Can we try not to screw up Don Valley West too please?

Writing recently on the nomination brouhaha still simmering in the Saskatchewan riding of Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River, I put the events in the larger context of the poor handling of nominations by the Liberal Party of Canada across Canada. Unfortunately, warning signs are emerging another cock-up may be brewing in Don Valley West, if the party leadership doesn’t take quick and decisive action.

First, however, back to Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River for a moment. I’d written earlier that the LPC should have waived-off Orchard long ago if the riding was reserved for an appointment. It appears, however, that the LPC may have done just that. Maybe:

David Orchard knew full well that the federal Liberals wanted an aboriginal woman to run in a northern Saskatchewan byelection and shouldn't be surprised that one was handpicked to do so, MP Ralph Goodale suggested Wednesday.

The twice failed Tory leadership hopeful - and anyone else who expressed interest in running as a Liberal in the Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River riding for that matter - signed a paper warning that leader Stephane Dion may appoint a qualified woman candidate, such as Joan Beatty, Goodale said.

"Everyone was informed about the leaders prerogative to appoint a candidate and the leader might want to exercise that prerogative if the appropriate strong, female, northern-riding resident came forward," Goodale said in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press.

Goodale’s comments are predictably dismissed as “spin” by Orchard campaign manager Marjaleena Repo:

She said Orchard, who delivered key delegates to Dion during the Liberal leadership race, was told that the party was looking for an aboriginal woman to run. But when they couldn't find one, she said Dion encouraged Orchard to put his name forward.

I think there’s lots of spin going on here. Certainly Goodale’s revelations, if accurate, cast Orchard’s actions in another light. However, if Dion did give Orchard an eventual go-ahead…well, it’s all a mess and I think there’s plenty of blame to go around. I think Orchard is far from innocent, I think Goodale is far from innocent, and I think the campaign team is coming off like the Clampets.

Nevertheless, my original thesis stands: the LPC did a piss poor job of managing this and a number of other nominations, making avoidable foul-ups that give the party a black eye at times we should be gaining ground.

A repeat in Don Valley West?

Which brings us to the highly coveted (read: winnable) Toronto-area riding of Don Valley West, now held by the retiring John Godfrey. This same article points to potential nomination trouble ahead in this riding:

Meanwhile, some Liberals fear a similar controversy is brewing in the Toronto riding of Don Valley West, which will become vacant in July when Liberal MP John Godfrey retires.

Potential candidates were warned late last year that Dion intended to appoint a star candidate in the safe Liberal seat. But insiders say Dion's efforts to recruit David Pecault, chairman of the Toronto City Summit Alliance, failed and now a number of would-be candidates, tired of waiting, are starting to get organized.

Former MP Sarmite Bulte has filed nomination papers, constitutional expert Deborah Coyne, who ran for the Liberals against Jack Layton in the last election, is intending to file her papers shortly and up to a dozen more are said to be interested.

Insiders predict that Dion will eventually appoint a candidate in Don Valley West but will face a huge backlash if he waits until candidates have already sold thousands of memberships.

And the Hill Times adds another name to the mix:

Jonathan Mousley, former legislative assistant and senior policy adviser to former Liberal Cabinet minister David Collenette in the Jean Chrétien Cabinet, will run for the nomination in retiring Liberal MP John Godfrey's (Don Valley West, Ont.) riding. Mr. Godfrey won the riding in the last election with 53.3 per cent of the vote.

Remember Mark Warner, the nominated Conservative candidate for Toronto-Centre dumped by the CPC leadership? He may be in the mix too (story is from November):

Godfrey acknowledged yesterday that Warner's name has been bandied as his possible successor in Don Valley West, where he's been the MP since 1993. Before then, the riding was a Progressive Conservative one, and Godfrey thinks Warner could have appeal there.

Interesting to see Deborah Coyne, cousin of Andrew, back in the mix. She took on Jack Layton for the Liberals in the last election and had the Toronto-Danforth nomination again before deciding not to run there last month. While I like her as a candidate, I’m not keen on riding swircheroos and the optics of this, even if Don Valley West is her home riding, are iffy. So I’m of mixed feelings there. As for the potential return of Sam Bulte, another riding switchero from Parkdale-High Park where she lost her seat to the NDP in the last election, and Gerard Kennedy will run in the next one, I’m sure the digital copyright folks are already gearing-up.

Anyway, the point is with such an attractive riding in play the names are coming out of the woodwork and there is a lot of interest, high profile and otherwise. This is also exactly the sort of riding Dion has said he’d like to set aside for the appointment of qualified female candidates to meet his 1/3 female candidates goal.

