Under the primary, it will be free to sign up as a “supporter” of the Liberal Party. In order to vote in a leadership vote, you need to sign up by a certain date. All of the voters in your riding vote for a candidate, each riding is weighted equally regardless of the number of votes cast, each candidate is given points in each riding based on the percentage of votes they got in that riding. The first candidate with 50% + 1 of the total points, wins. Oh, and voting will be spread out over a number of weeks with the order to be determined by a committee.
So what’s the difference? $10 or $20 a person and different voting days for different ridings. I will let others argue how significant those two changes really are but I think it’s safe to say the switch from a delegated convention to one-member, one-vote in Vancouver in 2008 was a far more significant change than a potential switch from one-member, one-vote to this “primary” would be.
So in sum, on the constitutional changes, I think most of them are housekeeping in nature. The primaries the executive and the Interim Leader are pushing for (a) should have been tried at the riding level first; but (b) represent far less radical a change than some people are making it out to be.
In terms of the policy resolutions that are being debated, well, if you were hoping for bold changes in policy from the party, this isn’t the policy convention for you. Ya, getting rid of the monarchy is there – top-of mind for most Canadians as it is. And the mandatory Young Liberal “legalize pot” motion is a good one, but otherwise? Lots of calls for national plans (as I’ve said before, there should be a law banning blanket calls for national plans or strategies on anything and everything if the person making said plea cannot say what they want in their called for plan. “We need a national cricket strategy.” “That’s great, why don’t you tell me what such a strategy might look like instead of telling me we should get one”). Lots of resuscitations of past Liberal policies and calls for world peace and human happiness.
So if you’re looking for the future of Liberal policy, this isn’t the convention for you. Or at least I hope that’s the case.
I know that all sounds really negative but it’s not intended as such. I just don’t think this is a really history in the making, this will change everything biennial. It’s great that there are still a couple of thousand Canadians who are willing to spend money to come out for a party convention. That’s something to celebrate in and of itself given what happened last May. In addition, those conversations in hallways amongst Liberals – where are we as a party, where do we want to go from here – those conversations are critically important.
We still need to develop a new, coherent policy proposal for Canadians that is very different from the one we have put forward in the past. We still need to decide what our new voter coalition looks like. We still need a new leader who’s economically literate, has a clear plan for the party and the country and can dedicate 15 years to the job. In other words, while small progress has been made since May, most of the really tough decisions and trade offs remain. None of that was ever going to happen at this biennial.
So let’s just enjoy the gossip and the suites without too much hype.
