10 thoughts on the Ontario Liberal Party AGM this weekend

I’m on the train on my way back to Ottawa for the return of Parliament after spending the weekend in Toronto for the Ontario Liberal Party Annual General Meeting. And before my train even left the station I needed to come up with 10 new thoughts. Life moves pretty fast. Unlike my delayed train.

1.      1. No one won today. Not the Crombie loyalists. Not the Nate-stans or New Leafers. Not the OLP rank and file. And not Ontarians that want a credible alternative to Ford. Rebuilding will be on hold yet another round of leadership drama. So maybe Doug Ford and Marit Stiles won.

2.      2. Crombie had no choice. The artificial bar set by the New Leafers was silly. But realistically, she needed over 60%. Under that, it would be challenging. Without a united caucus, it would be impossible. Caucus wasn’t united. Credit to her for recognizing it fairly quickly. Her position had become untenable. She’ll stay on until a new leader is picked. John Fraser is sparred a third interim leadership.

3.      3. I heard a lot of talk this weekend about early nominations. They are important. They’re not going to happen this cycle. Sure, you could open things up during a leadership race. But how do you get serious people to invest the time and the money in a run when they don’t know who their leader is going to be?

4.    4.  If this leadership isn’t going to be a wasted year or more, we need the party executive to step up. We have a huge executive, and they have not been as active as they could or should be for years. The workI’ve argued really needs to happen doesn’t need to wait for a leader. The president and her team need to start now with rebuilding dormant riding associations, building up local organizational and fundraising capacity, and recruiting and training campaign workers and managers. And our two relatively new commissions – Seniors, and Rural and Northern – have important  work to do too. This work can’t wait. Rebuild that big red machine so the new leader can hit the ground running. It’s not easy, but they need to run a leadership and a rebuild at the same time.

5.      5. Lots of people will take credit for what happened this weekend. In my last post, I posited Crombie had two opposition groups: the Nate loyalists and the Liberals who believe governing is our manifest destiny. I believe it’s the latter group that were the silent plurality of those that voted Yes for a leadership review. They are frustrated with three straight election losses. I share their frustration. But if they don’t step up to be part of the rebuild, we’ll all be back here in the same place in four years.

6.      6. Let’s not overlook the good Crombie did. She increased our vote. She raised a lot of money. She grew our caucus and got us back to official party status. She rescued the party from near oblivion and left a strong base for her successor to build on. We saw early fruits of that work with a well-run convention this weekend.

7.     7. Let’s not overlook the bad of the Crombie era. There’s lots. But I will highlight a few. Biggest of all, she had a weak core team that were poor organizers, made bad decisions, and didn’t see an election coming that everyone else in the province saw coming a mile away. There is no excuse for how poorly prepared the party entered that election. And these were a lot of the same people that have been in these roles since the McGuinty years. This party needs a new generation of competent organizational leadership around the next leader.

8.   8.  Can we get Brian Gallant to take up residency here? His speech was great. It was a clear call for compassionate and progressive Liberal values. He clearly has national ambitions. Carney needs to bring him into the fold.

9.      9.The texts and WhatsApps are already burning up with leadership speculation. Navdeep Bains. Jeff Lehman. Probably Nate. Probably a surprise or two. If Bains runs, he will run away with it. If he doesn’t run, It’s wide-open. But I know who I won’t be voting for.

10.  10. I can’t end without a food review. The OLP hands-down beats the federal party when it comes to feeding their convention attendees. Great spread for lunch on Saturday. Two salads, pasta, haddock, chicken, two deserts, soup and bread. At federal biennials, I don’t recall any free food outside the Laurier lounge.

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The king is dead, long live the king

You can argue on the timing, but what Justin Trudeau did today was both difficult and needed. It will take time to fully judge his legacy. There was much good. There were many things with which I disagree strongly. Overall, in time, I believe the judgment of history will be kind.

It’s too simplistic to say we moved too far Left. Policies like $10/day daycare and the Canada Child Benefit were and are good economic policies. Both allowed more people, largely women, to be able to enter or return to the workforce. That is more workers building the economy and paying taxes. Dental care is health care, and healthy people are productive and happy people.

On the other hand, balancing the budget seemed to be an afterthought and while talking about the need to invest and debt to GDP ratio for a few years is fine, there’s a limit. There needs to be a balance and we got it wrong.

The COVID pandemic was both his greatest moment and what helped to sow the seeds of his downfall. The country came together to deal with a worldwide crisis of unprecedented proportions, doing the best they could during uncharted times. In the end, Canada emerged relatively unfazed from a health and economic perspective, and by all reasonable measures he did very well steering us through. Businesses stayed in business, people stayed employed and in their homes.

But something happened to our psyche. People became more hardened. More prone to fall into conspiracy theories and alternate news. While once we could agree to disagree, now we couldn’t even have polite conversations. Factors like social media algorithms are no help. Even still today, I don’t need to flick too long through Facebook Reels or other platforms until I’m fed some very disgusting content.

It’s not a uniquely Canadian phenomenon. And it’s not Trudeau’s fault. But he became the Canadian focal point for this anger and frustration, becoming the target for unprecedented hatred and vitriol that some have made their entire personalities, and some very cynical politicians have chosen to harness for their own purposes. They should not be surprised when the Leopard Eating Faces Party comes for their face.

Add global inflation making everything more expensive and a long delay in taking housing affordability seriously enough and here we are.

I think my biggest criticism of the Trudeau era is that in recent years this has not been a government guided by fundamental principles and an overarching vision and plan. Instead, it has become a reactive one, listening to fewer and fewer voices, only concerned with putting out the next fire or media story instead of getting big things done. Which is a clear sign that a reset is needed.

I wish this decision had been made a year ago. I think it would have been better for everyone, including his family, if it had been. But in the end, he (finally) did the right thing. And now, an accelerated leadership race will begin.  I don't know who I will support. I have some ideas on who I won't.

More than a decade ago, Trudeau, in taking over a rebuilding Liberal Party, said we don’t need a messiah. And he was right. But he was also the son of a political giant born on Christmas Day who led us back to the promised land faster than anyone predicted. And the party wasn’t so much rebuilt as reimagined in his image.

In a lot of ways, that rebuild never really happened. We never had the discussions about what sort of party we wanted to be and what we wanted to stand for. Instead, we went straight into a platform and a decade of government, including two minorities where you’re just trying to get to the weekend.

Can we find our identity and a leader who can present a vision in a throne speech by March 24^th and then lead us into an election? We’re going to have to try.

 

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Liberal Party needs time to do supporter vote right

To paraphrase an old proverb, beware newspaper columnists bearing advice. That certainly applies to John Ibbitson’s column in the Globe this morning, where he takes the Liberal Party to task for setting a 41 day cutoff for supporter (and member) sign-ups to be eligible to vote in the leadership race next April.

Ibbitson starts by applauding the party members for voting to open up the party by creating the supporter system at the January convention, and then attacks the national board decisions that “undermine the very notion of the supporter category.” What has him upset?

…that privilege will end 41 days before the April 14 vote is announced. Mike Crawley, the party’s president, explained Sunday that the party had decided to make the cutoff for both supporters and members that far in advance, so that lists could be finalized, checked for possible acts of fraud, and then shared with all candidates.

