Disenfranchised Liberals

Okay, so I get really ticked when I see headlines like this one which appeared in this week's Hill Times: "Liberals could disenfranchise 'thousands' in Wappel's riding". For so many reasons the premise of the headline and comments made in the article just make my blood boil.

For the record, I hate the current nomination process (sic) in our party (not too enamoured with those in some of the others either). I hate the wide spread use of the term "selling memberships"(gee, silly me, I thought we were joining something, not buying something); I hate that we continue to call it a nomination process when it is a candidate selection process; I hate that it has become entenched as a test of organizational mettle for prospective candidates and a venue for clever manipulation for central organizers; I hate that it introduces newer Canadians and new or under-represented entrants into the system to the seedier side of political organization: the Party is a vehicle which can get you where you want to go, not the Party needs you to help the Country get to where it should be.

So just what in this article leads me to rant in this way? This comment, by one of the candidates interested in the nomination in Scarborough Southwest, on rumours that a candidate may be appointed in the riding: "There are thousands of members signed. They [the party and leader] could have said on the first day itself...'Sorry, this is not an open nomination election, it's an appointment.' So, all these thousands of people in that riding will be disappointed. Now, when we phone and say, [to newly-signed members], you paid and became a member, there's no other privilege apart from voting for your potential candidate and therefore, now [that] you cannot do, sorry. ..."

No other privilege? Huh? While I agree that the right to participate in the selection of a candidate in any given riding is likely one of the most important accorded by membership in a party - it is exactly that - membership in an organization dedicated to certain political values and principles. The privileges should be to participate in the promotion of those values and principles in a myriad of ways. Now that you can't , sorry? What does that mean? 'Now that you can't choose the candidate, you might as well simply fade away because there is no other reason for your membership'? (Ususally those members fade away after the nomination.) So you're saying that there is no value in a political membership other than selecting a candidate (leader)?

If it's the Party you believe in one way or another why not stay and support whomever the candidate eventually is as a further way of supporting and promoting the party you chose to join. Heck why not join outside of a nomination/leadership contest - wow that would be novel.

Just who is disenfranchising who praytell, when those members who have contributed to the Party for years through thick and thin are outnumbered hundredfold, by people who on a normal day don't give a whit about the Party?

Many in the Party hoped we were moving in a different direction from this trend post-convention and attempts at some structural changes to move decision-making back down closer to the foundation of the Party - the members and the riding associations. Too bad we got spooked by Harper's clever political antics and in our haste fell back to the only way we know how to do things, instead of taking those first steps on the path to make it (the process) better.

Well here I am

I enjoy reading many Canadian political blogs but rarely participate - always thought I was too old, too opinionated and too unfamiliar with the technologicial side of new communications to ever do it myself. But sometimes, I just feel like I have something to say - and pontificating in your head to yourself just doesn't always cut it. So, I thought I'd give it a try.

With any luck - if you ever find me - you'll have an interesting read, think me really brilliant or really dumb, maybe a little provocative, maybe a little controversial.

One thing I enjoy almost as much as pontificating is discussing (hashing out endlessly actually) so please feel free to comment - that will make this foray even more fun.

First post coming up.