With apologies to songwriter and singer, Roy Orbison.
You do not always feel loved when being honest in writing about liberalism and the Liberal Party in Canada. There are many liberals who enjoy the insights but probably just as many who feel challenged. What we know for sure is that the right wing of the Liberal Party does not like being challenged. They do not even like being called Whigs.
And what the Whigs do not like to admit these days is that there is a very strong and growing segment of the party demanding reform. If you are ever going to really reform the Liberal Party, now is the time. It is a time of a low ebb of Members in the House of Commons. It is a time when struggling under an interim leader—one who knows the meaning of the word ‘interim.’ It is a time when it is tough to raise funds because nobody knows where we are going to go with the money.
But the old cliché is that when times are tough, you tough it out. There is a very real concern today that almost a third of the Liberal Party’s electoral district associations are moribund. They are moribund because they have no purpose. They can be resuscitated tomorrow. They just have to be given some control and purpose and respect. They have to be responsible for choosing their Liberal candidates. They have to be responsible for raising the funds needed for election time. They must be responsible for the direction of the Liberal Party. They need to be party to choosing the party’s leader—who will be responsible to them!
Is that too much to ask?
Liberals across Canada are also articulating those demands. Some might not like the fact that Babel-on-the-Bay makes the demands public. It is the only way you can reach out to the millions of Canadians who feel as we do. And that number is in the millions. Never underestimate the desire of Canadians to be fair. Never deny their honesty. This is not a country that wants to throw alms to the impoverished from gated communities. This is a country where we all wish to live together in harmony.
The Liberal Party of Canada meets in conclave starting January 13 in Ottawa. The slogan for the conference should be drawn from a gathering in Peterborough in 1967. It attracted some backbenchers from Ottawa—one of them was a new MP, Pierre Trudeau—and some party workers and the meeting slogan was “Get off your ass.” Our late Prime Minister used to laugh about things that happened at that meeting, but he always remembered that simple slogan.
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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry
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