For one thing, Ibbitson betrays a lack of understanding of the process. The national board didn’t set the cutoff date for supporters, the members did. It was part of the constitutional amendment we passed in January that created the supporter category, and amended the constitution to include this requirement for voting eligibility, section (63)(2)(A):

been a supporter of the Party for the 41 days immediately preceding the day of the Leadership Vote;

This applies to both supporters and members. So this was part of the system as passed by the delegates Ibbitson praised in January, and the national board can’t override it without asking the membership to pass a constitutional amendment, which given the timing would require an extraordinary convention like we held last summer on the leadership timeline.

That bit of process aside, even if it was feasible, doing away with the cutoff or putting it mere days before the vote, as Ibbitson seems to propose, would be an absolutely horrible idea that would be setting up the party for a bungled leadership vote. And I’m sure Ibbitson and his fellow pundits would have some buzz-killing fun with that.

Much of the future of the party is riding both on the success of this leadership vote and the supporter system, and it’s important that we get both right. And it’s important that everyone have confidence in the fairness and accuracy of the system.

That means ensuring that the potentially hundreds of thousands of supporters that are signed-up have their identities vetted and verified, so we’re confident that they’re real, they meet the requirements, and it’s actually them voting. I published an interview recently with Liberal membership chair Matthew Certosimo on this process.

And with a pool of potentially hundreds of thousands of voters, the party will need to build and design a voting process (either online, phone, mail-in or physical polls, TBD) with the capacity to handle the possible turnout and conduct the vote in a fair, transparent, open and efficient manner.

Accomplishing both of these things will take time, which makes the 41 day window between the sign-up cutoff and voting day essential. It will take time to complete the vetting of possible voters, and ensure the capacity to allow them all to vote is there (the media savaged the NDP for the delays in their leadership vote due to a denial of service attack).

Ibbitson, who spent a lot of time covering U.S. politics and often lets it influence his writing, wants a primary-style system. But he should be familiar enough with U.S. primaries to know that, despite the messaging by some when proposing it, the Liberal proposal was never that close to U.S.-style primaries. And no party can realistically adopt such a system on their own, for reasons varying from lack of resources to the need to prevent participating in different party’s processes. A proper primary system would see an impartial body such as Elections Canada registering Canadians for parties or as independents, and managing the votes in a non-partisan manner.

Until the unlikely day when all parties agree to buy into such a non-partisan managed system, cutoff dates to allow for verification of details and the provisioning of vote casting resources will be necessary. It’s the only way to run the vote fairly and without chaos.

And as for Ibbitson’s patronizing endnote…

Perhaps the federal party leadership failed to notice that the Liberal Party was defeated in the Quebec provincial election last week even as the Liberal government in B.C. was pummelled by a string of cabinet ministers announcing they would not be running in the next election and the Ontario Liberals failed to win a by-election that would have given Dalton McGuinty a majority government. The Liberals are running out of things to run.

… he may have failed to notice that the “Liberal government in B.C.” hasn’t been overly Liberal for some time and is riddled with former Stepen Harper advisors. He may have failed to notice that Jean Charest is a former Progressive Conservative and his party confounded his fellow pundits, the pollsters and popular expectations to hold the PQ to a slim minority government. And he may have failed to notice that the Kitchener seat was a long-shot for the Ontario Liberals (although their finish was very disappointing) and they won Vaughan, the other seat up for grabs (and held by the Conservatives federally) in resounding fashion.

But we musn’t spoil the narrative, fictional though it may be.

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The case for Justin Trudeau and a two-election strategy

There are a number of interesting names floating around as possible contenders for the Liberal Party of Canada leadership, and many more less than interesting names. While I may or may not support him were he to run, I think there’s a good case to be made for Justin Trudeau. And it may not be the case you think.

If you’d asked me before the last election if (assuming a leadership change) Trudeau should run, I’d have said no. He's not ready. Let him gain more experience in the House and we’ll see the next time. So a year and a bit later, as a leadership race gets underway, do I think Trudeau is now ready? No, I still don’t. But here’s what has changed: the Liberal Party isn’t ready either.

Liberals have for too long been obsessed with short-term fixes and short-cuts to power. Many will put forward Trudeau’s name in that context: the best name with the best shot at getting us back to the electoral promised land. Frankly, that’s the wrong motivation, and I take a completely different position. If I thought the Liberals had a shot at winning the next election I wouldn’t say he should run, as he's not ready to be a Prime Minister by any stretch of the imagination.

Here's the hard truth though that Liberals need to accept though before we get too far into this discussion: we’re not going to win the election in 2015. You can call me defeatist if you want. And sure, anything could happen, and sometimes even does. But it usually doesn’t, and we should be realistic and not expect an overnight turnaround.

We need a young leader who can commit the next decade to growing the party with a two-election plan, and we as a party need to commit to sticking with our next leader for the long-term instead of dumping them overboard the first time they don't turn water into wine overnight. We need someone willing to spend the next 10 years growing the party in bake sales and church basements across the country. More important than performance in Parliament will be both bringing Liberals back into the fold and growing support and organization on the ground. It will be many years of spreading the word in small groups.

It’s in this context that I like Trudeau. He has the charisma and drive to bring Liberals back into the fold, get young people involved (who, over a long-term plan, become the next generation of organizers and activists), and he's ideally suited for the tough retail work that will need to be done, winning over people one small group at a time. I also think that, while for his father the Liberal Party was somewhat of an electoral machine and a means to an end, Justin grew up in the party and both values the institution and understands its significant problems. And he’ll certainly keep us relevant in the national debate.

In the context of a two-election plan he would have the opportunity to grow in the role, growing along with the party. As I said, he’s not ready now, but neither are we. It takes time for leaders to mature. And whomever our next leader ends up being, we need to give them the chance to grow into the role.

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A good decision for Bob Rae and for the Liberal Party

I was out and about all day yesterday so I haven’t had a chance to weigh-in yet on Bob Rae’s announcement that he won’t seek the permanent leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. There’s not too much to say that hasn’t been said already, and I largely agree with my blogging colleagues Far and Wide and Calgary Grit. I’ll just add a few brief thoughts of my own.

When I learned of the news on Twitter, I re-tweeted it and used the word courageous, which caused a number of people to question what is particularly courageous about either keeping a promise, or deciding not to do something. Well, in politics, and frankly in life, both of those things aren’t always easy.

Yesterday’s decision amounted to Rae putting an end to a life-long ambition, despite what had to be tremendous pressure from his supporters and others to put his hat in the ring. I think Rae made the best decision for the party, and I give him much credit for that. I recognize his many supporters will be deeply disappointed, and I sympathize with them and respect their view as well. Yesterday was a difficult day for many.

No one but Rae knows the true reasons for his decision not to run, which apparently was made only very recently. Speculation though, at this point, ispointless. I think we’re all ready to move forward. Now we’ll have a leadership race with a wide-open field (well, depending on Justin Trudeau’s final final decision) and a chance for generational change (more on that in my next post), and while that race is underway we can all rest assured that we’ll be in good hands in Parliament with Rae continuing to serve as interim leader.

