The Liberal Party of Canada gathered in Ottawa this weekend for the party’s biennial convention. This type of event is like old times to this writer. It was 48 years ago that we helped organize our first Liberal Party event. The fun times over the years were the conventions when we only had to deal with the news media. The more onerous ones were those requiring us to be up all night, triple checking every detail for the next day’s events. We did not go to this one. The only expectation of this Liberal convention was extreme frustration.
How would you feel about a convention that has been set up to obstruct real reform? From the opening bell, you were presented with the dinosaurs of right-wing Liberalism of the past. Can you imagine Dalton McGuinty keynoting the conference to tell you how to achieve electoral success? Thanks Dalton, we already had you to thank in part for the Liberal’s lousy showing in May’s federal election. The only thing that saved your sorry provincial Whig asses in the October election was the confused youngster posing as a Conservative Party leader.
This Liberal convention would have been embarrassing. How would you feel about a convention in which nothing technical worked other than the automatic flushing of the urinals? Nothing was on time except your wake-up call. And why, when everything was so damn predictable? Don’t you know that the Young Liberals have been passing resolutions to legalize marijuana since the 1960s? And how can you pass a stupid resolution to dump the monarchy without a clear explanation of the alternative? You need to understand that voting on resolutions that do not make sense, produces results that do not make sense. Why bother?
There were over 3,000 people at the convention. Nobody missed us. Sure it could have been better run but then, who would notice? There were some small wins, here and there. The only major win, we think, was the win by Mike Crawley running to be president of the party. There is a promise from Mike that he will restore control of the party to the electoral districts. We will hold his feet to the fire to make sure he delivers. When you consider how close the race was between Mike and Sheila Copps, you know how serious the schism is in the party between those favouring reform and the old guard on the right. It makes one wonder just how big the membership loss will be when the Liberal Party of Canada moves to the left of the political spectrum and merges with the New Democrats.
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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