Last weekend I watched season 14 of South Park, and in a run of super hero episodes they introduced a character called Captain Hindsight. Basically, he flies in at a time of crisis and tells them what they should have done to avoid it, once it’s already obvious. For some
Continue readingTag: Liberal Party
CuriosityCat: Liberal Party of Canada Values – A Comparison
Liberals will meet in Ottawa in January to debate the values underpinning the Party. So far, there are two documents which Liberal attendees can review to decide this question: the Preamble of the Constitution, and the section The Liberal Mission Today, from the Background Paper drafted by the National President
Continue readingA BCer in Toronto: Meeting the LPC presidential candidates, and why I like Mike
The Edward Blake Society, a group of Toronto-area no longer young except at heart Liberal professionals, hosted four of the five candidates for the Liberal Party of Canada presidency on Monday in Toronto (Charles Ward couldn’t make it) and around 100 Liberals packed the Pauper’s Pub to hear what they
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: More of the same #nlpoli
The whole thing is easy to figure out if you just look at it. October 13, 2011: Tuesday night proved to be a “holy f***, that was close” moment for the people running the Liberal Party and for people, like John Efford, who want to run the party. Now that
Continue readingWhy 338 constituencies? Why not 150? Or 100?
The Liberals have suggested an approach to achieving fairer regional representation in the House of Commons, and they should be listened to. Their solution is certainly better than that of Bill C-20 which will add yet another 30 seats to the House. The Liberals would achieve representation essentially as fair
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: A chance. A choice. #nlpoli #cdnpoli
Original idea comparing a Canadian political party to a hockey team, but Andrew Coyne’s metaphor for the problems confronting the federal Liberal Party works. The Liberals think of themselves like a hockey team: It has won several Stanley Cups in a row, but by the last of those cups, it
Continue readingA BCer in Toronto: Democracy is too expensive is a poor argument
There are lots of good arguments you can make that just adding more and more seats to the House of Commons to address shifting populations is a bad idea. For example, at some point unless you knock out a wall, you’ll run out of room in the Commons chamber. Cost,
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Free advice #nlpoli
Free advice, they say, is worth exactly what you paid for it. And when it comes to free advice on the provincial Liberal Party leadership, Dean MacDonald is more full of it than usual. CBC’s David Cochrane gave MacDonald free airtime this past…
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Liberal Roadmap for Victory – lipservice to real member and supporter involvement
Just spent some time reading through the accompany (non-official) document released with the Roadmap, and came across some really jarring notes.They have really taken the gloss off the Roadmap for me, with a vengeance.The cover letter and the Roadmap a…
Continue readingA BCer in Toronto: Why Sheila Copps nearly made me scream at work
I should really turn off Twitter when I’m on the phone at work, because when I scanned my feed during a down moment in a conference call this afternoon and saw this story, I nearly let slip a stream of unparliamentary language that would have greatly c…
Continue readingA BCer in Toronto: Primaries and mustaches
As promised earlier, I’ve written about the Liberal executive’s open primary leadership election proposal. You’ve got to go over to Macleans.ca to read it though; I’ll be occasionally writing for them on Liberal renewal and perhaps other exciting topic…
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Fatal Flaw in the Liberal Party Renewal Plan Primary Election of new Leader
The devil is in the details, and Peter Wrightwater of the blog Paper Dynamite Online has just unearthed a major defect in the Liberal Primary Election plan which could have major anti-democratic consequences.He examines the proposed Electoral College w…
Continue readingA BCer in Toronto: We need to make a Liberal membership worth having
I’m working on a piece about the Liberal executive’s open primary proposal that will hopefully run Friday, but rather than make it even longer I’d like to tackle some of the other reform proposals released today here and make a wider point about …
Continue readingA BCer in Toronto: What I’m looking for in a Liberal Party of Canada president
A key part of the Liberal Party of Canada’s reform process will be electing the next national executive at the biennial convention in January, and I’m glad to see we have four capable candidates seeking the position of president: Sheila Copps, Mike…
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Liberals, let’s use the Two-Tier Primary system for electing our next leader
In an earlier post I mentioned the problem of raiding or hijacking which bedevil open primaries: your opponents might vote for the weakest Liberal candidate in the hope of reducing Liberal chances of success in the general election.Blunt Objects, in a …
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Primaries are Infectious: Ask MP Sarah Wollaston of Totnes, UK
In 2009 Dr Sarah Wollaston became the first candidate for election as an MP in the UK to be selected by the Conservative Party through an open primary.Danniel Hannan says this about the primary selection method:Once one party adopts open primarie…
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Just Say "No"
The Liberals seem to be scraping the barrel trying to build their membership numbers. There’s a sense of desperation to it. E-mails from the national, provincial and riding offices in a steady stream over the past few weeks inviting, besee…
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Suggestions for a new Open Primary election of the next Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada
Bob Rae has opened the dialogue about how we elect our party leader, with a suggestion that we consider an open primary system of electing out next leader in 2013.Bob Rae and the LPC Primary SystemTo advance the dialogue, I would like to table a few su…
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Hints of the Rae Revolution in Bob’s comments
Finally, a breath of fresh air seems to be blowing through the Liberal Party. With one speech, Bob Rae has thrown down the gauntlet to our party, daring us to think outside the nine dots, and to prune where pruning is needed, and open our arms wide to …
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Tory donors versus Liberal donors in 2010: The 3 to 1 advantage Harper enjoys
In 2010 the Conservative Party of Stephen Harper received donations from almost three times as many individuals as the Liberal Party did.The Tories raised $17 million from just ovvr 95,000 donors, while the LPC raised only $6 million from just over 32,…
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