Thursday, March 25, 2010

A Liberal Policy Convention Without the Rank and File


Some of you may remember that a year ago, Liberal MPs gathered with rank and file members from across Canada in Vancouver for the coronation of Mister Ignatieff. Originally it was supposed to be a leadership convention, which was not required after Ignatieff and Rae struck a capitulation deal. Rumours then started to spread that it could instead become a policy convention, where Liberals from across the country could vote on policy matters (like say perhaps funding foreign abortions). But once Iggy rose to power, he quickly quashed the idea of party members voting on policy. The convention instead became one big celebration gala for the coronation of an American professor who failed in the only leadership convention in which he had ever participated.

Friday the Liberals will meet for a policy convention in Montreal, except at this convention what you will not have are all those rank and file members from riding associations across Canada. Hell, not even Liberal members parliament are invited. It gets better, not only are they not invited, they were told not to attend and to go home instead! It appears that Ignatieff wants some hand picked bourgeois intellectuals to set the future of the party, not party membership. This does not surprise me. I'm sure Iggy doesn't want the rank and file to get in his way. The last time he gathered with them to vote on the party's future, the anointed one lost to Stephane Dion!

Stephane Dion, or Mike Ignatieff? The people have already spoken...

4 comments:

  1. Policy? They already have their Platform.

    Tax and Spend.

    This weekend: Glory Days

    How to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome from writing blank cheques.

    They really miss being out of power.

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  2. Were an senior Liberanos present?

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  3. It's always fun to resurrect Liberal narratives from the recent past, and compare them to whatever their current narrative is.

    Remember what they were saying a year ago ? Roughly speaking, it was:

    "We learned our lesson from that greenshift experiment. No way are we going to give the Tories anything that specific again. Which they will just distort and ridicule, using all that money, raised from their fanatical supporters.

    No siree. No more big policy targets painted on our foreheads, for you to shoot at Stephen Harper. We is a lot smarter now, under our new brainiac leader.

    We're just going to bide our time. Let you wear this recession. And once the voters get sick and tired of your anti-democratic ways, they will turn to the logical alternative--the Michael Ignatieff led Liberal Party of Canada" !

    So, how's that "Plan B" working out for you guys ?

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  4. You'd have thunk Iffy would be interested in 'thinkers' from the region that is the economic driver in Canada, eh.
    Nah, that would have taken some thinking.

    “43 of 53 of the guest speakers are from Ontario or Quebec – demonstrating that the ‘New Rosedale Gang’ is fully in place in Michael Ignatieff’s office.”

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/bureau-blog/thinkers-conference-or-academic-fantasyland/article1510580/

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