I thought I'd carry a nearer look at some of the instruction issued yesterday by Liberal Party of Canada National Membership Secretary Robert Hamish Jamieson to see if I could better understand the leadership/convention machinations currently underway in the upper echelons of the Liberal Party of Canada.
The Big Party of Canada is setting a flow to enable your part to be heard and to own your actions direct our company as we go forward together.
Our party`s constitution, most recently amended by delegates to the 2009 Vancouver Convention, prescribes that your National Board must have a Leadership Vote to take a new Liberal Leader. Adhering to the constitution, your Card will set this Leadership Vote to feed the maximum sentence allowed (5 months) which is October 28 and 29, 2011. The Leading Vote is a vote by all party members - One Member, One Vote.
This paragraph is a little more perplexing than it seems at first glance. For instance, the 1st sentence (Our party`s constitution [edit] prescribes that your National Board must hold a Leadership Vote to take a new Liberal Leader. seems to show that, the National Board of Directors will make a Leadership Vote to appoint (select) an interim leader. This is in accordance with section 54(3)(a) which states, in part, that if "the Leader publicly announces an intent to submit or if the Leader delivers to the National President a written resignation or a written request to name a Leadership Vote, the National President must claim a confluence of the National Board of Directors to be held within 27 days, and at that encounter the National Board of Directors must: (a) [edit] in interview with the Caucus, appoint an "Interim Leader";
So on May 30 the Progressive Party will receive a new "Interim Leader".
But then Jamieson writes "Adhering to the constitution, your Card will set this Leadership Vote." Except it is distinctly not "this" Leadership Vote - the one referred to in the first sentence -but another Leadership Vote for a permanent leader. This is because "the maximum sentence allowed (5 months)" is set out in 54(3)(b) which mandates that at that May 30 meeting "the National Board of Directors must:b) set a see for a Leadership Vote to be held within 5 months."
In other words, a Leadership Vote date will be set for October 28 and 29, 2011.
It's a bit confusing . to me at least.
However, so many members like yourself have called, written and emailed your Board members, asking that this Leadership Vote be delayed. According to your feedback, the overwhelming reason to delay the Leading Vote is to leave for meetings throughout our ridings, regions and provinces in the coming months so we may together discuss and resolve upon our future as a party and focus on serious policy and organizational rebuilding work before we reverse our aid to our leadership choices. Your Table has heard almost unanimously that this is better done free of a Leadership selection process.
This is a serial of assertions with absolutely no evidence provided in back of them.And scorn the fact that this paragraph is filled with grassroots language - such as, "so many members like yourself," and"according to your feedback" -this is what Liberal Party President Alfred Apps has wanted all along.
In a letter sent to Liberals released on May 4,Apps wrote "This is not the sentence for making rash judgments or speedy conclusions. [edit] This is not the sentence for Liberals to be seduced by political expediency or parliamentary convenience."This is nothing more than coded language for postponing a Leadership Vote, composed less than 24 hours after Michael Ignatieff announced his intention to submit as Leader.
So we have unsupported anecdotal evidence that this is what grassroots Liberals want but strong evidence, in his own words no less, that it is precisely what Mr. Apps has ever wanted.
And so we get this:
Therefore, we are calling for an extraordinary convention of our company to be held on June 18, 2011 by teleconference which will allow delegates to consider and voting on an amendment that would delay the Leading Vote should it be recognised by the delegates. This is a function under our Constitution that enables the Company to cope with special situations like those we confront today. While the Room would choose that all members be capable to voting in this convention, the constitution specifies that only delegates chosen by members may vote at the convention.
What criteria is being used to see this is a "particular situation" requiring an "extraordinary convention?"This is not specified.
Furthermore, how long a delay would it be? In a recent Toronto Star article, Susan Delacourt reported "the board envisions that a leadership vote can then be set sometime roughly a year from now.' That would imply a twelvemonth later the "extraordinary convention," in June 2012, the appointment of the Leadership Vote will be decided.How long afterwards that it will really take place, we don't know.
Delegates to this extraordinary convention will likewise be asked to confirm January 13-15, 2012, as the dates of the next biennial convention - a vitally important measure in our rebuilding process. [edit]
The dates here are important.In an email sent to Liberals on April 10 Alfred Apps wrote "the Liberal Party of Canada is postponing the 2011 Biennial Convention, which had been scheduled for June 17-18 in Ottawa. The serious word is that a new appointment will be set shortly, as per our constitution, to make office within six months of the original date."
It's a bit confusing . to me at least.
However, so many members like yourself have called, written and emailed your Board members, asking that this Leadership Vote be delayed. According to your feedback, the overwhelming reason to delay the Leading Vote is to leave for meetings throughout our ridings, regions and provinces in the coming months so we may together discuss and resolve upon our future as a party and focus on serious policy and organizational rebuilding work before we reverse our aid to our leadership choices. Your Table has heard almost unanimously that this is better done free of a Leadership selection process.
