True Grit: Why a meaningless boxing match just might mean everything

Voters are a fickle, shallow bunch sometimes. The least little thing can put them off. Nixon's sweaty lip during his televised debate with Kennedy. Stephane Dion's sad sack shrug. Stockwell Day's jet ski ride to political oblivion.

Political history is littered with the corpses of promising careers brought low by such seemingly trivial incidents. Oddly, they often seem to involve sports.

In 1974, Conservative candidate Robert Stanfield was photographed tossing a football around during a campaign rest stop in North Bay. While he caught the ball perfectly most of the time, it was the shot of his one awkward fumble that hit the front page of the papers the next morning. It gave Canadians an image of Stanfield as clumsy and inept, and is generally acknowledged to have cost him the election.

Far less common are the serendipitous moments that transform the public image of a candidate or a party for the better. I can think of two offhand. One was George W. Bush's brief moment of heroism-by-proxy as he stood wielding a bullhorn amid the ruins of the World Trade Centre, in solidarity with the first responders who he would later betray.

Another was when new Liberal leader Pierre Elliott Trudeau, regarded at the time as a charming but effete intellectual, attended the St Jean Baptiste Day Parade in Montreal the day before the 1968 election. Separatists started throwing rocks and bottles at the reviewing stand but Trudeau refused to budge, even after the other dignitaries fled. The footage was broadcast across the country, and Trudeau was suddenly perceived as not just charismatic but tough and fearless.

He won by a landslide.

We may have witnessed one of these rare moments on Saturday night, when Liberal heir apparent Justin Trudeau took on a trash-talking bruiser of a Conservative Senator in the boxing ring and, against all expectations, beat him soundly.

As a purely physical contest, the outcome really shouldn't have been as much of a surprise as it was. Brazeau might have looked like a beast from some UFC cage match, but by the time Trudeau had finished putting an extra 20 pounds on his lean frame, the two men were actually quite close in weight. Brazeau might have had a black belt in karate, but that clearly couldn't help him against Trudeau's 20 years of boxing experience. Add to that the taller man's longer reach, and Trudeau's victory wasn't really all that remarkable.

As a political metaphor, it's a whole other story. Because really, who expects the Liberals to win at anything anymore?

Certainly the Liberals didn't want to draw attention to the event, lest it turn into one more humiliating defeat. And it might have passed virtually unnoticed if the Conservatives themselves - and their media surrogates at SunTV - hadn't been so vocally and gleefully anticipating the beat-down of the son of their most hated political rival. They were the ones who invested the whole thing with symbolic and political importance, even to the extent of using it as a taunting non sequitor during Question Period.

If Trudeau had lost, we would never have heard the end of it. Like Dion's shrug, the image of Brazeau's glove smashing into that patrician Trudeau nose might even have inspired its own website. PunchTrudeauintheFace.ca perhaps?

Instead, we are left with a very different image. A positive image, which isn't nearly as easy to bottle and sell as a negative one. Nobody really cares enough about Senator Brazeau to gloat over his defeat, and it's a little ridiculous to try to deliberately craft a political narrative around the victory of brains over brawn, of quiet grace over braggadocio, of strength of character over mere muscle, of...

Ugh. See how easy it is to get carried away? Still, there's a reason why there are so many sports movies out there, and why so many of them are about boxing. Any good screenwriter will tell you, it's never really just a game, or just a fight.

If the Liberals are smart, they won't even try to manipulate this. They'll just let the image of Trudeau wiping the smirk off Brazeau's bleeding face sink in and work its magic. Images are insidious, and just like Dion's shrug or Stanfield's fumble, this one could slowly infect the national subconscious and, with any luck, subtly shift how Canadians perceive both the party and its young champion.

The biggest effect of all this might just be on the Liberals themselves. They've gotten used to thinking of themselves as losers, so nobody was more surprised than they to see Justin Trudeau triumph against such an adversary.  Somehow this unlikely victory has given Liberals a chance to do something they haven't done in a very long time.

They've started thinking of themselves as winners again. And that might make all the difference in the world.

Canada 150 in Halton

In the few years since I've been engaged in party politics, I don't think I've ever encountered such a stunning clash between hope and cynicism as I have this weekend.

From the beginning, just getting our own local riding to support the idea of doing our own 'satellite' conference was a bit of a struggle. I can understand why. On the surface, this just looked like yet another way to placate the grassroots members with an invitation to provide input that would never make it's way to an election platform. Why should we bother?

Certainly time was a factor. From the day we got the details on how the Party wanted to handle this to the day of the conference we had about a month and a half. Happily, the group that came together to organize our event was small, motivated, and hard-working.

We had no idea how many people would show up. I was preparing myself for just our twenty panelists and moderators, but in the end there were at least 50 people attending through the course of the day. I hardly recognized any of them.

For me, the best gauge of how things were going came during the breaks. Instead of people just drinking their coffee or talking to their friends, the room and the hallway outside got downright noisy with animated conversations. People would seek out specific panelists to talk to or follow up with someone from the audience who had asked an intriguing question. I regretted not having brought business cards because they were flying left and right. I did manage to get cards from John Opsteen (Halton Region Federation of Agriculture) after picking his brains about food policy at the sandwich table, and from Dr. Jeff Zabudsky, the President of Sheridan College, who wanted me to send him links to my blogs.

The feeling in that room was like we had opened a window to let in the fresh air.

I can't even begin to list all the ideas that were presented and discussed. I can tell you that one item of agreement for everyone on our "Real Life Issues for Canadian Families" panel was the absolute need for a national child care policy. Several panelists talked about the $7 a day program in Quebec which, while it's had its problems, has also resulted in lower high school dropout rates, lower crime rates, more women in the workforce - a whole host of indicators that, among other benefits, result in lower costs and higher revenues across the board.

My only disappointment was with the panel that I sat on, which was supposed to discuss the "Creative and Competitive Economy". The topic was admittedly a difficult one to get a handle on, and our moderator had a rather draconian approach to time management, but for some reason I seemed to be the only one interested in talking about Canadian content in the film and television industry, punitive copyright vs. levies on media, arts funding models in the digital age, etc.

I was glad that at least Stephen Baker (owner of the Halton Compass) was there to help me talk about the impact of the internet on print journalism. Everyone else just seemed to want to talk about job training, productivity, and... I can't even remember what else.

I'll be posting what I wanted to say later this week.

After all the excitement and buzz of our own local event, it was a bit of a shock to emerge and read what the national media had to say about it all. I don't know why I expected anything different, but all the naysayers were still saying nay and all the cynics were still poo-pooing the whole thing.

And of course the Conservatives and the media all pounced when it became apparent that most experts (and apparently, most Liberals) still believe that a carbon tax is the most effective and the most fiscally responsible method of reducing carbon emissions. Go figure.