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Don’t do it, Bob

A minor kerfuffle erupted in the political twittersphere yesterday evening following aCBC Power and Politics report claiming sources had told it the Liberal Party of Canada’s national executive  had decided it would “allow” interim leader Bob Rae to run for the permanent leadership, and that Rae had decided to go for the permanent job and had a team organized and in place.

The twittersphere quickly went bananas, as the twittersphere is want to do. And as media reports are want to be, the report was just a little torqued and was later back-tracked somewhat. The national executive hasn’t actually met yet; it’s expected to meet Wednesday and it will make a decision then. Of course, they’re expected to decide exactly what the CBC said they already had; the report was just slightly premature.

And the decision is really pro forma anyway; I’ve said all along that, as long as he steps down form the interim job first, nothing prevents him from running for the permanent job. There is no rule to change. All that stands in his way is his promise, and we’ll get to that shortly.

 So the decision from the executive, when it comes, isn’t really major news. What is news though was the report, denied by Rae, that he has made the decision to run for the permanent leadership and has already organized a team to do so. From the CBC:

Sources say Rae has made his decision. He has started prepping staff and a team to help him with leadership. This signals he is in, Thibedeau said.

And it’s not just the CBC. This is from CP:

Indeed, there have been signs that his campaign is already in gear, with at least one organizer, Toronto MP Jim Karygiannis, signing up supporters among ethnic communities across the country.

It should be noted that Karygiannis tweeted that article, and that passage, which certainly isn’t a denial of the report. Rather the opposite, in fact.

While he could change his mind up until the moment he formally declares, Rae running seems like a foregone conclusion. Frankly, it has since he took the interim position last year. But since nothing has yet been carved in stone, I hope he considers this caredully because I think him deciding to run would be a serious and unfortunate mistake.

A promise not to the executive, but to Liberal members

A lot of revisionist history has begun to crop up about the events last summer under which Rae assumed the interim leadership. First of all, he wasn’t the only person willing to do the job. Marc Garneau, for example, indicated he wasprepared to serve but would yield to Rae if he wanted the job. And others in caucus would have come forward; they didn’t because Rae expressed interest and they respected him as a logical, able choice.

Also, an evil and conniving national executive didn’t bind Rae into a strait-jacket and force him to renounce his career ambitions as some sort of Get Bob conspiracy. The executive laid-out clearly the criteria it was looking for in an interim leader: they should be bilingual, they should have the support of caucus, and they should pledge not to run for the permanent job. Why the last one? Because the party needed an interim leader focused on rebuilding, not campaigning. Because interim leader comes with a profile and budget paid by the taxpayers and party fundraising dollars that other candidates don’t have. It would tilt the playing field unfairly, and we need a fair race.

These conditions were clear, transparent and were asked of all candidates. And, in accepting them, Rae made a promise. Not just to the old executive, but to every Liberal member. The “rule” such as it was went away once the interim leader was selected. But his word remains. And while the executive can state the obvious (as long as he steps down as interim leader first of course he’s free to run) they can’t absolve him of his promise. Because it wasn’t just a promise to them; it was a promise to us.

Now, if he wants to go back on his word he’s going to need to explain why. Some people will accept it, and some won’t. But it has to start with the honest admission that yes, I did make a promise, and then go into here’s why.

Instead, we’ve seen a coyness for months that has distracted the party from its work, and has led the media to write distracting leadership stories instead of focusing on the able work that has been happening in Parliament, opposing Harper. Clearstatements reaffirming his promise not to run have evolved into transparentstatements that “I’ll decide when the executive says if they’ll let me or not.”

A long time coming

Frankly, this is the scenario I’ve expected and feared since Rae was appointed interim leader last summer. While his public statements were clear that he had promised not to run, his written statement was much more cleverly worded.

I shall abide by any rules about the interim leadership, agreed to by the caucus and the Board.  I have made it a watchword of my time in public life to practice the politics of unity and principled compromise.  I shall continue to do so.

That seemed to me like he was trying to leave some wiggle-room so I asked him, point-blank, “Should this board, or a future board, say that the interim leader running for permanent leader is fine, would you (should you be the interim leader) then run for permanent leader? Basically, I'd like to know this: if you become interim leader, are you definitively ruling-out running for permanent leader under any circumstances? I think this is something that should be made clear for all.”

He responded as follows:

Jeff I think the letter is very clear - there's a job to be done and the party executive has established rules. I accept the rules.

I felt the letter was anything but clear, but I dropped it and moving on. My feeling was this: Rae at least wanted to keep open the option of running. He wanted to take on the interim job, successfully lobby members to extend the period of hisinterim leadership by more than one year, and then use that period as an extended try-out. His hope was that, if he performed well and grew the party and our polling support, he’d be drafted to run and any fine points about promises would be overlooked. And if he decided not to run in the end, no harm no foul.

As the public statements began to move more into line with the carefully worded letter, it became more clear this was the scenario unfolding. Except I don’t think it has gone as they’d have hoped for. While Rae has performed solidly in Parliament and certainly outshone Nycole Turmel, we remain lower in the polls than ever and, since Tom Mulcair took the NDP leadership, our profile in Parliament and in the public debate has dropped dramatically. One Rae organizereven called it a “year of misery” on Twitter. Hardly the springboard one would hope for.

Don’t do it, Bob

For me, it boils down to this:

*  Bob absolutely is and should be allowed to run, and if the executive was to somehow say he couldn’t, I’d be the first to the barricades to fight that undemocratic decision
* Bob made a promise to Liberals that he wouldn’t run, it was a promise made for very good reasons, and I think he should keep his word.

Rae has a chance to continue the work of rebuilding that he was nobly undertaken and be the steady hand at the tiller, keeping us relevant in Parliament as interim leader while the party begins to focus on the leadership race. Then he can pass the torch to the duly elected permanent leader for the next generation, cementing his status as an elder statesman.

Or, he can break his promise to Liberals, recast his past year of work as pre-campaigning for the job with the donation dollars of those same Liberal members, open us up to the obvious attacks of dishonesty and trust, and discourage potential leadership candidates who don’t want to enter such a tilted playing field.

I hope he makes the right choice.

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Lessons for the Liberals from the NDP leadership and showcase weekend

With the NDP leadership race and showcase weekend in the books, there are some lessons the Liberal Party should draw from the experience as we prepare for our own leadership vote, scheduled for some time next spring.

I think the first lesson is that you need a strong field of candidates to generate any kind of public and media interest and being new life into the party; coronations aren’t exciting at all. But that’s an obvious one. I think lessons can be drawn in two main areas: the system of voting, and the leadership weekend.

The Leadership Weekend

Love them or hate them, delegated leadership conventions were exciting. They’re now, though, a thing of the past. That’s a positive in that the variations of one member, one vote that have replaced them are far more democratic and more accurately reflects the will of all party members, not just those than can get elected as delegates and can afford to go. It does, though, remove some of the excitement from the equation, and leaves the media without something to cover.

Which was really what the NDP’s weekend leadership event in Toronto was all about. It was a made for TV spectacle designed to replicate some of the elements of a traditional delegated convention (the candidate showcases, flash mobs, scrums) and give the media somewhere to focus and ground their attention and coverage. It actually worked so well at times we forgot we weren’t covering a traditional delegated convention, and that most of the voting had already happened or was happening online elsewhere.

