efforts. Because there is a desire out there for such a party. In fact, the Liberals were once such a party. And with hard work, we can be again.

And while some may be ready to give up, I’m not.

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Our raison d'être can't be opposing

The always bubbling in the background chatter about the dream of a few to see the Liberals and NDP to merge or form some sort of coalition came to the surface again recently with comments made by Liberal MPJustin Trudeau in Victoria and broadcast by Sun TV. Here’s a snippet:

“By 2015, with the election approaching, if neither party has gotten their act together enough to shine or be the obvious alternative, then there will be a lot of pressure for us to start looking at that. I think there’s not anyone in parliament outside of the Conservative Party of Canada that is willing to risk seeing Stephen Harper become Prime Minister one more time.”

Since as it stands the choice would likely be between Harper and Prime Minister Mulcair, or maybe Prime Minister Nash, I think many would actually have to seriously consider that question.

Anyway, I reject the idea of merger or coalition along the motivations as floated by Trudeau. First of all, our raison d'être can't be opposing. I joined the Liberal Party because it best represented by beliefs and worldview, and that’s why I remain an active supporter today. I didn’t join because I hated Brian Mulroney, and I don’t remain active because I think Harper is a devil.

Wanting to stop the Conservatives is no reason to mash two groups with very different philosophies and beliefs together. It’s like a couple that don’t love each other getting married for the good of their child. In the long run, an unhappy marriage won’t do the kid any good, and you probably divorce anyway. The Liberals and the NDP aren’t the Progressive Conservatives and Reform. Reform split off from the PCs and then came back together; Liberals and NDP have always been very separate, and different.

And the laundry list of irreconcilable policy differences, from Quebec to the Middle East, is just too great. There's also the fact that the math just doesn't work. As the NDP grew in support in the last election, Liberal support began to bleed to the Conservatives as well. One plus one does not equal two in this case.

We all need to offer something more to Canadians than “we’re not Stephen Harper.” That’s not going to engage anyone but the most ardent partisans and, besides, most Canadians don't dislike Harper as much as Trudeau and other partisans do. Offer Canadians a more compelling alternative and you’ll get somewhere; a negative option will get you nowhere, even with all the coalitions in the world.

Mashing apples and oranges together under some kind of “not Harper” banner is no path to relevancy, and we need to stop looking for short cuts. 

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Reforming the Liberal Party: At the top, part one

In my last reform post I touched on reforming the Liberal Party from a leadership perspective. Today, I'd like to touch on reforms from a party structure, procedure and philosophy perspective.

Merger madness

But first, let me touch on the elephant in the room: the suggestion of merging the Liberal Party and the NDP. I think open and frank discussion on the idea is perfectly fine and healthy, but I'm strongly opposed.

I thought it was a bad idea when it was floated a year ago when we'd be the senior partner, and I still think it's a bad idea now, when we'd be the junior partner and I'm unclear why an NDP that views themselves as ascendant and ourselves as, well, the opposite, would even consider it.

I'm opposed for a number of reasons. I think it's being pushed by some as a quick-fix to a return to relevancy. Why reform and rebuild when we can hitch our wagon to their's? Others honestly see "uniting the left" as a logical step to stopping Harper, but I strongly disagree. We're two very different parties with different traditions. Liberal members are centre-left and centre-right, and many wouldn't be at home in this new party. You'd lose people on the right to the Conservatives and the Greens, and people on the left unhappy with the new members pulling it toward the centre. The end result would be polarized choices and a strengthened Conservative Party.

I can't accept any backroom machinations trying to foist a merger on the membership. No one has a mandate from the membership to negotiate anything, and without a mandate any process would lack legitimacy. If we're going to debate this, it must be open and in public with all members and all views being shared. As for me, I'll be arguing no and getting on with the business of trying to rebuild the Liberal Party of Canada.

What reform do we need?

In short, we're too top-heavy and our mentality is too top-down. (This development is an example of mentality). We're weighed-down by a bloated infrastructure that the party requires the ridings to support. It should be the opposite: a lean top-level infrastructure geared to supporting riding-level organization.

The examples of resources being sucked-up are endless. While any vote gains on the ground can be largely traced to riding-level organizational effort, none of the (soon to be eliminated) per-vote subsidy comes back to the riding. Candidates are required to sign half their expense refund over to the party before they're approved as a candidate. And every campaign is required to spend $2000 on a "riding services package" of minimal value. While most of the work to sign-up new members is done by the riding, in B.C. every dollar of that membership fee goes to the party (in Ontario, I believe the riding does get a cut). In essence, there are many, many ways in which the central party drains resources from the ridings.

