It was an incredible weekend. Over 3000 delegates from across Canada came to Ottawa to discuss renewal, policy initiatives and rebuilding the Liberal party. We have some new faces on the National Executive, those include:
President: Mike Crawley
Vice President (English): Chris MacInnes
Vice President (French): Imran Ahmad
National Policy Chair: Maryanne Kampouris
National Membership Secretary: Matthew Certosimo
Although I had publicly supported Sheila Copps, I am delighted that Mike Crawley is president. It was really a win-win situation because all the candidates, and in particular Mike and Sheila, were very strong. Some have reported that the vote was as close as 26 votes, which doesn’t surprise me with two such high quality candidates. Special recognition should go to Chris MacInnes too, the only Maritimer to put his name forward for an executive position. I’d like to congratulate all candidates who ran!
A few hot topics that were debated at the convention included:
1. Liberals supporting the legalisation of marijuana.
2. Allow ‘supporters’ of the party (and not just members) vote for the next Liberal leader
3. Liberals voted in favour of a preferential balloting system. The motion states that the party “implement a preferential ballot for all future national elections.”
The legalisation of marijuana was a particularly heated discussion. In the end, I think that if we can come up with a good legislative framework that properly addresses marijuana use, while regulating it correctly – it could conceivably work.
The ‘supporter’ amendment is really good. When we have our leadership race in 2013, not only members but ‘supporters’ of the Liberal party, who do not have to pay a membership fee, can participate in picking our new leader. I think that this is a great way of getting more people, in particular of the younger generation, involved in the political process. Many younger people are discouraged by political parties and don’t want to be a card-carrying political supporter. We get that. As one younger person said during the debate “We want to date before we marry.” We want them to check out the Liberal party, voice their concerns, without them needing to pay a membership fee up front. We hope this proposal will excite younger people to re-engage in politics and help us find the best leader to address the difficulties facing us in the years ahead.
Finally, we voted for electoral reform by supporting a preferential balloting system. This is when you rank candidates and the candidate with the lowest amount of votes gets dropped off, so the second choice of those voters get considered with the remaining candidates.
Overall, the weekend was incredibly exciting. I welcome you to respond to this with your questions, comments or concerns about the topics above or anything else that occurred over the weekend. Let’s keep this discussion going.
- Sean
Join the conversation