With the Mulcair NDP and the Harper Conservative ground so clearly staked, Liberals now have a unique opportunity to define the vital center without kowtowing to the left or the right.As a Liberal, I cannot think of a better place to be.For me, that means advancing an economic and social
Continue readingTag: Liberal Renewal
Blunt Objects: Did Warren Kinsella Just Shoot Our Foot?
I like Kinsella on a general scale, but if you need proof that the man operates outside the bounds of normal, sane practices that will help the Liberals in the longer term, look no further than his website and his quoted bit in a Hill Times article: Warren Kinsella, a
Continue readingPaper Dynamite Online: Nails It
From the day [Pierre Trudeau] resigned in 1984 to today, the Liberal Party has never developed a new and cogent framework for what it believes in. In her book “Divided Loyalties”, Brooke Jeffrey described the turmoil within the Liberal Party from 1984. What cemented foment was the great chasm brought
Continue readingCalgaryGrit: Party of Principle
While Peter C. Newman has been getting headlines with his diagnosis that the Liberal Party is dead, Andrew Coyne offers his recipe for resurrection here. While I generally agree with Coyne’s article, like Far and Wide, I would quibble that his criticism of the roadmap to renewal is unfair (“do
Continue readingCalgaryGrit: A Roadmap to Renewal
The Liberal Roadmap to Renewal has been released and can be read here. There are several longer drafts floating around I’ve put on my weekend reading list, but at 80-100 pages, I may just wait for the movie version.While the process feels a little too …
Continue readingBlunt Objects: Oh LPC Exec, How You Fill Me With Hope
If you haven’t yet read “A Roadmap to Renewal,” the document laid out and published by the National Board, you need to. Because it’s important, it’s intelligent, and above all, it makes perfect sense. Here’s some key points:the Liberals will no longer …
Continue readingBlunt Objects: Open Primaries – A Primer
With all the discussion and talk about the Liberal Party of Canada moving towards a primary system, and most of the talk being on the so-called “open primary” model, I thought it would be a good idea to quickly go over what exactly an open primary is…..
Continue readingBlunt Objects: Why the The Leadership Needs the Power to Appoint Candidates
Evil IncarnateOf all the proposals I’ve heard floating around so far to change how democracy is done within the Liberal Party, the question of taking away a leader’s power to appoint candidates is the worst. It’s the only one that I cannot ever agree w…
Continue readingBlunt Objects: Note on the eventual Toronto-Danforth by-election…
I agree with something posted awhile back by Globe and Mail columnist Robert Silver, that the upcoming by-election is a chance to do something different – specifically, the attempt at an “open primary” in the riding.The concept is simple: anyone puts t…
Continue readingCalgaryGrit: Liberal Renewal
There was a lot of ink spilled about Liberal rebuilding in the wake of the May 2nd shellacking – both among pundits and party members. Although much of that talk has cooled, with January’s biennial convention approaching, it’s likely time to renew the …
Continue readingCalgaryGrit: "We have to be a national party"
As I mentioned earlier, Mark Holland gave a real barn burner at the ALP convention the weekend before last.What made it such a great speech was that he avoided the usual cliches you get from federal politicians when they come to Calgary – “Alberta Libe…
Continue readingBlunt Objects: Liberals and Greens
Hello. I am Teddy. I am the admin of Riding by Riding, and, a new contributor to this blog. I am a liberal. I’ve always been a liberal. The problem has been that I’ve not been a Liberal in some years.Big L and small l. I’ve always backed Liberal polici…
Continue readingBlunt Objects: The Death of Liberal Canada
At least, according to respected author Peter C. Newman, is just about what we saw happening over the last few years, and Michael Ignatieff was simply the unlucky soul to prove it’s catalyst.Now, I have great admiration for Newman, but I suspect I’ll h…
Continue readingCalgaryGrit: Renewal
There has been a lot of talk about Liberal Party renewal since election night. Which is encouraging – after a punch to gut like that, it’s easy to give up, but it sounds like there’s a real appetite out there to change the party for the better.Bellow i…
Continue reading