“Fear is sharp-sighted, and can see things under ground, and much more in the skies.”

Like I said here last week, I don't know why we fear a good and healthy discussion and debate in our party.


Yesterday there were reports that some members of the Party are interested in discussing possible collaborations between progressive parties, and others basically saying no discussion required, the position is clear.  Well, speaking as yet another member, I'm just not so sure this is true.

 

The entire last session of Parliament was defined by the tugs, tears and stretches of our democratic institutions, processes and conventions, written and unwritten, contorted and explained.  From prorogation to prorogation (well actually from breaking of a fixed election law …), the country was seized with discussion of about the state and functioning of our democracy – and the changing nature of politics and politic discourse.

But in our party, not so much.

These are no little issues.  These are big important things that people in the Party want to discuss, member to member, friend to friend.  Like MacLeans’ Paul Wells noted in a tweet yesterday by pointing to this post on independent site Punditsguide.ca, there’s certainly enough evidence out there pointing to the facts we should have been discussing for a very, very long time.  They indicate that this Party has been most successful when we reach out, when we seek like-minded citizens and voters.

From all of the op-eds, blog postings, discussion boards, Facebook groups, notes and links, tweets, roundtables and academic treatises out there over the past 18 months or so, many of them by Liberals and liberals known and not-so-known, people want to discuss this. And there are many opinions. Many, many opinions.  But a discernable consensus position?

Personally, I’m not so keen on paid officials and pundits inferring that any member of the Party and an elected officer to boot, can’t speak for the Party in those capacities and yet they do. 

Better that we not, as Cervantes says, see things under ground, but examine them in the light of day.

Some more things...

...of a constitutional amendment nature. In addition to the OMOV amendment to the amendment, the YLC (and this is not to pick on the YLC, it's just that they have put forward some of the more interesting proposed constitutional amendments) have proposed a couple of sets of changes to the composition of the National Executive which are worthy of debate. They have also proposed one regarding ex-officio delegates at Convention which might raise some eyebrows given the "other" discussions about influence going on right now. Let's start with that one.

The amendment itself is simple. It would remove the words "has served" and replace them with "is currently serving" in paragraph 62(1)(h)(in the section right to attend and vote at conventions), so that it would read: "each person who is currently serving as a member of the House of Commons or the Senate of Canada and who is a member of the Party."

The thought process is very interesting. Here is the background paragraph provided in the amendment document (highlights are mine):

"Background: Concerns have been raised about the influence and number of ex-officio delegates versus that of elected EDA delegates. This does not suggest that certain elected positions do not warrant ex-officio status, however, under the current rules some individuals have virtually a life-time ex-officio status. Also, it should be noted that a proposed amendment that will be considered at the Convention will reduce the number of EDA elected delegates from 20 to 14 (and youth from six to four). Should it pass, the influence of EDA elected delegates will be diminished even more so. The amendment would limit the number of parliamentary ex-officios to sitting MPs and Senators and reduce the overall number of ex-officios versus elected EDA delegates."

To Quixotique this is a good amendment, very much in keeping with the overall premise of the move to OMOV in leadership selection that the member is ultimately supreme, and real-time participation in the Party is more important than historical, and is certainly more democratic than the current (new in 2006) delegate structure. (As an aside, the prevailing wisdom for the upcoming leadership convention is that former MPs and Senators, whether or not they are former Liberal MPs or Senators, as long as they are current members of the Party, will be allowed to be delegates.)

It's just that I can't square the thinking on undue influence with the "other" amendment. Are the youth not arguing here that "delegates for life" are an artificial enhancement of the influence of a faction (elites?) within the Party? Maybe someone could explain (rationalize) it to me.

"It is the part of a wise man to keep himself to-day for to-morrow, and not to venture all his eggs in one basket. "

Quixotique is once again confused. Debate springing up over the weekend in the youth wing of the Party shows us that our youth are both amongst the most progressive and the most conservative elements in the Party at the same time. This weekend the YLC put forward an amendment to the proposed National Executive sponsored constitutional amendment to institute a riding-based-weighted one-member-one-vote system for leadership selection.

Many have already weighed in appropriately on this debate with well-reasoned arguments. Youth in favour of the status quo?? Youth for youth? or Youth for a strong party?

While Quixotique favours the proposed OMOV process, she has consistently been concerned about the over-emphasis on this change as the key reform that the Party can make. This one change is not a panacea for all that ails the party, but a start based on and illustrating the democratic principles that should permeate all of our other processes and governance.

Now, what has been held out as seminal change runs the risk of being bastardized; debased, in the name of vested interest.

And not for the first time. The 2005 biennial is a case in point. What was striking as the Convention moved through its agenda of policy discussion through to matters of structure and process was just how absolutely the vested interests remained in control in the Party.

Early on, the Youth wing of the Party engineered a defeat of a policy resolution proposed by the Women's Caucus and the Women's commission to state, as a matter of party policy (there was no accompanying, binding Constitutional amendment), that the Party was committed to gender equality in all of its structures and that it would put in place an action plan to move towards at least 50% female candidates for the next Federal Election. As the preamble to the resolution stated, women represent 52% of the Canadian population. We were told that the Youth representation at the Convention was close to one-third of the registered delegates, yet Statistics Canada told us that the population of those in the age group eligible for membership in the YLC (14-25) stood at around 16% of the Canadian population. The motives of the Young Liberals in defeating this statement of principle could only be related to their desire to maintain an inordinate control over Party matters. To Quixotique, this most certainly represented a vested interest.

In 2006, while the youth were successful in whipping their (over-represented) delegation to obtain a similar amendment to the OMOV proposal at the time, they were somehow unable to whip enough votes to have the main proposal adopted. Was the amendment to the amendment a poison pill? Would OMOV be in place now had the youth not protected their own flank?

It would be a shame to yet again have OMOV fail at the convention while this concept was the most ardently debated at En Famille and in presentations to the Renewal Committee and while there appears to be such a wide consensus of support for the notion throughout the Party, but I think it even worse that it pass in the gerrymandered form that it would take should (some of) the youth be successful this time.