Still, there were some cracks opening in the wall of negativity. For one thing, even the nattering nabobs were forced to admit that the technological wonder of combining webcast, live chat and Skype to interconnect dozens of simultaneous events across the country was really pretty cool, and may in fact presage an evolution in how such events are conducted in the future.

Then, today, some of the other assumptions about Canada 150 started to crumble. For one thing, Robert Fowler shattered the notion that this was all going to be a non-controversial Liberal strokefest.

And then Michael Ignatieff surprised us all.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff concluded a landmark Liberal policy conference Sunday with an ambitious agenda that increases federal spending on the environment and health care, to be paid for by cancelling planned cuts to corporate taxes.

In doing so, Mr. Ignatieff made it clear that the next election, when it comes, will be between two clear alternatives: A Conservative government that emphasizes deficit and tax reduction, and a Liberal government that is willing to defer tax cuts and perhaps extend the deficit to target social programs.

“Do we rush ahead with further reductions to corporate tax[es] we can’t afford?” he asked the 300 participants at a Montreal, “or do we use these resources” to fund new programs.

A tax freeze, he said, would prove that the Liberals had “the courage to choose, to make the choices we have to make.”

Holy crap! You'd almost think he'd taken Robert Fowler's withering criticisms to heart.

Ok, so there's still the possibility that our leadership is going to back down, water it down, say no, of course, he didn't really mean to say that. God knows they've done it before. But right now, today, it appears that Michael Ignatieff has decided to nut up and stand firm for doing the right thing instead of just the electable thing.

Maybe the Liberals will end up standing for something again after all.

Forget Montreal - come to Canada 150 in Halton!

Reading the various blog posts and op-eds about this weekend's 'Canada at 150' think-fest in Montreal, one might be forgiven for thinking that the whole thing is just some expensive, elitist wank designed to give the appearance of policy input without actually listening to anyone.

Of course, none of the nay-sayers and poo-pooers have bothered to mention the other Canada 150 events going on this weekend: the local 'satellite' conferences.

When the Montreal Conference was first announced, it was indeed planned as an exclusive event - just like Kingston, Aylmer and all the others were. Which is exactly why several grassroots members pressured the party to broaden the scope by setting up local events across the country, like the one I'm helping to organize in Halton.

The idea was to decentralize the whole process by linking these smaller events into Montreal via the internet. We would watch the webcast of the proceedings in Montreal, discuss the issues with our own group of thinkers and activists, then feed our ideas and conclusions back to Montreal.

That's the ideal. In practice... well, we'll see. Some ridings are just hosting watching parties for the webcast, which is rather sad. Others aren't doing anything at all.

To them, all I can say is you can't complain that no one is listening if you don't speak up.

Our event in Halton is going to be a real local version of what's happening in Montreal. We have over a dozen panelists including local municipal councillors, representatives from environmental and multicultural organizations, community activists for accessibility and social housing, local media - all sorts of people, hardly any of whom are partisan Liberals.

We'll be monitoring the Montreal webcast and will put it up on the screen if their discussions look particularly interesting, but mostly it will be a discussion between our panelists and the 30-60 guests we're expecting. Then a summary and any conclusions we draw will all get fed back to Montreal.

Whether the party chooses to do anything with our input will remain to be seen. I'm not holding my breath, frankly. But even if we end up binned, I will still consider this a useful exercise. For one thing, organizing all this with only five people in the space of a month and a half has proven my theory that the fewer organizers you have, the more you get done. Having no budget helps too.

For another thing, we have made some great new connections with local leaders and community organizations that will last long after this conference is over.

Lastly, even if our party leadership doesn't listen, our local candidate will be there soaking it all in. And when she is elected as our MP, she will be taking all our input and all these ideas to caucus with her.

Seriously - come to Halton on Saturday. Sheridan College, Oakville, Room G404. We're there all day, and it won't cost you six hundred dollars. Although if you want to throw us a couple of bucks to cover sandwiches and photocopying, we'd really appreciate it.

Doin' the Windsor LPCO AGM

It's day two of the Ontario Liberal AGM, and I'm wishing I were still in bed. Yet here I am in Windsor, up earlier than I've been in a long while, getting ready to head over to the conference centre at the casino.

Must. Caffinate..

Yesterday was a lot of fun. Well, not so much the speeches - although Alf Apps was surprisingly articulate and passionate. But was fun getting to socialize with my fellow Halton Liberals as we wandered the halls looking for the next hospitality suite.

BTW, James Curran still throws the best party. Maloney's reception had us all packed in like cattle, barely able to hear each other, but Curran's was in a much nicer room, better layout, and it was a much younger crowd. And there was pizza. I'm not saying that's necessarily a reason to vote for Jim for VP Organization - I'm just sayin'...

I must be getting the hang of this whole convention thing - or maybe it's from becoming a candidate myself - but I'm finding it a lot easier to mix and mingle and not just hide out with people I know. I met a bunch of terrific people last night, including candidate Christine Tabbert from Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke. That's Chalk River, AECL country, so she was very familiar with my blog and a big fan. Well shucks!

I'm doing my best to NOT talk about my municipal campaign with everyone, but I'm not succeeding very well. Hopefully immersing myself in training sessions and constitutional amendments all day will shake all that out of my head for a while.

BTW, I do not recommend the Days Inn on Goyeau. Just sayin'.

A Dufferin-Caledon FLA Member Speaks Out

Yes, I'm still blogging about the ignoble end of Garth Turner's candidacy in Dufferin-Caledon. Why? Because people aren't playing by the rules, and it's pissing me off.

So.

Today, I asked one of the board members of the Dufferin-Caledon Liberal Association for their take on the situation. Although they have identified themselves as one of the 'pro-Garth' camp, this person had already been involved in D-C riding politics long before Garth Turner showed up.

With that in mind, here are a few of the things they told me:

"The DCFLA Candidate Search Committee did due diligence in their search of over 25 viable candidate-prospects up here & Garth was the only one who emerged from that search willing to stand - the Report was accepted unanimously by the DCFLA in August & by LPCO thereafter. Consequently, there was no spectral 'other candidate' in the wings at that time. If one has come to the forefront in the last two weeks or so, then that is news to everyone I know!

As it happens, that spectral 'other candidate' emerged today in the pages of the Orangeville Citizen - Alton businessman Bill Prout. My contact knew nothing of this, but has informed me that this person has "no profile in the Association & will be hard-pressed to garner anything more than the paltry 8,000 votes won by Rebecca Finch in 2008."

"Ms. Rosenstock gave us the number of 170 in June/09 after consultation with an unknown LPCO official - I took that to be gospel, perhaps naively. At the time, the issue was exactly how many "Laurier Club" members we have in the Membership. Under such designation, the FLA is actually allowed multiple- memberships based on some arcane formula that LPCO has (ie.) 1 Laurier Club Member = 5 virtual memberships for the Riding Association. Ms.. Rosenstock has never clarified for us how many of these mulitple-memberships we indeed have: I believe it to be 4; she has argued that we have only 2."