The event was also useful to bring nearly 5000 NDP supporters together for the shared experience of picking their next leader and, as it wasn’t delegated, accessibility wasn’t as much of an issue.

Bringing together the media, the pundits, party staffer and leadership candidates with supporters all in both gives the media a way to cover the news and allowed the party to at least try to control the story somewhat, as well as respond on the fly as events transpire. The delays caused by issues with the voting system aside, the weekend was a strong success in terms of generating the volume and tone of media coverage the NDP was looking for, and a record number ofjournalists were accredited for the event.

While the level of coverage can partially be attributed to factors the Liberals can’t replicate, such as the fact they were picking a new opposition leader and a successor to the late Jack Layton, the NDP has still provided a model we would do well to replicate.

I would also hold our event in the Toronto area, as it has both the highest concentration of media in the country, as well as the largest remaining pool of Liberal supporters to draw into the event. As this isn’t a delegated event, I’m less worried about the need to move it around the country. (And besides, Toronto is actually due.) It’s about maximizing member/supporter and media attendance.

We should do the candidate showcases, fete our outgoing interim leader (assuming he’s not running for the permanent gig), and pump people up about being Liberals. We need a focal point to make the leadership selection real not just for the media, but for Liberals and Canadians as well, and give the new leader a launching pad.

I’d also encourage the organization of regional satellite events to bring local Liberals together to watch the proceedings, cast their votes and experience the event as a shared experience.

The Voting System

First, I should note one key difference between the NDP and Liberal methods of leadership selection. The NDP has a system of “pure” one member, one vote. On the plus side, every vote is equal, but on the down side, if one region (say, B.C.) has most of the members, it also has most of the say. The Liberals, like the Conservatives, have a regionally weighted system: Each riding, despite the number of members and supporters, is equal, receiving 100 points to be distributed amongst the candidates based on the percentage vote of its voters. So while someone voting in a riding with lots of members may have their vote somewhat diluted compared to a voter in a less populous riding, every region of the country is equal and a leader needs pan-Canadian support to be elected.

So in essence, our system is slightly more complicated than the NDP’s. There’s also the wrinkle of our new supporter system, which has the potential to substantially increase the potential pool of voters. It makes some sort of online and/or phone voting system a necessity. However, with the problems the BC Liberals had with getting PINs to members before their leadership vote, and the major troubles the NDP experience this weekend with an alleged DirectedDenial of Service attack possibly disenfranchising thousands, online voting is not without its issues.

Despite the difficulties though, on paper I loved the two-phase NDP plan. In the first phase, voters could choose to submit a complete preferential ballot, and they’re done. Or they could take part in phase two, voting one ballot at a time, so they can react to the results of each ballot. Were I an NDPer, I would have opted for the second option.

I’d urge the Liberal national executive to immediately begin researching online voting systems, and exploring ways to minimize the risk of such attacks occurring or minimizing the impact if they do. If we can’t assure ourselves that we can create a safe and secure online system, we need to make sure we have reliable backups, such as a phone system, in place. This research and work should be happening now. It is vital that Liberals, Canadians and potential candidates have faith in the integrity and stability of the system we’ll use.

Of course, the tried and true option is voting by paper, either the day of the event or in advance by mail. Both have their issues. Particularly if many supporters sign up, organizing polling places across the county is both logistically challenging and expensive, and particularly tough for rural ridings that both lack volunteers and, with their size, would require multiple polls. And both an in-person or mail-in vote would require a preferential ballot, which lacks the drama of ballot by ballot voting.

Personally, I do favour the two-option approach the NDP used. And the more people that opt for phase two, the more potential for drama on leadership weekend. But we need to ensure first that we can build a stable and safe system that will allow everyone that wishes to participate to cast their votes. That must be the top priority.

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If we’re betting everything on leadership, Bob Rae must be clear on intentions

Reflecting on last weekend’s Liberal Party of Canada biennial convention, where delegates voted against reducing the powers of the leader and put much of their hope for rebuilding into one key initiative – admitting supporters into the party ranks and giving them a vote for the next leader – it seems clear to me we’re betting much of our hope for a revival and return to relevance on a leadership race that will culminate with a vote by all members and supporters sometime betweenMarch 1 and June 30, 2013.

We’ve long been a party that is obsessed by leadership, so perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising. By refusing to even limit the leader’s ability to appoint candidates and to set and veto policy, this weekend we rejected several opportunities to not only make the role of the individual Liberal member more powerful, but to see every member to take greater responsibility for the party’s success or failure. We’ve long been a party beset by leaderitis, always in search of a Messiah. We crown a leader and invest our hopes and dreams in them, feting them for our collective success and, conversely, blaming them for our collective failure. It’s why we’re so quick to dump leaders after a setback; it allows us to avoid taking collective responsibility.

By opening the leadership selection to a new non-member category – supporters – members lessened their collective ability to hold the leader accountable (leaders will no longer owe their mandate to the party membership, the folks that knock on the doors) and, offered an opportunity to balance that by devolving some of the leader’s powers to the membership, said no. Liberals will again invest their hopes in the leader.

Betting on a vibrant, open, fair leadership race

While the ability of the incoming executive to implement a bold agenda of party restructuring and reform shouldn’t be discounted, it’s clear delegates chose to put a lot of faith in the next leadership race to bring the Liberal Party back from the brink. We want to welcome thousands of Canadians into the fold as supporters, and the shiny lure we’re dangling is a say in picking our next leader. Which means we need an exciting, dynamic and open race. A coronation isn’t going to attract any supporters.

If we’re going to attract a diverse field of highly qualified candidates, they’ll need to feel it’s a fair and open contest. But the large elephant in the room is interim leader Bob Rae’s unwillingness to give a clear and unequivocal answer on his intentions regarding the permanent leadership.

When Rae agreed to take the interim leadership he promised not just the party executive, but members, that he would not seek the permanent job. Why is that important? Because the interim job gives its holder enormous advantages over potential opponents, as I’ve outlined in the past. Now, Bob is free to change his mind and seek the permanent job. No rules have to be changed – that’s a smokescreen thrown up to deflect the issue. He just needs to resign the interim position and he’s free to run for the permanent gig.  All that holds him back is his word; he’d need to explain to Liberals and to Canadians why he’s breaking his promise. And we're free to accept his arguments and vote for him, or reject his arguments and vote for someone else.

Despite his promise upon taking the job, he continues to play coy on his long-term intentions. His answers in Friday’s convention press conference illustrate it plainly: he is asked point-blank multiple times if he will rule out seeking the permanent leadership. And each time, he refuses to do so.

Rae is too smart not to know refusing to give a definitive answer will only ensure the distracting speculation will continue, and discourage other potential leadership candidates. If he has no intention of running, there’s no reason for him to not say, clearly and simply “I am not going to run. I will not be a candidate” That would end it. But by playing coy, and by deferring to rules that don’t really exist, the most charitable explanation is that he is at least keeping open the possibility of running.

