Here's a piece I penned that appears in tomorrow's Ottawa Citizen.
The Liberal party sure likes things complicated
There’s an earworm and an allegory
snaking their way around my head as I ponder the most recent drama in the
Liberal Party of Canada. The earworm comes courtesy of Avril Lavigne: Why’d you
have to go and make things so complicated? And the allegory? Why, it comes from
The Scorpion and the Frog: “It’s my nature ...”
Having been involved with the
Liberal party in the lowest and the highest organizational capacities over a
really long period of time, I can attest to the endless machinations of
reforming and democratizing, with an outcome that almost always disappoints or
gets reversed when it no longer suits. It always seems to be one step forward
two steps back. With luck, this time will finally be different.
In the early ’80s a group of Young
Liberals pushed for a lengthy reform process that saw among other things a
diminution of the weight of party elites in party decision making. For example,
senators and members of the appointed revenue committee were no longer to be
delegates to conventions. At the first convention where the delegation would
have been thusly composed, the 1990 leadership, the party took the highly
democratically questionable step of reinstating those delegates through a
retroactive constitutional amendment. The day before the voting began, these people
were not delegates. The day of the vote, they were.
Who this was fair to, or unfair to,
didn’t really seem to matter. Average party members had made a decision that
didn’t work for the elites and vested interests, and that just wouldn’t do.
After two extremely long and
divisive leadership races in 1989-’90 and 2006, and another aborted one in
2008-’09, party members decided that future leadership contests would be
reasonably short, and so when Michael Ignatieff decided two days after the
election last year to step down, I and others thought: Finally! We know exactly
what’s up, and everyone will be on an equal footing. We will have a leadership
vote no later than October and then get down to the brass tacks of rebuilding,
unfettered by leadership sniping and with a good four years to heal and
strengthen.
But some didn’t think that was the
right way to go, and constitutions hadn’t stood in the way before. It’s just
that this time, according those in charge (the infamous “National Board”) the
party wanted and deserved an “unprecedented” national consultation because the
last democratic decision made by the party, well, just didn’t suit the current
circumstances.
An “extraordinary” convention was
called and held to change the timing of the leadership contest. But this is
only part of the story.
It’s true that there were people
calling for consultations on the leadership process and timing. But some were
also calling for those consultations to include the appointment of an interim
leader. It only made sense, if you are going to democratize major decisions
beyond the constitution due to circumstance, this one should be democratized
too.
Clearly, after the circumstances
surrounding the appointment of the previous interim leader, Michael Ignatieff,
which many felt had contributed to the tainting (or solidifying depending on
your point of view) of the Liberal “brand,” this was the one area where a
greater say from the party’s proletariat was called for. But here, the board
chose not to consult, and to keep the process and decision to themselves, as
was their entitlement.
And they did so with the inclusion
of the famous “conditions,” two of which many believed were directed at
excluding, specifically, the candidacy of one individual, Bob Rae: those of
non-complicity with the NDP and agreement not to seek the permanent leadership.
At the time, when these two
decisions were coinciding, Rae implored the party, saying that if he was to
accept the interim leadership under the proposed conditions, he would need time
to rebuild the party and basically make it leader-worthy. According to one
report at the time, “Rae laid down a condition of his own. He said he’s only
interested in being interim leader if the vote for permanent leader is put off
for 18 to 24 months.”
And so Bob Rae became interim leader
and the leadership was put off for gee — 22 months from the decision and 18
from when the leadership would have been. But circumstances changed. Jack
Layton’s passing resulted in a leadership race of its own and increased focus on
the NDP. People said the leadership was too far away. Bob Rae did such a superb
job that the party brass were under intense pressure to change the process
again. Media focus increased and the party became increasingly fragile and
divided. And, then finally, someone decided for once to do the right thing and
stick with the program.
Here another earworm invades. This
time it’s Alanis. Ironic, isn’t it?
Sheila Gervais is former national
director of the Liberal Party of Canada. She blogs at quixoterules.blogspot.com.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