Ms. Rosenstock is either confused or misinformed. The number 170 happens to be exactly 2% of the Liberal votes from the previous election, which is the threshold required for a riding with a sitting Liberal Member of Parliament. However as a riding with NO current Liberal MP, they would only be required to meet the one and a half percent membership threshold.

Also, there is no minimum required number of Laurier Club Members (those who donate the maximum in a given year). There is, however, a minimum number of Victory Club Members (those who donate $10 a month or more). That number is equivalent to 10% of the minimum membership requirement. However, a Laurier Club Member does count as 5 Victory Club members.

The rules are quite clear on this. All anyone had to do was look them up.

"At the August meeting of the DCFLA, we had representatives from LPCO, who assured the association that we were 'close enough' to the 170 (using the Laurier Club factoring) to request a Nomination meeting date, which we did by motion, for August 28th. At that time, it was ambiguous as to how many members we actually had, since Ms. Rosenstock could never remember clearly when asked & there was always a reason why she could not get a clear update from downtown. Nevertheless, we took the LPCO officials at their word & requested the meeting for the 28th."

This focus on the Laurier Club numbers makes me wonder if the real issue was the number of Victory Club members and not the total members. I've emailed the relevant person at LPCO for clarification.

"Amidst all the innuendo I see on the blogs & in the newspapers, let me try to be clear.... the association never would have been permitted to request a Nomination meeting by motion if we were not 'close enough' to meet the membership threshold...whatever the number was! We were encouraged to request this meeting (a) because electoral urgency permitted it (b) we understood that we had the blessing of LPCO by virtue of their two reps. sitting there & (c) we had a candidate green-lit, approved by the DCFLA Search Committee & ready to go!

"If there is a reason for the reluctance to grant us a Nomination meeting, then I do not know it. What I can say is that some people (Ms. Rosenstock & Jeff May) have been opposed to a Garth Turner candidacy in this riding, for whatever reasons they may have. Until recently, I have had no reason to suspect their motives, but when I read things they have said on Steven Janke's blog or in the local papers, I am led to be suspicious."

This might all seem to be nothing more than a petty internal squabble over an admittedly controversial local candidate. But I'll leave you with this thought for now:

If it should turn out that this riding association really did follow all the rules and meet all the requirements to select the candidate of their choice, what does it say about the application of those rules that they were still prevented from doing so?

Garth in D-C: Curiouser and Curiouser

There appears to be a difference of opinion between Garth Turner and Janet Rosenstock, the Membership Chair of the Dufferin-Caledon FLA, regarding the number of members required to hold a candidate nomination meeting.

As a lawyer's daughter, I personally despise this kind of discrepancy on such an easily resolved issue. And since nobody else seems keen to sort out fact from fiction in this case, I guess it's up to me.

To quote Ms. Rosenstock:

Every FLA must have a certain level of membership before a nomination meeting can be granted. The Membership level is lowered during what is called, 'Electoral Urgency.' Our 'Electoral Urgency' number is roughly 175. We needed about 12 more members.

In a later interview with CTV she claims that Turner was only 9 members short, but in any case, where did this magic number of 175 come from?

The Liberal Party does indeed have specific requirements for membership levels in these cases. Here's what the rules say:

“Minimum Membership Threshold” means, in respect of each Electoral District Association, the lesser of:
(i) 300 EDA members; or
(ii) a number of EDA members equivalent to one and one half per cent of the Liberal vote in the last federal Election, provided however that in no event shall this reduce the required number of members to less than 100;

In the case of D-C, the number of Liberal votes in the last election was 8,495. 1.5% of 8,495 is 127, which would be considerably below either the 166 or 163 figures mentioned by Rosenstock.

But what about this "Electoral Urgency" situation? Well, that gets a little more dicey. I won't quote the entire section of legalese, but here's the rub:

In any such state of electoral urgency, the National Campaign Chair or his or her designate may alter the time lines and procedures fixed by these Rules in such manner as he or she, in his or her sole and absolute discretion, may see fit, for any Electoral District(s), provided that any changes to these Rules so enacted shall forthwith be communicated in writing to any affected EDA president and to any Potential Nomination Contestant (of whom the National Campaign Chair or designate has knowledge) who may be affected. The failure of any such person to receive such notice shall not invalidate the declaration of electoral urgency.

In other words, all bets are off.

I'm waiting for further clarification of this from our own riding officials, but common sense would seem to dictate that any situation of 'Electoral Urgency' would only have existed before Ignatieff and Harper agreed to strike an EI reform panel on June 17th, and after Ignatieff announced his intention to vote against the government on August 31st.

Rosenstock claims that Turner was informed of the current membership requirements on June 18th.

The other problem is, Ms. Rosenstock was quoted as saying, "The Membership level is lowered during what is called, 'Electoral Urgency." Which could not possibly be the case in this case, since the number of members she's claiming would be required is higher than would normally be the case.

Don't get me wrong - I'm well aware of Garth's ability to place himself in a favourable light in any given situation. But there's definitely something rotten in D-C.

Garth Turner's Out in Dufferin-Caledon (Updated)

Wow. Just when you think Garth Turner can't surprise you any more, he goes and does something like this:

After being recruited to run for MP in the Ontario riding of Dufferin-Caledon, and having my candidacy approved by the Liberal Party last July, today I informed the leader of my resignation.

My hope in returning to Parliament was to help clear the path to a viable economic future. Stephen Harper’s $56 billion deficit and profligate spending are massive threats. But also threatening is a lack of debate about viable options and an honest conversation with voters and citizens on the looming consequences.

Therefore it’s hard to see what the coming election will be about if we’re not prepared to discuss the options in the wake of the Harper fiscal disaster. Economic growth alone won’t wipe out an historic debt load or the need for spending cuts and tax hikes. The looming HST in Ontario and BC is likely but a taste of medicine to come. This is what Canadians need to understand.

A year ago Stephen Harper said there would be no recession and no deficit. That was untrue. Now he says there will be no consequences of our record shortfall. Also untrue.

In my financial books and writings I’ve warned of the need for families to invest wisely, use debt carefully and live within their means in an uncertain world. Rather than tell voters interest rates and taxes won’t rise nor spending fall, leaders should guide us all into realistic choices. Sadly, that doesn’t win elections.

In Dufferin-Caledon I have been the only nominee for MP candidate since August. I’m interpreting the leader’s failure to allow a nomination meeting as a signal my views are unwelcome.

The views he's referring to are, in this case, expressed in his post against the HST, and in another in favour of honestly discussing the fact that tax increases and/or massive spending cuts are going to be required to get us out of deficit. And yeah, I can see that not making him any friends when the Liberal Party is desperately trying not to take a solid position on either of these things.

What puzzles me is this. Dufferin-Caledon is regarded by most as a fairly safe Conservative riding. So, assuming that rumours are true and nobody at Liberal HQ likes Garth Turner or wants to see him elected again, wouldn't it seem the perfect solution to banish him to just such an apparently unwinnable riding?