You won’t find one Liberal, myself included, to say Bob Rae hasn’t done an amazing job as our interim leader. But between his unwillingness to be clear on his future intentions, the unwillingness of him and his office to ever include the word *interim* in speeches and communications, and a televised speech to caucus inexplicably defending his personal record as the NDP premier of Ontario, the mounting speculation that he will seek the permanent leadership has become too much of an issue to ignore.

The time has come

The selection of the next permanent Liberal leader is over a year away, but the race will be ramping-up sooner than that. Potential candidates will be gauging support, and once the new supporter system is in place, potential candidates will move to sign up supporters and members. And with no expiry on a supporter’s “membership” they’d be foolish not to begin immediately. But they won't, if they feel the fix is in.

We need a wide, qualified field to contest the race. And for that to happen, Bob Rae needs to stop playing word games. He needs to level with Liberals, and with Canadians. He must either clearly and plainly rule-out running, or announce he is considering it and sit down with the national executive to negotiate the timeline for a final decision and potential resignation as interim leader, so as to facilitate an open and competitive race.

It would be patently unfair and unacceptable to run for the permanent job from the interim office, and equally unacceptable to play coy until the last possible minute, squeezing every drop of advantage from the interim office and its party and taxpayer-funded budget before pulling the trigger on a leadership campaign.

We're the party of the Clarity Act, and we need a little clarity right now ourselves. We can’t move forward without it.

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Fundamental myths about the Liberal Party and the interim leader

Let me start by making one thing perfectly clear: there is no rule that prevents interim Liberal leader Bob Rae from deciding to seek the permanent leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. Once again, THERE IS NO RULE!

I resort to repetition and brief caps-lock because I’m hearing this false premise repeated again and again, by people that should really know better. And it’s pissing me off.

For example, when announcing her candidacy for the Liberal presidency yesterday, Sheila Copps made this statement:

Sheila Copps says she's running for president of the Liberal Party and she wouldn't stop Bob Rae from running as leader, despite rules that say the interim leader can't join the race.

That’s nice, but it’s not up to Ms. Copps, or whomever the next Liberal president is. Lawrence Martin takes the meme further in iPolitics today:

As party president, Copps couldn’t single-handedly change the rules, but she could certainly help the cause.

Copps knows every trick in the book. So does Bob Rae. They are a powerful duo.

They may well be the Batman and Robin of Liberal politics, but that doesn’t change the face that no trickery is needed: THERE IS NO RULE TO CHANGE.

Let’s back up a minute. When Michael Ignatieff announced his resignation (he was an interim leader, by the way, who ‘ran’ for the permanent leadership) it was up to the Liberal national board to pick an interim leader, with advice from caucus. The board chose to set several criteria on which they would base their decision, such a support from caucus, bilingualism, and a commitment to not seek the permanent leadership.

If those interested in the position didn’t meet those criteria, the board wouldn’t consider them. But once the board made their choice, the criteria become moot. It's not enforceable in any way. It's not codified into any constitution or rules of procedure. It was a rule to pick the interim leader, and that's done.

What it amounted to was a promise. Bob Rae, in deciding to seek and accept the interim leadership, promised to the caucus, the national board and to Liberal members that he would stay focused on party re-building, and would not seek the permanent leadership.

It’s not a rule in law that needs to be changed with tricks by an incoming party president. It’s a promise by Mr. Rae. And there is nothing at all preventing him from changing his mind. Ms. Copps is right on one thing, though:

"If Bob made a commitment [not to run], he can answer to the voters in the leadership race on that commitment.”

Exactly. No rule prevents Mr. Rae from running; just his word. The word I and thousands of other Liberals chose to accept at face-value. If he chooses to break his word to us and run anyway, it will be up to him to explain to us why. And in the end, the members will have the final say in what consequence, if any, breaking his word would have. Not the party executive.

A kabuki play

My concern is that this sowing of confusion around the rules for seeking the interim leadership is deliberate; a scripted political kabuki play.

There are no actual rules to change. But was a new executive to pass a motion deciding “we’ve changed the rules, the interim leader can run” as some seem to be advocating, it would serve one transparent purpose: provide political cover should Mr. Rae decide to break his word and run for the permanent spot. “Well, I wasn’t going to, but I promised to ‘follow the rules’ set by the executive and, hey, they’ve changed them, so it’s cool now.”

I’ve had a nagging fear of this scenario from day one. But it would be a farce. Still, I fear the national executive elections in January risk becoming a proxy battle to set-up such a scenario.

Why shouldn't he run?

One comment I hear often is “if, in two years, he’s super-popular and we’re doing well in the polls why wouldn’t we let him run?” Well, again, he can run if he wants to and if we’re willing to overlook the promise-breaking, that’s our choice. But there are fundamental reasons why I have insisted from day one that the interim leader, whomever that would be, should be someone who would not seek the permanent leadership.

From a post I wrote in May:

The interim leader has a good deal of power that would give them an advantage in the race. Consider, for example, that many of the leadership candidates are likely to be caucus members and caucus support is always a key indicator to watch. The interim leader controls a lot of things such as who gets what critic portfolio, who get to hold positions such as whip, and even who gets to ask questions in question period. If you want to miss a vote or have a day off from house duty, you need the whip's permission.

If the interim leader is competing with fellow caucus members for permanent leadership, that opens up a hornet’s nest of possible conflicts. Are they going to give their rivals prominent roles and questions, or relegate them to the back of the back bench? And how about caucus members that have chosen to support a rival? Even for an interim leader with the best of intentions, every move is going to be second-guessed and examined for motivations and agendas.

Also, the interim leader’s time is and should be focused on representing and running the party inside the House of Commons and building the organization and structure outside it. Even if we delay the leadership vote to next spring, which I favour, the race will begin now and candidates will begin campaigning across the country. It will necessarily mean time away from the House. We need an interim leader not distracted by a leadership campaign, focused on representing and building the party.

Finally, with all the advantages an interim leader has (the increased media and public profile and attention) there’s another major reason I reject their seeking the permanent leadership: they’re not given that advantage by the membership writ large. As I noted, the interim leader is anointed by the executive with advice from caucus; not by the membership. Allowing them to use the interim job as a springboard would amount to the party elites giving their preferred leadership candidate a huge advantage, and that would be a slap in the face to the membership at large who feel picking from a level playing field should be their prerogative, and don't want the deck stacked for an anointed choice.

End the games

All these objections still hold true. I would add that having a full and open leadership race is a key part of the renewal process that we need to be undertaking. Allowing someone anointed by the party elites to use the interim leadership (the time period of which they successfully lobbied to lengthen, by the way) as a party-funded head-start to the campaign would be unfair to the other candidates, and would make it difficult, if not impossible, to have the fair and open race we must have.

Finally, I should note that Mr. Rae has insisted from day one that he doesn't want to run for the permanent leadership, and has no intention of doing so. I believe he even mentioned his spouse would never let him. All this talk of rule-changing scenarios has come from others.

Look, here’s the bottom line: if he wants to run, he can run. I will view it as a broken promise and a character issue; others can make their own decision. But don’t mislead us with poppycock about rule-changing, and don’t take us for fools.

