(Hat tip: the Loyalist of Dissonance and Disrespect.)

Belinda Stronach, erstwhile Tory and Liberal backbencher, can truly be said to be a master of the obvious. (It was obvious, for example, that she could never have taken the Liberal leadership, given her recent political history.) As such, she has now released a 13-page discussion paper on Liberal leadership ideas. A PDF version can be downloaded from Belinda’s website at this link (Don’t let the page count fool you; once you leave off the cover, title page, back cover and introduction, the report text itself is 13 pages.)

Let’s see what she has to say:

(page 6) Before I chose the Liberal Party as my political home, finding in it a welcoming place where others share my principles and values, I had worked hard to bring about the merger of the former Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance/Reform parties. I did that with one consideration in mind: the health of Canada’s democracy needed a viable national political alternative to the governing Liberal Party. The best interests of the country, and even the long-term interests of the Liberal Party itself, demanded choice. Everyone would benefit from the freshness and creativity of competition. That national goal, so important to us all as a self-governing democracy, has since been achieved.

Now does this sound like Belinda’s trying to take credit for the creation of the Tory party now in government? It’s hard to say if she’s trying to establish her credibility or strain her readers’ credulity.

Achieving the Liberal Party’s potential for renewal requires, as I see it, four crucially important elements:

the Party must be robustly democratic;

the Party must be much, much bigger;

the Party must engage the grassroots in fundraising;

the Party must provide long-term leadership in civic engagement, policy development and public affairs accountability.

These are Belinda’s “four principles of a grassroots strategy” for renewal. (Did I mention she was a master of the obvious?)

Belinda then goes on to explain her first point, complaining about the problems with delegated conventions as a way to select the leader:

The problems with delegated conventions – the backroom deal-making, the great divisions that can emerge within the party, the high financial costs – have been generating support for a newer, more inclusive, less divisive process …

… The unexpected timing of the selecting of Rt. Hon. Paul Martin’s successor, and the need for calm and deliberate consideration of alternate methods and then adoption of amendments to the Party constitution to implement whatever new selection process is favoured by a majority of the Party rank-and-file, has meant the current leadership contest culminating in December 2006 is again being conducted through a delegated convention.

Sounds very much like a leadership aspirant complaining that she can’t win under the current rules, doesn’t it? (Mind you, it can’t help but sound that way, given the press coverage of her leadership prospects.)

She then outlines options for future leadership selection (direct voting by members, telephone / Internet voting, etc.) The trouble with this passage is that she’s short on specifics (how, exactly, should these options work? Advantages? Drawbacks?) and she doesn’t express a preference for one system over the other. Perhaps she regards this as a show of humility coming from backbencher; it actually comes across as an indecisive politician not wanting to commit herself.

Belinda seems to recognize this because she then makes her first proposal:

… I propose a convention on party renewal in advance of the next leadership process. Such a convention would establish the most open and robustly democratic selection process possible and give the Party a transparent and accessible framework prior to electing future leaders.

Such a convention … could adopt amendments to implement whatever system a majority of party members believe best.

Personally, I believe that when it comes to the election of our national party leader, we have reached the point in Canada where an ancient goal of a truly democratic organization is now possible – thanks to advances in technology. As part of a clear grassroots strategy, it is time to enable every party member to participate directly in choosing the party’s leader, by implementing the one-member, one-vote principle. That is the system I am advocating, in the hope the Party will adopt it.

Note that what Belinda’s advocating isn’t really unique. Her second proposal, on the other hand, is somewhat startling:

Next, when it comes to selection of cabinet ministers or opposition critics, who also provide leadership for the Party, I again believe the grassroots strategy can also be applied. I recommend that in future caucus members vote for a “slate” of colleagues whom they feel should be appointed to cabinet, with the party leader then appointing those selected by caucus to particular portfolios …

… The process could start with a full caucus meeting held for the purpose of selecting nominees. The party leader would stipulate how many positions are to be filled. Then, any Members not wishing to serve in cabinet or in an Opposition critic position could remove their names from the list of caucus members in the running. Balloting would then proceed to select, one by one, from among the remaining eligible and interested Members, those who had majority caucus support to be in cabinet or a critics position. Further rounds of balloting could continue, when the Party is in office, to select those who would be appointed as parliamentary secretaries..

As an example of this, she points to the government of the Northwest Territories. Frankly, since NWT members run as independents, and since the representation is smaller, I’m not sure that this would translate effectively to a 100-plus member Liberal caucus.

Let’s see what else she has to say:

For a thoroughgoing grassroots party, this now has to mean that a robust constituency association be able to conduct a fair and open nomination of its candidate according to established rules and guidelines without having the process set aside or overruled by ‘head office’ to favour a parachuted candidate or impose a hand-picked person.

This is an interesting statement in light of the current leadership race. It suggests that Belinda won’t support Michael Ignatieff (parachute candidate) or Stephane Dion (who’s on record as saying he wants to keep that power for his “gender parity” policy.)

I would urge a plan that calls for 1,000,000 Liberal Party members. When one in thirty Canadians is a party member, when we can call ourselves “the million-member party”, we will be a strong and robustly democratic force in the land.

Ambitious, aren’t we? I’d have to chalk this up as a “long-term” goal, though. It would involve trying to get mainstream Canadians more involved in a political process that’s turned most of them off with its cynicism.

Another idea she has for fundraising suggests she may have been watching Rick Mercer a bit too much:

Another method to raise funds by involving party members and even a wider public in an engaging fashion could be the auctioning of personal items from notable Liberals and artefacts from Liberal Party campaigns and events – signed election posters, signed photographs, inscribed copies of books, historic election buttons, and all the other paraphernalia that comes with political life in Canada.

Auctions are not new to fundraising, but in Canadian party terms they have been conducted mostly on a local basis where people get together and physically see the items before making their bids in the presence of an auctioneer. Today we live in an era of on-line offers and bids. What I propose is that we now fast-forward the small-scale political auction into a much larger and more dynamic bidding war in cyberspace.

On the Liberal Party of Canada website, a monthly or bi-weekly or even weekly auction could be held. Literally millions of people across Canada and around the world could view images of the items being auctioned, with a brief description of each. Bidding would be on-line, and remain open until the end of each month or week as the case may be.

Such items need not be confined to ones donated by notable members of the Liberal Party, but could come from anyone with something of unique Canadian interest and value who wants to support the Liberal cause and have fun and recognition in the process.

Liberal funding on eBay? Call me cynical, but I think Belinda is overestimating the power of political celebrity here.

Belinda also proposes a couple of party think-tanks: a national Liberal College to indoctrinate train the younger members on civics issues, and a Liberal Policy Institute for developing a party take on issues of the day. I think the latter has a better chance of happening than the former.

Frankly, very few of these proposals constitute original thinking. They’re mostly adaptations of other concepts in existence elsewhere, such as the NWT example. (The college concept seems to be pinched from Preston Manning, the eBay idea from Rick Mercer.) And the proposals are encompassed in so much generalization and Martinesque blather that they’re very hard to pick out.

Belinda may have written this as groundwork for a future leadership run. What it does do, however, is showcase some of the traits that currently disqualify her as a potential leader.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 14th, 2006 at 10:50 and is filed under Fisking Exercises, Libranos, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.