What do the ridings get in exchange? Not too much although, frankly, it depends on which riding you are. Liberalist has been a great initiative in recent years, although I was amused to see this as a stated benefit for our $2000 riding services package given that we've had it for two years. We also got some national brochures, a few posters, and some lit templates. Most of the resources sucked-up though go to support a bloated infrastructure and to provide support for target ridings deemed more "winnable" or worthy of support.

And that's a big part of the problem. To LPC, some ridings are created far more equal than others. My riding saw Stephen Harper once and Jack Layton twice; we weren't winnable so Michael Ignatieff didn't come within hours. We actually were successful in getting some secondary tour visits, but we had to fight to keep Bob Rae because, despite the fact he wanted to come, some of the powers that be felt he would be wasted in such an unwinnable riding.

It speaks to a philosophical problem within the Liberal Party: instead of working to build and grow in every riding, we pre-emptively write-off large swaths of the country as unwinnable and leave them to fend for themselves. Well, if you starve them of resources and offer them no support then of course they're going to be unwinnable. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm not saying you send the national tour to every riding during the campaign. But you support them all, and between elections the leader needs to visit every riding multiple times to support the local organization. In Vancouver Island North we pulled in every favour we had and leveraged personal connections to get Paul Martin pre-election in 2004; it was the first visit by a Liberal leader since Pierre Trudeau. That's ridiculous.

The biggest reform we need within the Liberal Party is to adopt the philosophy that all 308 ridings are equal, and we must commit resources and effort to developing local organizations in each riding. We need to re-orient the infrastructure of the party to supporting the local organizations, and we must make the local organizational effort the reason d'etre of the party.

How do we specifically start to do that? I'll share some ideas in part two.

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It's time for the party saints to step into the light

The leader of the Liberal Party is against a merger with the NDP. So is every MP who has spoken on or off the record about it, including those seen as the most likely heirs apparent. Every party executive I've heard from is opposed. The leader of the NDP, the party we'd supposedly merge with, is firmly against it, along with every one of their MPs that has spoken on or off the record about it. The media pundits think it's ridiculous (usually a cause for closer consideration, to be honest). And as for the grassroots, if you want to believe polling, most Liberals are opposed, most NDPers are opposed, and so are most Canadians. Which echoes the bulk of the conversations I've had.

Still, though, it's the story that refuses to die. Because there do appear to be at least a few people that think a merger is a good idea (outside the Langevin Block, that is): a handful of so-called (it's unclear by who) party saints. On these reports, the fragile flame is kept alive against all else, instead of engulfing Harper's G20 billion dollar boondoggle, or, just for fun, actual policy shortcomings.

Who are these saints? The most often reported names are Jean Chretien on the Liberal side, and Ed Broadbent and Roy Romanow. Today, Romanow went public with some comments on the matter. To date, Broadbent and Chretien have not.

Now, I think a merger is a terrible idea. For one, it won't work. You'll lose Liberal votes on the right to the Conservatives and NDP votes on the left to a more socialist alternative, leaving you no further ahead (and maybe even a little more behind). The math doesn't work. It's also unnecessarily. While our situation is poor, it has been worse in the recent past. With hard work, we can turn it around. This merger talk, however, is only making that much more difficult, making Liberal weakness the issue at a time when we have good narratives against the Conservatives. Absolutely, consider a coalition post-election if the math makes sense. But a merger? Madness.

That's just the opinion of this humble blogger, of course. Others will, and do, have other opinions. And the ability to discuss and debate those opinions freely and openly, in the light of day, should be what our party is about.

I'm a big fan of Jean Chretien. I don't look back at his time in office with rose-coloured glasses, but he was a fighter and a passionate defender of Canada who did a lot of great things for this country, and did it with style. He was a great Prime Minister, and he is a great Canadian.

If Mr. Chretien is the Liberal saint here, if he does believe a merger with the NDP is needed, justified and a good idea, if he is indeed, against the wishes of the current leadership, working with NDP saints to advance this idea, then he owes to his fellow Liberals, and I think to Canadians, to come into the light and tell us why he feels as he does.

This should not, and can not, be a back-room process, negotiated by self-appointed party elders and then presented to the party memberships, and the leadership for that matter, with a flourish. This is my Liberal Party too, and we all deserve better then that. This isn't something for the back rooms and it's not something for saints, no matter how well intentioned. It's for the people. You can't expect it to succeed any other way.

So please, Mr. Chretien. If the reports linking you to this process are false, please repudiate them. And if they're accurate, then please share your reasoning with us. Maybe you'll convince me. Maybe you won't. We'll never know unless you try.

Because saints don't belong in the dark. And I think the little guy from Shawinigan would agree.

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