And yet, if Garth's interpretation of events is correct, the leader of the Liberal Party has gone out of his way twice now to thwart even the faintest hope of Garth Turner ever attending another Liberal caucus meeting - once in Halton by appointing a candidate, and again in Caledon by leaving him in indefinite limbo.

I have no idea how likely any of this is. As with all things Garth, I am sure there's some combination of martyrdom and unspoken intrigue at work here. Still, the idea that an uncontested candidate could be blocked from being nominated in this way points once again to the potential for manipulation in the system. And that's something that should concern us all.

Meanwhile, the good people of Dufferin-Caledon are still without a candidate, and now they'll have to start from scratch to find one. Good thing we're not having an election any time soon.

UPDATE: Steve Janke, doing his 'Full Comment' over at the National Post, has a quote from Dufferin-Caledon FLA Membership Chair Janet Rosenstock:

"I am not sure Mr. Turner's reasons for leaving are indeed his reasons for leaving. Another candidate for nomination had come forward and was in process. Perhaps Mr. Turner did not want to face a fight for the nomination. As far as Mr. Turner's feeling that the Leadership would not grant him a nomination meeting is concerned, there are rules that must be followed. Every FLA must have a certain level of membership before a nomination meeting can be granted. The Membership level is lowered during what is called, 'Electoral Urgency.' Our 'Electoral Urgency' number is roughly 175. We needed about 12 more members. Mr. Turner and his supporters were told repeatedly that a nomination meeting could and would be held when the required level of membership was reached. Two and one half months later, Mr. Turner and his supporters had failed to sign up a sufficient number of members."

Two things about this: a) Janet Rosenstock is no fan of Garth Turner's, but b) It does have a ring of truth to it, given Garth's aversion to contested nominations.

Wheels within wheels.

We are professionals. Do not try this at home.

Susan Delacourt sounds like she's getting a little defensive over criticism of her non-story story:

Q. Is it possible that the Conservative source made up this story to make "mischief," as Liberals allege?

A: Yes it is. But our usual practice is to "out" the source if we find out it was a deliberate lie, so stay tuned. Seasoned political people know that you only get to lie once to a reporter.

Q: Who are the possible defectors?

A: No names were given. And that's the beauty of it for Conservatives, as one of my colleagues pointed out. Now every Liberal will be wondering if other Liberals are going to jump.

So let me get this straight. A single, unnamed, partisan source hands her an unsubstantiated rumour that she acknowledges may well be a total fabrication, and then not only does she run it as a legitimate news story but then decides to attach the name of a random Liberal MP to it that sorta kinda sounds plausible based on no evidence whatsoever... and THAT'S journalism?!?

I'm going to remember this one the next time a journalist makes a snide comment about bloggers.

How Denis Coderre might just save the Liberal Party from itself

I generally try not to pay too much attention to the endless internecine warfare that is Quebec Liberal Party politics, but it's hard to ignore what's been going on this past week.

What is it they say... "every problem is an opportunity"?

The Coderre Affair has taken issues that most party members and riding associations have grumbled about privately for years and brought them out under the hot lights of public scrutiny. And lo and behold, what appears to be emerging from the smoking ruins is some sort of consensus that, while we certainly need more women in Parliament and while there continue to be issues with the local candidate selection process, having the party leader - directly or through a 'lieutenant' - arbitrarily foist his selection upon a riding is NOT the way to solve these problems.

These are hardly new issues. Democratic party reform has been discussed, debated, and defeated repeatedly within the Liberal Party for decades. Former Liberal national director Sheila Gervais actually wrote an extraordinary paper five years ago on the history of these failed attempts and laid out a prescription for real change entitled "The Democratic Deficit in the Liberal Party of Canada".

Since then, very little has changed. Despite all the lip service given to "grassroots participation" and the passage last spring of 'one member, one vote', candidates continue to be either arbitrarily appointed by the leader or elected by busloads of largely temporary 'insta-members' in highly manipulated contests.

Today, Gervais continues to speak out on democratic reform - only this time with the recent fiasco in Quebec serving to fully illustrate her point.

“What happened in Outremont is indicative of a much larger problem — that members of the party have once again had their right (to select their own candidates) taken away from them,” said former Liberal national director Sheila Gervais.

Gervais has also been busy pushing the cause of greater female representation in Parliament, which at first would seem a contradictory aim. After all, nominating more women is exactly why we're being told that it is essential for the party leader to maintain his (his!) prerogative to appoint candidates.

Rubbish. As Gervais points out, there are other methods that are at least as effective - and far more democratic - than meeting candidate quotas with appointments.

So what does any of this have to do with Denis Coderre? Well, as damaging as his public tantrum may or may not have been for our fortunes in Quebec, and as embarrassing as the whole sticky mess might be for the party in general, it does present an opportunity.

Just as the circumstances of Stephane Dion's election as party leader pointed out the flaws in the delegate system and led, finally, to the passage of One Member, One Vote, so too could the Coderre affair prove to be the final kick in the ass that moves the Liberal Party to do away with candidate nominations and make the other reforms needed to make it truly democratic and reflective of the values of those who comprise the membership.

That movement isn't likely to come from the top. But recent events may have softened the ground there just enough for pressure from the bottom to have some effect.

This might all sound very inside-baseball to those who simply want somebody they can feel good about voting for. But when you examine all the problems and complaints about the Liberal Party over the past decade or two - the lacklustre leadership, the factionalism, the petty regional dictatorships, the disconnect between party policy and the values of the membership - all of these are essentially symptoms of a system run from the top down.

Take the legendary Martin / Chrétien schism for example. How many average party members had or continue to have any interest in that particular feud? Not I. Not any of the people I know in our riding association. No - this is an issue solely amongst party old-timers and their elite advisors, and because they are the ones making all the decisions, their problems becomes our problems.

Imagine, instead, if decisions on policy and strategy were made by those legitimately and wholeheartedly supported by the grassroots of the party. Imagine if candidates and party leaders were chosen on the basis of their ideas and values instead of their perceived ability to win. Imagine if party membership meant something more than ten bucks a year into the party coffers.

I have been a member of the Liberal Party of Canada for three years now. I volunteered during the last campaign, I sit on the board of directors of our riding association, I have attended our national convention as a delegate, and not once - not once! - have I been permitted to vote for either the candidate or the party leader of my choice.

This has got to stop.

It won't be easy. Institutions are notoriously resistant to change, especially when the status quo is so beneficial to those in positions of power. But when the membership of the Liberal Party of Canada actually manages to draw a straight line between Outremont and the Party's current malaise in the polls, we might just have a revolution on our hands.

El pueblo unido, jamas sera vencido!

Who's with me?

