The old style grits

I have no idea why a party that is broke and has few prospects for fundraising is spending all their money on a big convention in Vancouver.
They should just have an online and phone vote and save all that money. Heck, charge every member $40 to vote and the grit war chest might be a little less empty.


Liberals stuck in the last century
Nov 20, 2008 04:30 AM

BOB HEPBURN
Despite all the boastful talk by its leaders about being a party of the future, the reality is that the Liberal party is in many ways badly out of step with modern political times.

Nowhere was this more openly displayed than during a nasty fight last Sunday over the closed-door leadership debate in Mississauga that Bob Rae, one of three declared candidates seeking to replace Stéphane Dion, boycotted because it was off-limits to the public.

"We're not a private country club that appoints its own board of directors," Rae said. The party won't be "successful until it opens itself up and lets in the light."

Rae was right because unless the Liberals quickly find ways to reach out to more Canadians and become more open, it will continue the long-term decline it has suffered since the early 1980s.

The Sunday fight between Rae and Michael Ignatieff, who attended the session, was a public relations nightmare for the Liberals.

That's because it reinforced the image of the party as one still bitterly divided and one that is run by a tight group of Liberals who prefer secrecy and old-fashioned ways to the new world of the Internet, YouTube and full transparency.

In truth, the Liberal hierarchy just doesn't get it.

The worst example of this is the party's plan to stage a full-scale party convention, complete with backroom deals, at which a few thousand delegates will vote for a new leader. The convention will be held April 30 to May 3 in Vancouver.

But such a delegate convention is so last century. Indeed, the Liberals are the last major political party in Canada and the United States to still pick its leader this way.