"Those who'll play with cats must expect to be scratched."

Ooh la la! This is good.



All Parties in Canada should take note of the sentiments expressed and adjust conduct accordingly if you want to see voter apathy diminish, citizen (and member) engagement rise, and respect for our democratic institutions return.

h/t Liberals for Electoral Reform

"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.

Sancho, the realist, tells his master,

"I sometimes think that all you tell me of knighthood, kingdoms, empires and islands is all windy blather and lies"

So we see a flurry of announcements (and appointments) on the organizational side of the Party over the weekend related to themes that likely resonate with most active (and inactive) Liberals: renewal, change and preparedness.

On the face of it, these are smart and early moves by Interim Leader (IL), Michael Ignatieff in indicating to a Party frankly conflicted by the opportunities afforded by new and fresh (not-Dion) leadership and concerns over how we got here and perpetuation of the "same old, same old", that he's listened, and taken swift actions.

Unfortunately it seems to some (certainly this writer) that while ILMI has learned from the experience of the last leader who simply couldn't get the Party's act together on anything (2.5 National Directors, botched by-elections, election unreadiness, lackadaisical and indecisive candidate recutiment and no proposed reforms), he has also taken pages out of several books from the past: go with who you know, go with the flow, go with the status quo.

While I still can't totally wrap my mind around the need for both a renewal and a change process, and I do think that the National Campaign co-chairs are a group of respected, skilled adults, the make-up of the Renewal Committee leaves me scratching my head. I guess if you want to make sure that everyone knows that you are firmly in control you're going to make sure that the reforms people are craving are nonetheless not too risky and ultimately made in your own image.

For the most part the individuals named to the Renewal Committee share the common ground of either supporting ILMI in one or other of his leadership bids (so one assumes too support for the process that brought him victory) and/or are long-standing associates of the institutional party. To the extent that these people have status in the party it is because they have participated in the development of current processes (written, but also largely unwritten) and have benefitted from them: they are products of the status quo. Just like ILMI (PMPM too) was unchallenged, it is very likely that the "responsibility to protect" will ensure that the current command and control nature of the party remains so as well.

So the carrot of reform has been dangled in front us and knighthood, kingdoms and empires await those of us who clamber aboard the horse in its never-ending (and futile?) pursuit.