Thoughts on the Milton Town Hall Forum

Last Wednesday marked our first post-Garth Turner Town Hall meeting in Milton. It was hosted by our new Liberal candidate Deborah Gillis, and featured two eminent guest speakers: MPs Michael Savage and Dr. Carolyn Bennett.

As one of the organizers, I was very pleased at how well the event went off given that we only had two weeks to pull it all together. The hall got booked, the ad got into the paper on time, the flyers got handed out at the Farmers' Market the Saturday before, and despite my fears of an empty house we actually had about thirty people show up.

Given that our two guests were the Opposition critics for Human Resources and Health, respectively, we tried to come up with a theme and a title that would reflect their areas of expertise as they applied to local concerns while leaving things open to a broader discussion. Various ideas got bandied about until we finally ended up with "Building Canada's Health and Social Infrastructure".

I did mention we only had two weeks to do this, right?

Deb introduced our guests, everyone gave their opening remarks, and then we opened things up to questions from the floor. There had been some concern that some people would try to disrupt things with endless questions about Ignatieff and why the Liberals are trying to force an election, but it all turned out to be very civilized. I wasn't surprised. I had told Deb that even during the worst of the Garth Turner town halls, the disrupters usually restricted themselves to standing glowering against the back wall.

Of course, the discussion wasn't restricted to just the theme at hand. All kinds of issues came up, from the environment to civic engagement to election strategy in the riding of Halton. We talked about Aboriginal issues and the Kelowna Accord. We talked about engaging youth in the political process. We talked about the problems of promoting Liberal social policy in one of the richest ridings in the country.

Carolyn Bennett is a firecracker. She's one of those intense, passionate, socially conscious politicians that I've always been especially fond of. In fact, when she was talking about grassroots democracy and the ability of MPs to effectively represent their constituents, it was almost like listening to Garth again. Mike Savage is very much the same, although he seemed to have trouble getting a word in edgewise. And just the fact that Deb Gillis was willing and anxious to engage in this sort of public forum only six weeks after her nomination tells me that she is of the same mind.





Watching and listening to these three remarkable people, and having met and spoken to a growing number of other Liberal MPs over the past two years, it occurs to me that whatever the problems are with this party and this country, they are not primarily because of the men and women we have elected to the House of Commons. Maybe I'm self-selecting, but every one that I've met is just as passionate. Every one believes that their responsibility is to represent their constituents and not their party. Every one believes in social justice, and the idea that helping those in need raises us all up.

Beyond that, every one of them has specific, practical ideas for making these abstract values into functioning social policy.

I have no illusions that every single Liberal MP in the House of Commons is as intelligent and as socially committed as the dozen or so that I have personally met, or that every one of them is completely sincere. But nor do I doubt that there are many fine, committed Conservative and New Democrat Members who, while they might have different solutions, care deeply about democracy and social justice and want to see all Canadians live better lives.

So what's the problem? How is it that these intelligent, committed people are all reduced to children throwing spitballs during Question Period and, to a lesser extent, in committees and in the public media?

It's easy to blame it all on the Conservatives, and easier still to blame it all on Stephen Harper. But let's face it - if even half the MPs simply refused to engage in these ridiculous games, it couldn't go on.

Take Question Period. QP and the preparation for it occupies an inordinate number of hours out of the working day for each and every one of our MPs, and there is overwhelming agreement in every party that the whole process is a frustrating, humiliating, and utterly pointless show put on for a public that finds the whole thing disgusting.

Mike Savage colourfully described it as a "putrid, fetid, pus-filled swamp between two fifteen and three o'clock".

So why does it go on? Why isn't there a mass movement in all four caucuses to have QP moved to the morning, have rules of decorum imposed and enforced, and make other changes to turn it from being a circus into an actual exercise in holding government accountable?

Or take the mess that is internal party politics - particularly in the Liberal Party. Every single Liberal MP from Michael Ignatieff down to the lowliest backbencher will happily extol the virtues of "grassroots democracy". And yet we continue to have a system which allows the party leader to bypass the will of local members and arbitrarily appoint candidates.

I have been a Liberal Party member for about three years now, and I have yet to be allowed to vote for either the leader or the candidate of my choice.

Nobody likes this - not the MPs, not the riding executive, not the members - and it never, ever ends well. The squabbling over Outremont this past week is an extreme example, but even here in Halton where most riding members seem more or less content with the way things worked out, we still lost people who really wanted Garth back and were appalled at the way the whole thing went down. And that's not just bad for democracy - it's bad political strategy.

So why does it continue? What's the up side to allowing candidate appointments? It can't just be about getting more women elected - that's easy enough to fix through active recruitment. Is it really just a power thing, getting MPs in who are beholden to the party leader? 'Cause I really don't see someone like Deb Gillis kissing anyone's ring no matter how she got here.

It's puzzling to me. I'm sure that a large part of the answer lies in the power wielded by those unelected advisers, strategists and party officials whose roles seem so arcane and yet whose names keep cropping up whenever these issues arise. But who gave them that power in the first place?

Maybe it's all just David Smith's fault.

As depressing as all this seems, that town hall meeting actually gave me hope for my party and for my country. Because I am convinced now more than ever that there are a lot of good, good people representing us in Parliament, and even more working on the local level to get them elected. I know. I've met them.

We just need to figure out how to clear the way to let them do their jobs.

Why Didn't I Say That?

I just got back from the Milton Town Hall Forum which I helped to organize, and which I'm happy to say went swimmingly. It was hosted by our new Liberal candidate Deborah Gillis, with special guest MPs Carolyn Bennett and Michael Savage.

They were all great, and I'll get more into what was said later. But after all my fumbling through that recent blog post on the difficulties the Liberals seem to have distilling their policies into digestible form, I was amazed to hear Dr. Bennett state the problem perfectly:

Liberals believe that for every complex problem, there is an equally complex solution."

Man, I wish I'd said that.

Liberal Policy for Dummies

Like many Liberal bloggers, I watched Ignatieff's speech to the Toronto Board of Trade with interest yesterday, hoping to hear a few planks of the Liberals' much anticipated economic platform.

My heart sank a little when he opened with an apology for how long and detailed the speech was about to be.

The details are there alright: taking a pro-active approach to accelerating economic growth rather than just letting it happen, defending Canadian industry and technology from foreign takeovers, instituting a permanent increase in the gas tax transfers to municipalities, greater investment in renewable energy and green technologies, bring back the 'Team Canada' trade missions, making the PBO truly independent, and on and on.

I can't say I agree with everything he's proposing. His 'tearing down the borders' theme scares me, and while the U.S. 'Country of Origin' labelling laws might be hurting Canadian pork producers for the moment, I'd much rather spend some money on PR for them than allow food companies to omit such information on Canadian packaging.

Overall, though, I approve of the direction he wants to go. He's committed himself to a reversal of Harper's 'hands-off' approach to government, which is a good start in drawing the contrast between the Conservatives and the Liberals.