This is a serial of assertions with absolutely no evidence provided in back of them.And scorn the fact that this paragraph is filled with grassroots language - such as, "so many members like yourself," and"according to your feedback" -this is what Liberal Party President Alfred Apps has wanted all along.
In a letter sent to Liberals released on May 4,Apps wrote "This is not the sentence for making rash judgments or speedy conclusions. [edit] This is not the sentence for Liberals to be seduced by political expediency or parliamentary convenience."This is nothing more than coded language for postponing a Leadership Vote, composed less than 24 hours after Michael Ignatieff announced his intention to submit as Leader.
So we have unsupported anecdotal evidence that this is what grassroots Liberals want but strong evidence, in his own words no less, that it is precisely what Mr. Apps has ever wanted.
And so we get this:
Therefore, we are calling for an extraordinary convention of our company to be held on June 18, 2011 by teleconference which will allow delegates to consider and voting on an amendment that would delay the Leading Vote should it be recognised by the delegates. This is a function under our Constitution that enables the Company to cope with special situations like those we confront today. While the Room would choose that all members be capable to voting in this convention, the constitution specifies that only delegates chosen by members may vote at the convention.
What criteria is being used to see this is a "particular situation" requiring an "extraordinary convention?"This is not specified.
Furthermore, how long a delay would it be? In a recent Toronto Star article, Susan Delacourt reported "the board envisions that a leadership vote can then be set sometime roughly a year from now.' That would imply a twelvemonth later the "extraordinary convention," in June 2012, the appointment of the Leadership Vote will be decided.How long afterwards that it will really take place, we don't know.
Delegates to this extraordinary convention will likewise be asked to confirm January 13-15, 2012, as the dates of the next biennial convention - a vitally important measure in our rebuilding process. [edit]
The dates here are important.In an email sent to Liberals on April 10 Alfred Apps wrote "the Liberal Party of Canada is postponing the 2011 Biennial Convention, which had been scheduled for June 17-18 in Ottawa. The serious word is that a new appointment will be set shortly, as per our constitution, to make office within six months of the original date."
If Apps made full on this constitutional requirement, it would set the biennial convention for December 18 at the latest. Except according to section 61(3) of the LPC Constitution an extraordinary convention cannot be held "within six months of a biennial convention," which way it has to be held after December 18, 2011. Hence, the appointment of the biennial convention must be changed in range to do the extraordinary convention constitutional.
What is becoming open to me is that the "particular situation" here is one of the National Board's own making. Namely, it is calling for an extraordinary convention to retroactively countermand a determination it is constitutionally obligated to make - the foundation of leadership process culminating in a formula in late October.
As this process moves forward, the danger confronting Liberals lies not so much in establishing a harmful precedent but in reaffirming an already existing precedent of expedient manipulation of the rules governing the company and the option of it's Leader.
In December 2008, "the party's national executive decided they would get a (Leadership) vote that only included MPs, senators, riding association presidents, club presidents, and defeated candidates. They also decided it would be on Dec. 17."
Ironically, these limited provisions were enacted for "political expediency or parliamentary convenience" at the time. As CTV News reported, "the Liberals want to get a new leader in place before the end of the year, so they can make for a possible showdown with the Tories in Parliament early next year."
So when it suits Mr. Apps "political expediency or parliamentary convenience" is a perfectly fine basis to modify the rules.Or conversely, if he prefers to go slow, he'll set the wheels in question to exchange the rules then too.My place here is: Why do we have rules at all, if they can be so easy and arbitrarily circumvented by those who sit atop the party hierarchy.
I am sympathetic with those who choose to hold the Leading Vote.But I am oh so weary of mendacity and Machiavellian maneuvering.
We actually want to remember through what we are near to do, and how it will strike the Liberal Party in the future.
What is becoming open to me is that the "particular situation" here is one of the National Board's own making. Namely, it is calling for an extraordinary convention to retroactively countermand a determination it is constitutionally obligated to make - the foundation of leadership process culminating in a formula in late October.
As this process moves forward, the danger confronting Liberals lies not so much in establishing a harmful precedent but in reaffirming an already existing precedent of expedient manipulation of the rules governing the company and the option of it's Leader.
In December 2008, "the party's national executive decided they would get a (Leadership) vote that only included MPs, senators, riding association presidents, club presidents, and defeated candidates. They also decided it would be on Dec. 17."
Ironically, these limited provisions were enacted for "political expediency or parliamentary convenience" at the time. As CTV News reported, "the Liberals want to get a new leader in place before the end of the year, so they can make for a possible showdown with the Tories in Parliament early next year."
So when it suits Mr. Apps "political expediency or parliamentary convenience" is a perfectly fine basis to modify the rules.Or conversely, if he prefers to go slow, he'll set the wheels in question to exchange the rules then too.My place here is: Why do we have rules at all, if they can be so easy and arbitrarily circumvented by those who sit atop the party hierarchy.
I am sympathetic with those who choose to hold the Leading Vote.But I am oh so weary of mendacity and Machiavellian maneuvering.
We actually want to remember through what we are near to do, and how it will strike the Liberal Party in the future.
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