What? You do not believe that? Why just the other day, we received a large envelope from the Liberal Party of Canada. In big capitol letters across one side of the mailing were the words “Transparent. Open.” and “Real.” And if you believed that you were deluding yourself. Inside the overly large envelope were the usual plea for money and an interesting note from Liberal Party President Anna Gainey. What she had to say was more disingenuous than the misleading words on the outside.
She mentions in passing that the recent biennial convention in Winnipeg threw out the party’s constitution. The partying attendees agreed to a top-down, tightly controlled party organization—with details to come later. This new constitution gutted the ability of local liberals to have effective say in developing party policy, reviewing the leadership and selecting their local candidate. And by canceling membership fees, it took away most of the independent funding of the grassroots by its local members. Mind you, the party no longer has any members by edict of our Leader.
Gainey tells us that 26,000 people have said they wanted to be registered (for free) in the first month. That is a long way from the hundreds of thousands who were once proud to be active (paid up) members of the Liberal Party.
Maybe this expensive mailing piece is a failure in effective communications. It makes sure you know where to send your money but neglects to tell you where to sign up to have your say.
We should also admit that there was also a letter from Justin Trudeau in the package. It started out “Dear Peter” and ended with Justin’s signature. We obviously got this package because we used to give the party some money every month. We cancelled that benevolence when the Winnipeg convention belittled our support of the party that went back before Justin was born.
This liberal had high hopes for Justin Trudeau. When we first met him six years ago it was amazing to see him work the small crowd we had assembled for him. We had a chance to talk at the time and we learned a lot about him.
Independently the wife came to the same conclusion that he is more like his mother than his father. It is unlikely that we will ever really understand his agenda—if he has a long-term one? His elitist solutions to the senate and supreme court appointments must be motivated by a fear of addressing Canada’s constitutional needs. He seems to have a mental switch that enables him to turn his public persona on and off.
There was no need to respond to his recent letter though. It was just one more among thousands.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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