Now it's time for the marketing guys to go to work. Because while I find all this stuff fascinating - as I'm sure you do, oh faithful reader - the sad fact is that most voters only digest policy in bites of six words or less. It's not that they're stupid... ok, maybe some of them. It's that most of them are just too disinterested / disengaged / busy to bother investigating political policy positions beyond what they get through thirty second TV commercials.

Oh, they'll complain about it alright, saying "So-and-so doesn't have any clear policies", or "There's no real difference between this party's policies and those", when what they really mean is, "Nobody has distilled all this into bullet-point form for me to compare and contrast".

The problem, of course, is that most good, comprehensive, well thought-out, balanced policy is quite often highly resistant to distillation. Bad policy, on the other hand, is very easy to summarize because it is so often oversimplified to begin with. The Republicans are masters at it: "Tough on Crime". "Trickle-Down Economics". "The War on Terror". "Just Say No".

There may be no better example of this phenomenon than Dion's failed 'Green Shift' policy. Despite the catchy name, the detailed presentation and the positively elegant use of market incentives to create a self-funding emissions reduction program, it resisted all efforts to 'sloganize' it. And once the Conservatives saddled it with their own 'Carbon Tax' label it instantly became anathema to a great many of Canadians. The financial benefits to average Canadians were easy enough to understand with maybe five minutes of reading - but everyone already knew what a tax was, so hardly any of them bothered to investigate further.

As with the opposition to Obama's health reform proposals, some of those who railed against the Green Shift actually had rational arguments based on a reasonable understanding of the issue. Sadly, they were - and are - in the minority. The rest... well, anyone who has ever perused the comments section of any given newspaper website knows the sort. But even those reactionary types are a minority. The real majority of the electorate in both Canada and the U.S. Just. Don't. Care.

None of this is news, of course. It's been well known for decades that the reasons people vote one way or another almost never have anything to do with their understanding of or agreement with a candidate's policies. Far more often, they are influenced by what others think about about these policies - friends, relatives, and always, the media.

What is interesting in the case of yesterday's speech is that the media seems, at least temporarily, to have been knocked off of their "Liberals have no policies" narrative (except for the National Post, of course).

The speech itself didn't really say much that Ignatieff and the Party haven't been saying all along, and there likely won't be any more average voters examining this speech especially closely or rushing over to Liberal.ca for more details. But now that the media's line has started to change from "Liberals have no policies" to "Ignatieff talked about his party's economic policies", we might begin to see a few rays of light penetrating down to ground level.

We just need to make the slogans small enough.

(BTW, do go and read the New Yorker article on 'The Unpolitical Animal'. If that doesn't put you off politics altogether, you know you're really hooked.)

The Liberal Purity Test

Now that Deb Gillis has become our Liberal candidate here in Halton, many of those in the riding with long-held reservations about Garth Turner now apparently feel free to voice those opinions - rather loudly in some cases.

Fair enough. I know not everyone liked Garth, and there were legitimate criticisms to be made about how he conducted himself during the last campaign, although I remain convinced that his assets outweighed his flaws and that Lisa Raitt would have won regardless of who we had running against her.

There is, however, one rather disturbing criticism I've heard against Garth that is most often expressed in the form of praise for Deb:

"At least she's a Real Liberal!"

They are referring, of course, to the fact that Garth Turner had spent most of his political career as a Progressive Conservative and later a Conservative. But in some cases it also expresses a lingering resentment towards Gary Carr, another apostate who ran here federally as a Liberal after having served on the provincial level as a Progressive Conservative.

I find this upsetting for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it makes me wonder what these people would think of me if they took a look at my voting record over the years. But in more general terms, it makes me wonder what it is exactly that these people think a "Real Liberal" is.

Garth Turner has never made any secret about what he believes. Even as a Conservative he described himself as socially liberal, and has always embraced environmentalism as a cause. In fact, the first mailing I ever got from him as my MP - my Conservative MP - was a booklet on energy conservation and reducing waste and chemical use in the home.

His ideas on economics have always been far too conservative for my taste, but then again so were many of Paul Martin's. So are many of Michael Ignatieff's. So I can only conclude that the people dismissing Garth Turner as "not a Real Liberal" are talking about something other than his policy positions.

I think they're talking about tribalism.

It sounds funny, but when I hear someone boast about being a "life-long Liberal" and how they were a youth delegate for Trudeau and how their daddy was a party bigwig back in the day, I start to hear echoes of the people who describe themselves as "Real Canadians" - implying, of course, that certain others are not.

This sort of exclusivity is nothing new to partisan politics, and certainly not to the Liberal Party of Canada. I always loved that old joke about the heckler at the political rally boasting that "My grandfather was a Democrat, my father was a Democrat, and I'm a Democrat!", to which the candidate responds, "Well sir, if your grandfather was a jackass and your father was a jackass, what would that make you?"

"Why, a Republican of course!"

Reverse the parties or substitute your own, it's the same old joke. But it's such an old joke that one would have hoped that sort of attitude had died out a generation ago. And while political heredity isn't nearly as important as it once was to the electorate (although it's always a nice added bonus), there are some people who still believe that unswerving loyalty to a single political party over an entire lifetime or even multiple generations is actually a good thing.

Are these people really so immutable, so resolute in their convictions that they have never once changed their minds about anything? And what about the political parties themselves? Surely they have all so completely transformed themselves so many times over the past fifty, or twenty, or ten years, that they no longer even remotely resemble the party these people once campaigned for in their youth.

Personally, I admire people who have changed their minds about significant issues, or have abandoned a once-loved party because they no longer believe in what it stands for. To me, that sort of transformation requires far more humility, courage and strength of character than simply sticking with something because you always have.

In fact, many of the Liberals I admire the most came to it from another party. Bob Rae, Scott Brison, Ujjal Dosanjh, Belinda Stronach, David Orchard - and those are just the ones who made the switch after entering public life. Who knows how often Gerard Kennedy might have voted NDP in his youth, or what Frank Valeriote might have thought of the PCs before they were assimilated? And of course Trudeau famously supported the CCF before joining the Liberals.*

To our opponents (and apparently some of our supporters), that sort of intellectual and political flexibility is a sign of weakness and perhaps traitorous inclination. To me, it implies a willingness to truly respect other points of view, and to change one's mind if a better idea is presented or a convincing argument is made. I have always found that people with those qualities also tend to be better at cooperation, negotiation and collaborative problem solving, and are more accepting of diverse attitudes and opinions.

What could be more essentially Liberal than that?

*(NOTE: Before you say it - yes, I know Stephen Harper was a Liberal before he was a Conservative and a Reformer. Unlike him, however, the people I've mentioned incorporated many of their old political views into their new allegiance, whereas Harper quite consciously rejected everything associated with his former party over what was essentially a single issue.)

Come Meet Deborah Gillis!