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Why the interim leader shouldn’t run for permanent leader

There has been much debate in Liberal circles about the insistence by the national executive that the interim leader of the party agree to not run for the permanent leadership, and even more debate with the announcement by Bob Rae yesterday that he will seek the interim leadership of the party.

Some see this stipulation as some sort of anti-Rae clause, designed specifically to bind him. I don’t know what’s in the heads of the national executive, but the fact is this is a rule that would apply to anyone interested in seeking the interim/permanent leadership: anyone will have to choose which job they wish to go for.

Rules vs. promises

I’ll get to why I support this “rule” in a moment but first, I’d like to make one point that seems to be missed in much of the debate: there is no actual “rule” here at all.

Under the Liberal constitution, the national board (aka the executive) pick the interim leader, with advice from the caucus. It’s important to note too the caucus’ role is to advise, not advise and consent – the executive isn’t bound by their recommendation.

And the executive is free to base their decision on any criteria they want. They’ve chosen to publicly put some criteria out there: bilingual, support from caucus, no merger talk without a mandate, and won’t run for permanent leader. These aren’t published rules; these are just criteria the executive is choosing to base their choice on.

Once the interim leader is named by the executive, there is no real enforceability of these rules because these rules don’t really exist – they were just screening criteria the executive used in making their choice. And promises made by the candidate.

So there is no “rule” saying an interim leader can’t run for permanent leader. There is nothing in the constitution or the bylaws making it illegal. A new executive could be elected at the next biennial and say “we’ve changed the rules, it's cool now” but there is actually no "rule" to change.

What the current executive is asking for, essentially, is a promise from those seeking to become interim leader that they won’t later run for permanent leader, using this position as a springboard. That’s what it boils down to: a promise. A “rule change” by the next executive may provide political cover for an interim leader that decides to run for permanent leader, but it would still amount to a broken promise by that person. Nothing is stopping them from breaking that promise as, again, no actual rule exists. The only cost for breaking their promise, if any, would be political, and it would be determined by the membership in their voting decision.

Why interim to permanent is a bad idea

With those procedural details out of the way, just why is it a bad idea to let the interim leader contest the permanent leadership? There are many reasons, really.

The interim leader has a good deal of power that would give them an advantage in the race. Consider, for example, that many of the leadership candidates are likely to be caucus members and caucus support is always a key indicator to watch. The interim leader controls a lot of things such as who gets what critic portfolio, who get to hold positions such as whip, and even who gets to ask questions in question period. If you want to miss a vote or have a day off from house duty, you need the whip's permission.

If the interim leader is competing with fellow caucus members for permanent leadership, that opens up a hornet’s nest of possible conflicts. Are they going to give their rivals prominent roles and questions, or relegate them to the back of the back bench? And how about caucus members that have chosen to support a rival? Even for an interim leader with the best of intentions, every move is going to be second-guessed and examined for motivations and agendas.

Also, the interim leader’s time is and should be focused on representing and running the party inside the House of Commons and building the organization and structure outside it. Even if we delay the leadership vote to next spring, which I favour, the race will begin now and candidates will begin campaigning across the country. It will necessarily mean time away from the House. We need an interim leader not distracted by a leadership campaign, focused on representing and building the party.

Finally, with all the advantages an interim leader has (the increased media and public profile and attention) there’s another major reason I reject their seeking the permanent leadership: they’re not given that advantage by the membership writ large. As I noted, the interim leader is anointed by the executive with advice from caucus; not by the membership. Allowing them to use the interim job as a springboard would amount to the party elites giving their preferred leadership candidate a huge advantage, and that would be a slap in the face to the membership at large who feel picking from a level playing field should be their prerogative, and don't want the deck stacked for an anointed choice.

That’s why I think letting the interim leader seek the permanent leadership is wrong. And while there is no “rule” to be enforced, I do think asking for this promise to be made is appropriate.

What about Bob and Marc?

I think we should take any personal politics out of this. People have pointed-out that many of these same executive members had no problem with Michael Ignatieff using the interim spot to jump to the permanent job in late 2008/09, and they’re absolutely right. It’s the sort of hypocrisy that has led many of us to lose faith in the current executive.

Two wrongs, however, do not make a right, and a bad decision shouldn’t make a precedent. If you thought it was wrong then you should still think it’s wrong now, regardless of the personalities involved.

I supported Ignatieff in the last leadership race, but I strongly disagreed with his decision to grab the interim leadership. When his team polled supporters before the decision, I said so. And when he did it anyway, I said so publicly. It was a bad decision that needlessly alienated party members and made it much more difficult for him to unify the party.

It was wrong then, and it would be wrong now.

Marc Garneau and Bob Rae have both thrown their hats into the interim leader ring, and both have agreed to respect the “rule” on interim leaders not seeking the permanent job. Personally, I found Bob’s letter to be a bit ambiguously worded; I understand his public statements have been a little firmer. I think either of them would be excellent choices as interim leader.

I will choose to take them both at their word; that they’re promising to not seek the permanent leadership if they become interim leader, period. There are no “rules” to enforce these promises, just their word as gentlemen. If that can’t be enough, our problems run deeper than we think.

And finally

On Tuesday, Alf Apps told us we could expect the text of the constitutional amendments we’ll be asked to vote on by today, at the latest. Yeah, not gonna happen. Now I’m hearing maybe late today or tomorrow, or maybe Tuesday. Let’s just say, this is becoming slightly farcical. Communication remains the biggest problem here.

That said, there is a new communication posted on the party web site (apparently it hasn’t been e-mailed to members). Today is the deadline to join the party if you’d like to vote on our mystery plan, and you can sign up as a delegate now online as well.

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Breaking the pattern. Or not.

Another poll out there showing an unfavourable situation for the Liberal Party, and for Michael Ignatieff, generating the usual reaction on all sides. Other recent polls have been equally unfavourable, others slightly less so. Still, some undeniable patterns have emerged, and they’re worth considering briefly.

What the polls, particularly the leadership figures, show largely is the power of multi-million dollar ad buys. Advertising can work, particularly when the buy is massive and you’re the only ones doing the talking. Thanks to their massive fundraising advantage over the other parties, but particularly the Liberals who, years later, still haven’t adjusted to the no longer new fundraising regime, the Conservatives enjoy the ability to negatively define their opponents with an advertising blitz, knowing their opponents don’t have the ability to effectively counter-punch.

Leadership numbers can be over-hyped, but they shouldn’t be dismissed. They’re not everything – the NDP likes to trumpet Jack Layton’s high leadership numbers, but they’re not giving much air to NDP support numbers: Jack raises the brand, but only so far. Leadership numbers can be a drag on party support numbers though, and we’re definitely seeing that. We may elect 308 MPs but in Canadian politics, leaders matter.

Now, we can bemoan the situation. We can call for intra-election spending caps. Campaign finance reform. We can release attack ads attacking attack ads. It does nothing to change the reality: the ad advantage this fundraising gap enables allows the Conservatives to go into any election campaign with a built-in advantage, and forces their opponents to always have to play from behind. And whining ain’t gonna change anything. People are tuned-out from politics, they are influenced by ads, and that’s that. (Though we should really figure out how to raise money one of these days)

We saw the pattern before with Stephane Dion, and we’re seeing it again with Michael Ignatieff. Going into an election handicapped is a burden, but it’s not an insurmountable one. Between elections, the Conservative money advantage is formidable. But the spending caps of the campaign period are a leveler and more people tune in to see what’s what, if only briefly.