With the rumours of a possible appointment and many names coming forward, Dion and the LPC need to learn from the mistakes of Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River, Outremont, Scarborough-Southwest and the other ridings where they’ve bungled the nomination process.

The party need to make clear immediately its plans for this riding. Will it be a completely open nomination process? If so, say so and let people organize. Will it be a semi-open nomination process with only female candidates (a la Vancouver-Quadra)? Or will this riding be reserved for appointment, in which case people should stop campaigning?

The uncertainly cannot be allowed to fester. To allow people to start organizing now, and then make an appointment later, is unacceptable. The decision needs to be made immediately, and it needs to be made public. This will prevent any confusion, or any attempts to sow confusion.

The LPC has the chance to defuse this bomb before it goes off. Let’s hope this time they decide to do so.

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On Orchard, Beatty and party organization

Having largely stayed-out of the blogsphere this morning I missed the news the Liberal Party has appointed former provincial NDP cabinet minister and aboriginal activist Joan Beatty as our by-election candidate in the Saskatchewan riding of Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River.

Certainly it’s good news for the party and for Stephane Dion that we were able to attract such a strong candidate, who I understand was also being wooed to run in that riding for the NDP. While this will be the toughest of the four by-election seats for the Liberals to hold (not that I think there will/should be by-elections), this will make it a very interesting race. As an aside, I was reading on a dipper blog the other day (can’t recall which) about how a past Liberal candidate in the Maratimes deciding not to run federally for the Libs again signaled doom and gloom for the party, and a coming orange wave. I wonder what greater message they’d read into Beatty’s decision to jump to the Libs?

But seriously, let’s address the criticisms that were widely raised today about the decision. First, on the appointment. While I myself prefer open nomination process driven by the local riding, I have little time for people calling appointments like this undemocratic. While I’d make an exception were the appointee unqualified/a party hack of no accomplishment, that’s clearly not the case here. So, as long as the LPC constitution gives the leader the discretionary right to appoint candidates, the leader exercising that right is just fine. The power of appointment was given to the leader democratically, and can be taken away democratically too, by amending the constitution. I don’t recall ever hearing of such a motion even being proposed, so such complaints have always rung hollow for me. Additionally, Dion campaigned on a promise to use appointments if necessary to run more female candidates. He’s fulfilling that promise, seems democratic to me.

Then there’s David Orchard, who was very interested in the seat. I’m not sure of his reaction to the appointment. I’m not a big Orchard fan, I’m a bit leery of the guy to be honest, but I hope he finds another riding and gets some support from the party because I don’t like the way he seems to have been treated here. It seems some in the party decided to try to put some distance between it and Mr. Orchard. If he was good enough to be a key part of Dion’s leadership win, he’s good enough to be a candidate now. I was at the victory party that night in Montreal, and I was surprised when, during his remarks to the crowd at the hotel, Dion brought Orchard up and signaled him out for his effort. While I think Beatty is right for this riding, I also think loyalty is very important in politics, and I think Orchard is owed better treatment.

What I really wanted to talk to though is a pattern that seems re-enforced by the party’s handling of the Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River nomination process. And that’s the emerging, and by now I think painfully obvious, pattern of sloppy and amateur management and organization by the campaign/electoral team.

This never should have gotten to the point of being controversial, and wouldn’t have were it not handled so sloppily. If they had an appointment in mind for this riding they should have waved off Orchard long ago, and let him focus his efforts elsewhere, making it clear from the outset. If he’d ignored such a wave-off that would have been his mistake, and his undoing. Instead things were allowed to fester, and degenerate into a public spectacle.

Sound familiar? It reminds me of the mess of a nomination process in Outremont that culminated with Jocelyn Coulon being parachuted in at the last minute. Now, I’m not predicting another Outremont. But Desnethé, Outremont, the whole March Garneau thing, the whole Justin Trudeau thing, the way Scarborough-Southwest was handled, and others paint a picture of a sloppy handling of nominations by the LPC.

And it speaks to a wider problem of avoidable communications and strategy mistakes and faux-pas that goes beyond just nominations. I don’t want to overstate the problem, as I do see positive developments in other areas, and clearly we’re not the only party to have nomination issues. It just seems like we’re being hurt repeatedly by entirely avoidable mistakes. That’s annoying, unfortunate, and left unchecked not good at all.

UPDATE: Thought I had this pic somewhere of Dion and Orchard at the victory party in Montreal, dug it out of my archives:

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