Halton's Liberals are holding a Meet & Greet tonight at O’Finn’s Irish Temper, 136 Church Street in Oakville. C'mon down, meet our new candidate, hang out with some great people, and maybe even sign up as a volunteer!

Festivities start at 7:00 pm. See you there!


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The "Fourth Election in Five Years" Retort

If I might make a suggestion to all you Liberals out there taking flack for causing the dreaded "Fourth Election in Five Years", you might consider pointing out that:

a) It's actually going to be closer to five and a half years,

b) If Harper had stuck to his own election law, we'd be having an election right now anyway, and

c) The last two out of three elections were brought about (rather unnecessarily) by Stephen Harper.

This has been today's talking points memo. You're welcome.

A Day in Milton with Deb Gillis

Anyone who lives in Milton will tell you that two of the biggest social and cultural events in town are the weekly Farmers' Market, and the annual Steam Era festival. Yesterday I got to help introduce our new Liberal candidate to both.

We had a lot of fun, and Deb got to meet a whole bunch of people - local leaders, merchants, farmers, and just plain folks. Deb seemed completely relaxed, and spent far more time listening than talking.

Imagine that.

Here are few shots of Deb watching the parade with former MPP Walt Elliott, who had kindly offered to serve as her guide at Steam Era.

Garth's New Digs

It looks like Garth Turner might have the nomination in Dufferin-Caledon all locked up. Word from The Hill Times is that the only other candidate in the race, riding association president Jeff May, has announced his intention to withdraw, leaving the field to Turner.

At least it looks like he'll be given a fair shot by the local paper this time.

Given everything that happened in Halton, I found it particularly interesting that there was enough speculation about a deal to justify this adamant denial:

Mr. Turner denied that his switch from the riding of Halton to Dufferin-Caledon was part of any deal.

"I can tell you categorically that Mr. Ignatieff acted independently in selecting a candidate in Halton for whatever reasons that he had. I did not file my nomination papers in Halton so I was not part of that decision. In terms of Halton, I'm aware of no influence from the party whatsoever...There was no deal, period."

All that may well be true. Technically. But given how much was left out of this version of the events Halton and what I've since learned about the machinations of the nomination process... remind me never to play poker with Garth Turner.

Liberal Math Fail

I kinda liked what I saw of Alf Apps at the Liberal Convention, but I think he needs some remedial math. From the Hill Times:

According to recently filed second quarter fundraising numbers with Elections Canada, the Liberals raised $4,053,567 from 19,487 contributors compared to the Conservatives who raised $3,957,662 in the same time period from 35,217 contributors.

... For the Liberals, these fundraising numbers included the fees for their April 30-May 3 leadership convention in Vancouver. A spokesman for the federal Liberal Party headquarters told The Hill times that 3,000 delegates attended their convention and all but 200 were paid delegates. The regular fee to attend the convention was $995 but the Liberal Party waived the fee for its Laurier Club members as the annual membership fee is $1,100, which is the maximum annual donation limit. To attract more delegates, the Liberal Party dropped the delegate fee for delegates coming from Nunavut and Labrador and also offered fee discounts for those who came from other far-flung places.

But Mr. Apps said that convention fees formed a small proportion of the total amount.

"I would say certainly over 80 per cent of the funds that came in had nothing to do with the convention."

Wait a minute.

$4,053,567 x 20% = $810,713 from the Convention, divided by an average of maybe $800 per convention fee (those discounts were usually less than $100), means only... 1,018 people showed up? Or maybe those 2,800 people only paid an average of $290 each?

Must've been more delegates from Nunavut than I thought. Or maybe, just maybe, more than half of those impressive second quarter numbers really were from convention fees. Meaning that the second quarter figures were just about exactly the same as the first quarter.

Sigh.

Meet Halton's New Candidate!

The Liberal Party is pleased to announce that Deborah Gillis has been appointed by Michael Ignatieff as the candidate for Halton in the next Federal election.

I'll give you a moment to get back in your seat. Take your time.

So. Without disclosing anything confidential (I hope... I'm pretty sure), here's what happened:

Garth Turner, as you may know, was our MP and Liberal candidate in the last election. He lost to Lisa Raitt. At our AGM last winter, he declared his desire and intention to be our candidate again, and most people seemed pretty happy about that. At least the ones I spoke to were.

Then some odd reports started coming out in the media and on his blog. Phrases like, "Stick a fork in me, I'm done" were used. And yet whenever he communicated with the board, he insisted that he still wanted to be our candidate. It was a little... confusing.

Meanwhile, a few up-and-comers started to smell blood in the water. Feelers were put out. Alliances began to form. Then in late May, it really looked like Garth was serious about not running. We were given the go-ahead to start the candidate search process and the contenders came out of the closet. There were several of them, some more serious than others. None seemed especially likely to be able to take down Lisa Raitt, although it's hard to say how it all would have worked out.

Overtures were made to Garth to try to get him to come back into the race, but he became more and more adamant that he wasn't willing to do that. And after speaking with him and with Esther, I began to understand why he wanted no part of this particular dog fight.

We like to think of a nomination race as a democratic process, and in some cases it can be. However, given the fact that most ridings only have a few hundred actual party members, the whole process is extremely easy to manipulate. Even when it works the way it's supposed to, the winner is rarely the one with the best ideas who can argue them persuasively to the existing membership. No - the person who wins is the one who can sign up the greatest number of 'insta-members' willing to come and vote for him or her. And if the potential candidate belongs to a church or an ethnic community or some other large organization, it becomes incredibly easy for them to sign up a busload of friends, family and acquaintances as members and get themselves nominated.

It happens all the time in both the Conservative and Liberal parties. I don't know about the NDP, but I wouldn't be surprised if their potential candidates run right out and sign up all the folks in their union local.

There is, of course, a shockingly simple solution to this problem: increase the amount of time someone needs to be a party member before they're allowed to vote in a candidate race. Say, six months. Even four. Even two.

Unfortunately, most political parties have absolutely no interest in doing this because new members mean new money. These 'insta-members' rarely renew their memberships or even stick around to volunteer during campaigns, but no matter. A candidate contest run under these conditions represents a quick infusion of cash to party coffers, so any attempt to change things is likely to be fought tooth and nail by the powers that be.

But I'll get more into that later.

Given these circumstances, and given that Garth doesn't have a lot of friends in the new Ignatieff regime, it was perhaps inevitable that our leader was going to make use of his prerogative to appoint a candidate in Halton. And given the circumstances, I'm not sure I can blame him. Garth wasn't willing to run if he was going to have competition, and the party wasn't about to appoint him or have him acclaimed. And since the Liberals apparently now want Halton back almost as badly as the Conservatives did in the last election, none of the candidates who had stepped forward thus far were seen as sufficiently competitive.

Enter Deborah Gillis.

I haven't met Deb yet, but from what I've read she's a serious player. She's kind of from Corporate World, but is better known as an advocate for women in business through a non-profit called Catalyst. She's also worked as a policy advisor in various governments, and was very active in Liberal Party politics in her native Cape Breton (groan... yeah, I know).