So while they tune in with a pre-conceived negative notion of the opposition leader that needs to be overcome, one of two things will happen. Either what they see from the leader will reinforce the negative preconceptions forged by advertising, or it will shatter their preconceptions and lead to a re-evaluation by voters.

It can go either way. With Dion, while he improved as the campaign went on, his poor skills as a retail politician on the trail played into the negative narrative the Conservatives had planted with their pre-writ ads, and the perception was cemented in the minds of Canadians. When the next campaign begins, it will be up to Michael Ignatieff what story is written. Lowered expectations are great, and the public’s expectations of him couldn’t be much lower, but they’re only great if you can beat them.

It can go either way. But it’s important to emphasize it CAN go either way. So I don’t worry that much about every poll, although of course I am disappointed we’re not doing better. But I think we’re doing the right things on the opposition front, we’re making the right moves on the policy front, and we’re doing the right things on the organizational front. And I believe Michael Igntieff will prove to be a formidable campaigner, and he’ll surprise some people.

Once we’re into a campaign, we’ll either break the pattern, or we won’t. Until then, talk is cheap.

Well, for the governing party, at least.

(Photo source)

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A sad, but inevitable day, merci Stéphane

I've transitioned back into the ever exciting world of IT journalism, but I did take time out this afternoon to watch Stéphane Dion's press conference. A sad day, inevitable after last Tuesday's results, but still a sad day.

On the day after the last election, as Liberals began to look forward, I wrote a blog post entitled Why not Stéphane Dion. And a few months later, having taken the measure of the assorted leadership candidates, I decided Dion was still my choice for leader. And a few months later, after a roller coaster of a convention, to the surprise of many, including myself, the leader he was. That chilly night he won the leadership in Montreal, when I made it back to the Travelodge still on an emotional high (and after a few glasses of wine, red of course), I wrote about the night and reflected on why I had decided to support Dion back in May:

This decision wasn’t about winnability for me. If I wanted to pick the winning horse I’d have gone for Ignatieff. I wasn’t concerned about who had the best chance of winning, and Stephane wasn’t given much of a chance at all. But I wanted to stand behind a candidate that I believed in, a candidate that I could be proud of. Someone I could respect, could honestly defend, and someone I could respect myself for supporting. Someone I wouldn’t have to apologize for, or make excuses for. That someone was Stephane.

Looking back now, I can honestly say that on these criteria, Stéphane Dion has never let me down. Stéphane was a good man that deserved a better fate, but life isn't fair, and neither is politics. But he can leave with his head held high, never having compromised his principles or his values, and that's not a bad thing to be able to say. In fact, it's pretty rare indeed.

No man is prefect; we all have our faults. Stéphane was unable to get past the language issue, although there was marked improvement. His stubbornness was also a challenge, he was too often unwilling to take the advice of those more experienced on the retail side of politics. The charisma was not in excess. And he was unable to pull this party together, although I doubt a thousand horses could have accomplished that mean feat.

Still, the Dion leadership was a noble experiment, if a failed one: can an honest, sincere man succeed in politics?

Perhaps this wasn't a true test of the question, for he had the decks stacked against him from the start: no money to counter a Conservative smear campaign, a caucus and party leadership that supported other candidates., and his own challenges to overcome already mentioned.

Still, as I begin to look ahead to the next round of the seemingly never ending Liberal leadership fracas, I find myself pondering the matter again: should we just go for the most electable, the most charismatic, other factors be dammed? I hesitate to say so, and yet I hesitate to dismiss the question. But that's for another day.

I'm glad that Stéphane is staying on until the convention, and I'm glad that today he identified some of the real issues of import to the Liberal Party and pledged to use the rest of his tenure to work on them. It would have been easy for him to just walk away, given all the grief he has been taking from the anonymous senior losers. But we have serious work ahead, and we need all hands on deck. That he is staying to help and work speaks to his honour and his commitment to the party, and reminds me of why I supported him in the first place.

While I obviously wish things had ended differently, looking back I have never regretted for one moment my decision in May of 2006 to support Stéphane Dion, and that hasn't changed today.

He is a great Liberal, and a great Canadian, and he has made me proud to be both.

Merci Stéphane, et bonne chance.

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Stéphane should stay

According to media reports, Stéphane Dion is about to announce he’s stepping down from the leadership. The party says not today, anyway. Whether the reports are accurate or not, I’m sure at the very least he’s thinking about it.

Certainly the pundits, editorial writers and the media establishment all want him out. They have their own motivations; I’m more concerned about what’s best for the Liberal Party than ensuring the media doesn’t have their agreed-upon narrative upset.

And what’s best for the Liberal Party is not the departure of Stéphane Dion as its leader.

Three weeks ago, I might have felt differently. But a new Dion began to emerge on the campaign trail. A fiester Dion. An angrier Dion. A more understandable Dion. He began, albeit too late, to connect, and he turned things around from what could have been a result closer to Campbell 93 than Turner 84. There are a lot of factors behind our 08 showing I still intend to explore in another post, but last week I decided that, in my mind at least, Stéphane has earned the right to stay around.

Perhaps I’m blinded by my early loyalty to Dion. Perhaps I stubbornly refuse to believe that an honest, genuine, sincere and smart man can’t succeed in our political system. I don’t know.

If that’s the case, allow me to take a more pragmatic look at the situation. Is the Liberal Party best-served by Dion’s depature? I don’t think it is.

Consider this. Dion has taken the worst the Conservatives and NDP could dish out, a campaign of smears and lies, and an unprecedented pre-writ ad campaign of demonization. And yet, battered and bloodied, he’s still standing.

He began to find his footing as a campaigner late in the campaign. Give him a year in opposition, drill hard on the English (which has improved markedly), launch a party renewal process and hold a badly needed policy convention to get fresh ideas percolating the whole party can rally behind. Learn how to fundraise and replenish the party coffers. And spend the year visiting every church basement from Prince Rupert to Port aux Basques, rebuilding the party from the bottom-up.

Meanwhile, Stephen Harper needs to govern through an economic crisis that will likely see the country plunge into deficit if it hasn’t already, forcing him to make difficult and unpopular decisions.

A year from now, under that scenario, I like our chances going into that election with Stéphane Dion as our leader.

But what if he resigns? Then the May convention in Vancouver becomes a leadership convention. We’ll sink deeper into debt with the leadership candidates drawing all the fundraising. No party renewal. No policy convention. For at least six months, Harper will have free reign in parliament. We’ll abstain on everything. The NDP will call us names. The usual suspects will run. We’ll lament how none are (Pierre) Trudeauesque. We’ll pick the one that seems the most winnable, having learned our lesson there. The Conservatives will launch a huge ad campaign to demonize them. We’ll go into an election we can’t afford (maybe we can share a train with Liz May) having put lipstick on a pig, and we’ll be lucky to emerge with the support levels we have now. And we’ll be utterly broke. It's the Flanagan dream scenario.

