Liberal Party needs a grassroots lesson

Some in the Liberal Party of Canada need a serious lesson in grassroots democracy. After all this talk about whether the party should have involved the Liberal rank and file in choosing the next leader, you would think we would all know what “grassroots” means by now.

It’s already been established that the party opted not to consult the grassroots, but instead chose a closed-door, invitation-only process that will lead to an uncontested Michael Ignatieff being installed as leader.

But now some are doing rhetorical back flips to justify this decision.

On CBC Newsworld’s “Politics” program on Dec. 10, host Don Newman asked his two Liberal panelists if they thought the “grassroots” would be satisfied with the process that chose Ignatieff as leader.

The response by David Herle, a Liberal consultant and an advisor to former Prime Minister Paul Martin, was shockingly out of touch. I was so surprised by his response, I had to rewind the clip on my DVR to make sure I heard him correctly. He said: “I think the grassroots were consulted. I consider the riding presidents of the Liberal Party and the defeated candidates of the Liberal Party to be the grassroots, to be the rank and file of the party. I don’t think we have more important people in the party than the people who perform the function of riding president.”

Is he kidding? If the riding presidents and defeated candidates are the grassroots, what are the campaign volunteers? The dirt? What about the people who knock on doors canvassing for votes, the people who hand out literature on street corners, the people who seal fundraising envelopes and hang up campaign signs? What about the people who dutifully pay their party membership fees so they can have a say in the direction of the party? They are the grassroots.

Bob Rae was right. In order to win back power, the Liberal Party must be prepared to open itself up and become a more democratic institution.

Fairly or not, the conventional wisdom is that the Liberal Party is just waiting to win back power – to once again become the Natural Governing Party – without being serious about its need to go through a rejuvenation process. Herle’s comments just reinforce that the conventional wisdom is right.

It’s about time for Liberal/NDP coalition

While Conservatives are spinning out of control, trying to convince the public that a coalition government is undemocratic, I have just one thing to say: What took the Liberals and NDP so long?

We saw shades of such a coalition back in 2006, when Paul Martin and his Liberal minority worked with Jack Layton’s NDP to come up with the budget. The government fell – taking that ad hoc coalition with it – only after Layton decided he didn’t want to play ball anymore.

But now with the spectre of another couple of years of an emboldened Stephen Harper, Layton decided it made more sense to cooperate with – rather than bash – the Liberals.

Although some hard-core partisans are balking, the Liberals and the NDP are natural coalition partners. Frankly, except for the separatist issue, so is the Bloc Québécois.

All three are left-of-centre parties with more commonalities than differences. All three parties agree, more or less, on issues ranging from the economy and infrastructure to arts funding and gender equality. And certainly, these three parties have more in common with each other than any of them have with the Conservatives.

Even on an issue like climate change, the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc may have different ideas on how to handle the issue, but at least they all agree that it is a crisis that needs to be addressed. That’s in contrast to the Conservatives who still want to stick their heads in the ice as it melts around them.

Although the seeds of this agreement were planted some time ago, the Liberal/NDP coalition did not crystallize just because it could. It happened because Harper pushed them into it. He overplayed his political hand, expecting Stéphane Dion’s Liberals to continue to sit on their hands while Harper’s minority ruled as if it had a majority.

Right after the Oct. 14 election, Harper – who won another minority government – vowed to work with the opposition parties to make this parliament work. Well, so much for cooperation. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty issued a “Financial Update,” complete with the unfortunate if appropriate acronym “FU,” that was void of any plan to handle the current economic meltdown.

Instead, it included ideologically driven proposals – such as limiting the public sector’s right to strike and decimating the public financing system for elections – that Harper knew would not be acceptable to the opposition. Again, Harper was expecting the Liberals to just roll over and play wait-for-the-next-leader dead.

Even more disingenuous is the Conservative argument that a Liberal/NDP coalition is undemocratic and/or unconstitutional. Under the parliamentary system, what the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc have proposed is completely acceptable. The Conservatives won neither a majority of the vote (just 38 per cent in this fall’s election) nor a majority of the Commons seats (143 out of 308). So collectively, the left-of-centre parties won a majority of the vote and a majority of the seats.

Under the Constitution, if the Harper government falls because it no longer has the confidence of a majority of the House of Commons, it is Governor General Michaelle Jean’s duty to ask the opposition if they can form a government. All the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc have done is worked out that they would be able to step in and take the reins.

Harper, as usual, has been acting as if he were an American-style president, rather than a Canadian prime minister. But as Bush has been his role model, he should have been looking at Barack Obama’s transition to power, and how Obama is putting competence ahead of partisanship in picking his new cabinet. It is Obama who is working with his rivals – from both parties – to form a new government.

But instead, Harper was still reading from the Bush “you’re either with us or against us” playbook, a manual that has yellowed quickly and is fraying at the seams.

Harper and his minions are now trying scare the public out of supporting the Liberal/NDP coalition, arguing that in this fall’s election, people didn’t elect Dion.

Well, Mr. Harper, a majority of Canadians didn’t pick you, either. You had your chance to play nice, but you refused. It’s time to leave the sandbox.