All good stuff. I have no doubt that she's going to give Lisa a run for her money, and I will be happy to support her and campaign for her in any future election. Besides, I have a feeling we are about to find out what it's like to have the full weight of the legendary Liberal Party Campaign Machine behind us on this one. Would have been nice to have that in the last election... but whatever.

My problem is not with Deb Gillis. Not at all. My problem is with the way in which this was done. Because while I sympathize with the reasoning behind appointing a candidate, and even appointing somebody other than Garth, and even going out of their way to appoint a woman, there's one thing that I just don't understand:

Could they not find a single worthy female candidate who was actually from Halton?

None had stepped forward, but I can think of two off the top of my head who would have kicked ass, both from Milton's Town Council. I don't know if either of them would have been willing - hell, I don't even know if one of them is a Liberal. But surely enquiries could have been made and Halton Board members could have been asked for their input before they resorted to bringing in a ringer.

Instead, we were simply informed that a decision had been made and this was our candidate. I think they call that 'consultation'.

As you might imagine, a few people are pretty pissed about this, especially those who are closest to Garth. There was much hair pulling and carrying on about 'the end of democracy as we know it' at first, but things have settled down now and it looks like most folks are actually getting excited about working with Deb.

I was kinda pissed at first (although not really surprised), but now I'm mainly curious to see what happens next in this never-boring riding. And since I'm the pragmatic sort, I'm far more interested in figuring out how to solve problems than just complaining about what's already been done.

So. How do we solve this problem? How do we make the candidate selection process more democratic and keep this sort of thing from happening again?

That's your homework, boys and girls. I'm off to the cottage tomorrow and I'm not sure what my internet access will be like, so comment moderation is on.

[duck]



(edit Aug 4 10:09)

How To Build a Better Candidate

I've found myself thinking a great deal lately about the quality of our MPs and candidates, and what sorts of people I would like representing me and making decisions on my behalf.

Part of this reflection came from listening to Gerard Kennedy speak at our fundraiser last month. I've admired Kennedy ever since he was the outspoken director of the Daily Bread Food Bank, and it got me thinking about how much that background has informed his views and his priorities as a politician. It also made me wish we had more MPs with a background like that, which in turn led me to investigate just how many of them actually did.

I decided to go through the list of MPs on the Parliamentary website and find out what they've done besides working as MPs. The little profile they give is hardly detailed, but it does list previous occupations and electoral history. I wasn't going to go through all of them, so I just did the 100+ from Ontario since that's my region, and the three major parties are all well represented here (keep in mind that most MPs have multiple jobs in their background, so percentages are going to add up to more than 100%).

What I found was interesting, but not really surprising. To start, nearly half - 47% - of our Ontario MPs come from the corporate world. Among Conservatives its 53%, but even the NDP caucus has more than 1/3 of their members with a corporate background. When I compare that to the number of people I personally know who are corporate execs, managers or directors, I can't help but think that this is a grotesque over-representation.

The next most common profession or background at just under 30% was municipal politician, which I consider to be a good thing. In general, town councillors, reeves and mayors are less rabidly partisan, more practical, and more cognisant of the effect of their decisions on real people. The NDP have the most municipal politicians on their roster, followed by the Conservatives and lastly the Liberals.

Then come the lawyers and the teachers, tied at 17%. The Liberals have the most lawyers (24%) and the same percent with an education background. The NDP have the most teachers (29%). Teachers and professors are good. Lawyers are ok, although there are vastly different kinds of law and a constitutional lawyer, a criminal lawyer and a corporate attorney are going to have very different perspectives.

My favourites, the social workers, social activists and the dreaded "community organizers" only account for about 10% overall, with the vast majority being NDP members. I like these people as politicians because like municipal politicians, they have the needed organizational and administrative skills without ever losing sight of the fact that they are working for the benefit of people.

We need more of these people in the Liberal Party, and in politics in general.



Getting back to those corporate people. I've tried to distinguish wherever possible between corporate 'business people' and people who actually run a business (usually listed as entrepreneurs) because I consider them to have completely different mindsets. I'm a business person. I started a numbered corporation and opened my first business when I was eighteen. I've managed everything from bookstores to print shops. I've run the same mail-order crafts business for over 20 years. My website is as old as eBay.

I've never made a great deal of money with my current business, but I consider it to be successful because a) it let me be home with my son when he was little, b) I get to do something I love and can take pride in, and c) people around the world buy my wares and write me back to tell me how much they appreciate what I've made for them.

If I were a corporate executive, I'd be a total failure. If I were a corporate manager, I'd be outsourcing my inefficient one-person crafts workshop to one of the dozen or so companies from India who email me every month offering to duplicate my work for pennies a piece.

Corporations have their place I suppose, but here's the thing: you CANNOT run a government like a corporation. You just can't. You can sort of run it like a business because real businesses provide tangible goods and services, and frequently measure success by something other than pure profit.

Corporations exist to make money for their shareholders. Period. They don't have to care about the people they employ or the communities they set up shop in or the products they produce, except to the extent that these considerations might impact their quarterly statement.

Governments are in many ways the exact opposite of corporations because their primary purpose is to provide services and other tangible benefits to the public. They accomplish this using the taxpayers' own money and so are obligated not to waste it or spend it frivolously, but it's understood that any given government program or service is not necessarily going to be 'profitable'. Many are distinctly unprofitable and inefficient by corporate standards - but they are also carefully regulated and made accessible to all according to their need. The measure of their success is public benefit, not profit.

A corporate manager would look at Canada Post and ask why they charge the same minuscule amount to send a letter across the street or across the country. They would ask why post offices or RCMP stations or even roads exist in remote communities when centralization is so much more efficient. They would question the wisdom of hiring Canadians to print or process government forms - or make those little Canadian flags - when such work could be done in Mexico or India far more cheaply. They would question why the government is running operations like the LCBO or AECL at all when they would be so much more profitable being run by the private sector.

The fact that such questions are, in fact, being raised indicates to me that there are far too many people with a corporate mindset running our government.

So what would I look for in a political candidate? I'd look for someone who's been in the trenches. Someone with a lot of volunteer hours, or experience working for a charity or an NGO. Someone who has run their own business, or has a real job producing something, creating something, or providing a useful service. Someone who has been involved politically on a practical level, served on planning committees or riding boards or administered local programs. Someone with enough education and life experience to see the bigger picture and make informed decisions. Someone who has demonstrated a real desire to do good in their community and has actually done something about it.

These are the kinds of people we should be actively recruiting as candidates and even public servants. Not just for the Liberal Party, but in general.

What I do NOT want to see is more CEOs, CFOs, corporate managers, or people who seem to do nothing but sit on boards of directors. I'm sure they're very nice people and have skills to offer, but we already have plenty of people like that running the country, thank you very much.