The problems with the Liberal Party go much deeper than the leader. Anyone who thinks we can just slap a new coat of paint on the big red machine and ride back to the promised land is on crack.

Punting the leader now, or allowing him to leave, will fix nothing and indeed will only hurt the party in the long run. It’s time for everyone to take a deep breath, relax a moment, and then consider what the real issues are with the Liberal Party.

That’s another post in and of itself, but for starters I’d like to see One Member One Vote, a slimmed-down party structure, open nominations (incumbents not protected), restrictions on the power to appoint candidates, and a lengthier membership requirement to vote for nominations and leadership.

As I said though, that’s another post.

Right now though, there is a chorus of voices calling for Dion to go. As he mulls his future, allow me to strike a differing note: please stay, Stéphane. The fight isn’t over yet, and you’ve got a lot of good people on your side.

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Has consultation become a foreign word in Stephen Harper's Ottawa?

Here’s how the online edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines consultation:

Main Entry: con•sul•ta•tion
Pronunciation:\ˌkän(t)-səl-ˈtā-shən\
Function: noun
Date: 15th century
1: council, conference; specifically : a deliberation between physicians on a case or its treatment
2: the act of consulting or conferring

Most of us learned the word back in grade school but vocabulary must be one of those use it or lose it type things, because the Ottawa press corps seems to have forgotten what it means:

Caucus pressure drives Dion to make green-plan concessions

JANE TABER
SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER
September 3, 2008

WINNIPEG -- Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is changing his controversial carbon tax plan on the eve of an expected election campaign amid pressure from his caucus members.

The policy will now incorporate breaks for farmers, truckers and fishermen in the form of subsidies to help buy equipment to reduce use of diesel fuel.

Mr. Dion will announce the changes in his plan regarding the farming sector today in Winnipeg, where he is attending his national caucus summer retreat. The subsidies to the other sectors will be announced later, sources said.

The Conservatives are trying to frame this as some kind of embarrassing climb-down for Stephane Dion, like he’s being forced into making concessions by Green Shift opponents. And a gullible media is playing along.

It's nonsense.

Maybe it really does seem like that to journalists have political observers who have had their minds warped by Stephen Harper’s control-freak Ottawa, a town where Harper and Doug Finley decide what selected demographic population segments want to hear, talking-points are dispatched to those MPs allowed to appear in public and anyone that meanders off-script gets whacked. That may be the new Ottawa normal, but it wasn’t always so.

It may seem weird and strange when contrasted with The Harper Way, but what’s happening with The Green Shift is exactly how policy is supposed to be developed. Policy is put out there, MPs talk to their constituents and gather feedback, bring those concerns back to the party, and the policy is tweaked as appropriate.

Not only is that how policy is supposed to be developed, not only is it an important facet of the functioning of a truly democratic party, but it also just plain makes for better policy. As a Canadian from a ruralish area, even if I do now reside in Hogtown, I was concerned that the Green Shift might not have done enough to address the realities of life of non-urban Canadians, so I’m pleased there will be some tweaks.

And this process serves to underline the diversity of the Liberal caucus. We’ve got people that can speak to the concerns of farmers, to the concerns of rural and Northern residents, to the concerns of urbanites. Getting all their input, and adjusting the Green Shift plan to recognize their constituencies’ legitimate concerns, make this a better policy. And no matter how Stephen Harper may define it, in my view listening, consultation and dialogue is how I would to define leadership.

When contrasted with the authoritarian command and control of Harper, I’ll choose Dion’s open and consultative style any day of the week. When presented with the contrast and the choice, I think Canadians will too.

UPDATE: Jason has some thoughts and so does BCL. And Danielle too.

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Where's the Harper personality that leads?

As you may know, after the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, called the Liberal Green Shift environmental plan presented by the Leader of the Opposition, Stephane Dion, "crazy" and declared it would "screw everyone" Dion invited Harper to participate in a public debate on the topic. Harper declined.

Then, Dion offered to hold the debate in Calgary. In the Lion’s Den. Oil Country. Where they eat Liberals for dinner. Particularly mild-mannered Quebecois professors that wear glasses and have dogs named Kyoto and mothers from France. Still, Harper wimped-out:

Accusing the prime minister of indulging in "low blow politics and character assassination," Liberal leader Stéphane Dion challenged Stephen Harper yesterday to a one-on-one carbon tax policy debate in Calgary, the Conservative PM's riding and the energy capital of Canada.

Harper dismissed Dion's challenge for a leaders' duel on his home turf over "which plan - his plan or my plan - on climate change is the best, both for climate change and for the energy sector."

"Mr. Dion hasn't even realized that the debate started weeks ago," Harper's spokesman Dimitri Soudas said.

How could we have missed the start of a high-minded debate? The talking oil spot really should have given it away. Maybe if Dion agrees to let Harper’s mom be the moderator, and hold it at a Calgary Tim Horton’s, they’ll go for it.

Seriously, it’s all rather silly. No one expects Harper to agree to a debate on this. But if there’s one thing the Conservatives have proven, it’s that good politics is often silly. And by being seen to dodge Dion, while offering up unintelligent retorts like “it’s crazy” it portrays Dion as a leader and Harper as having something to hide.

Throughout this drama I’ve been reminded of an incident during the last election campaign. During one of the televised debates Paul Martin challenged Gilles Duceppe to debate him anywhere, anytime on unity and sovereignty. Duceppe said ok and Martin sheepishly backed away.

Since the Vancouver leaders' debates last week, when Martin challenged Duceppe to "meet him on every street corner, in every city and in every town and village in Quebec," Duceppe has been calling for a direct exchange with the prime minister.

Then Harper stepped-in and said I’ll debate you Gilles, I’ll speak for Canada. Gilles then sheepishly backed away, with the Liberals imploding in Quebec there was no benefit for him to elevate Harper’s stature in the province.

Harper also took a jab at Martin for turning down Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe's offer of a one-on-one debate in French between the two.

"I'm prepared to take that challenge, instead," said Harper to loud cheers as he made a farm-support announcement. "I look forward to debating Mr. Duceppe in the near future."

Duceppe appeared less than eager to take on Harper's challenge -- possibly because of the positive reception that the Conservative policies have been receiving in Quebec.

"There were no challenges made by Mr. Harper, telling me to meet him anywhere in Quebec," Duceppe said.

That dramedy though was a turning point (one of many) during that campaign. By taking-up that debating challenge, Harper was seen as Prime Minsiterial. As a leader. People began to take him more seriously.

I wonder what happened to that Stephen Harper, the one that picked-up challenges, that led? Maybe the Liberals stole that part of his personality too. Either way, by Harper ducking Dion’s challenge, this time it’s the Liberal leader gaining credibility, while the Conservative sheepishly backs away.

P.S. Speaking of Harper's personalities, remember this golden oldie?

Harper, however, is refusing to back down from his statement.

Campaigning in Chatham, Ont. on Wednesday, Harper said he doesn't go around demanding apologies, and even boasted that he can "take a punch."

Whatever happened to TakesPunches Harper? Instead we've got Lawsuity McDemandAlottaApologies Harper.

Could he have multiple personalities? Did someone else give the above quote (I'm looking at you Rahim Jaffer)? Will the real Stephen Harper please stand up?

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