Absent a competitive leadership campaign, what steps should the Liberal Party take to re-engage its membership and rebuild its national organization?
Navdeep Bains (Mississauga-Brampton South): The Liberal Party is one of the most venerable political institutions in Canada. It is the only party that has existed since Confederation, providing nine prime pinisters who collectively have presided over most of Canada's history. The list of their accomplishments is long, their impact unquestioned. Yet despite all this, the party is not well.
Our support is at an all-time low, our finances are less than rosy and our membership feels disengaged. If we are to regain the confidence of Canadians we must first put our own house in order. That means streamlining party institutions and engaging our grassroots.
One of the biggest challenges facing the party is also its greatest strength: history. Unlike other parties whose structures were heavily redrafted with subsequent mergers and re-brandings, the Liberal Party has retained a complicated structure. We need to simplify this, eliminating unnecessary duplication and ensuring the biggest bang for our fundraising dollar. Fundraising itself must be at the core of all party operations and this goes hand-in-hand with engaging our grassroots. As Barack Obama has taught us, when people believe in you, they're more likely to show that support with their wallet.
Another topic we need to tackle is the question of how we elect our leaders. Currently it is done through delegated conventions, but in order to better engage our membership we should adopt a more equitable and democratic system. A one-member, one-vote system that provides equal weight for the ridings would give all Liberals a voice in choosing their leader. This does not mean that the excitement of a leadership convention would disappear; rather it would be replaced by a national gathering where members on the floor would be joined by the broader Liberal family when making their big decision.
It is that family which is the heart and soul of the Liberal Party. Our party could not and would not exist without the members on the ground who organize campaigns, run the riding associations and every day act as ambassadors for Liberal values. These people must be integrated into policy development and consulted on the state of their party. Riding association presidents should be consulted regularly and should form the core of our renewal process. We must also improve our use of technology to bridge geographic distances and make it that much easier for our members to be active and involved.
These challenges are not insurmountable. Indeed, the Liberal Party has been through tough times before but we have always re-emerged strengthened and reinvigorated. The members of the party are the sole reason for this and it is their passion that we will harness in order to rebuild. This process began before the last convention with the Red Ribbon Committee and there is now a growing consensus amongst Liberals that our future success is dependent on renewal. Once we regain the faith of our members, we will be well on our way to winning back the confidence of all Canadians.
Martha Hall Findlay (Willowdale): The irony is that leadership campaigns have, for years, been the very source of the disengagement felt by many party members. Too often, Liberals have felt that their membership was only a tool to help one leadership campaign or another. The Chretien-Martin wars; the Martin/Manley/Copps battle; the 2006 leadership campaign with, ultimately, eight candidates all vying for numbers. People were asked to join the party primarily to vote for one leadership candidate or another - and only rarely out of principle or for engagement in the issues of the day.
