Cuts: This time it's personal

Starting today, when Parliament resumes, and right up to the budget, we're going to be hearing a lot about cuts. The government's sales job on the cuts is worth watching -- to see what it thinks about the way we think. 

The last time we had a restraint budget, in 1995, the Liberal government used fear to get us sold on the need for cuts. There was talk of hell and  high water, of Canada being an economic basket case,  of potential IMF intervention, and of course, the children. The poor children, the next generation, were going to be saddled with our debt. (I kept having visions of Dickens' workhouses.) 

Now, 17 years later, I'm intrigued by how fear has been largely replaced by anger. When we cast around looking for where the cuts are coming, we look at where the government and its allies have been  trying to whip  up scorn and  rage: the CBC, the public service, generous pensions, unions, provinces, (certain) foreigners, and pretty much anyone who is seen to be standing in the way of Conservative dreams of prosperity. 

It's interesting -- this is something that probably couldn't work in the private sector. (And probably shouldn't.) When downsizing cuts are made  in this realm, our bosses have to go to some lengths to prove that the job losses weren't the result of a grudge or personal antipathy. Funny how when it comes to government, or at least this government, we simply assume that those being cut are going to get cut down first in the eyes of the public. 

I'm wondering if it is possible for this government to make any cuts without first demonizing the target of them. Do we have to be angry in 2012 (as opposed to scared in 1995) to contemplate budget cuts?   Without anger,  though, I guess we'd back to fear -- and all those poor, debt-ridden children. 

Old Age Security: Necessary, but not necessarily

Watching CTV's Question Period today, I confess I couldn't figure out whether the government's spokesperson, Shelly Glover, was saying that Canada's old-age security system  wasn't going to be touched, or that it had to be cut. I realize that some politicians aspire to confusion like this, believing that one message cancels out the other, and therefore the overall impression is white noise.

I suggested on Twitter that people may study this segment for how to do just that, so here, as a service to those people, is CTV's transcript of the discussion. The segment begins with a clip of the Prime Minister's Davos speech, which started this whole speculation, and the parts in bold are mine.  

STEPHEN HARPER (Canadian Prime Minister): We've already taken steps to limit the growth of our health care spending over that period. We must do the same for our retirement income system. |CRAIG OLIVER: So the prime minister was in a neutral country, Switzerland, when he drew the battle lines in Canada. And we're here to talk about that with Peter Julian, the NDP's finance critic who's in Vancouver; Ralph Goodale, former Liberal finance minister who's in Regina, of course; and Shelly Glover, parliamentary secretary to the finance minister who's in Winnipeg, my old hometown, one of my many old home towns. Miss Glover, let me go to you first, do you think it was wise to appear to be targetting the elderly by raising concerns about old age security and changes as your first target? |SHELLY GLOVER (Conservative – MB): Well first and foremost, Craig, that is not what happened. In fact while in Davos, our prime minister and our minister of finance were very much seen as leaders to most of the other world leaders, and the prime minister set out very clearly some general parameters to ensure that we are going to sustain this country for many, many years to come. He wants to look at long-term prosperity because he wants to make sure that income security for seniors is preserved for many, many generations. So unfortunately there's been a number of reports that were very inaccurate and highly inflammatory, but we are going to maintain senior's income security and we are going to take care of this country's long-term prosperity and sustainability. |OLIVER: You're going to maintain income security. Does that mean there's no intention whatsoever to extend the old age security system from 65 to 67 for eligibility? None whatsoever? |GLOVER: There are no changes that are going to be occurring with our seniors with regards to OAS at this point. We are reviewing anything that might affect long-term prosperity of these very important benefits to our seniors. And to not do that is irresponsible frankly. And for the NDP and the Liberals to simply continue to say we should spend more, have higher taxes, that's what's going to hurt our seniors, and to not take care of business for the long-term, again, is another chance that we are not willing to take, and we're going to focus on jobs and the economy. The other two parties are focused on leadership and securing their jobs. We're going to continue to focus on jobs and security for Canadians. |OLIVER: Mr. Julian, I don't think it was the media that raised the question of pensions in Davos. Maybe I'm wrong. Do you hear a shift there? |PETER JULIAN (NDP – BC): Well, no, what's very clearly happened is there's a slap in the face to Canadian seniors that Mr. Harper had a in his speech in Davos. He said he's going to do the same thing to pensions that he did to health care, and we know what we're seeing there is over a longer period of time expensive cuts. I was in my riding over the last couple of days. I've been hearing back from seniors. They see it as a slap in the face. They see it as a real concern. And so tomorrow we'll be meeting, national leader Nycole Turmel and myself will be meeting with the Canadian Association of Retired Persons. We'll be talking about what all this means. It's very clear that this is bad news for Canadian seniors. And I think what people find most irresponsible about all this is that Mr. Harper has had absolutely no moderation around wanting to spend these billions of dollars on his prison programs, and buying the F-35 fighter jets despite the fact the cost has tripled. He seems to be saying to Canadian seniors you're going to have to pay the price for our financial irresponsibility. |OLIVER: Mr. Goodale, you were the minister as finance minister in charge of old age security. Do you believe that the system is in danger of bankruptcy, that it's unsustainable is the word the government used as Canadians get older? |RALPH GOODALE (Liberal – SK): Well you always have to manage the system very carefully. But what the government is saying, that if they don't somehow cut back on OAS, and bear in mind this is a program that doesn't benefit the wealthier Canadians, this is for middle and low income Canadians, so the, the attack here is directly on the most vulnerable in our society. If they were to move the age from 65 to 67, that could take up to $30,000 away from the lowest income senior citizens in our country. It's just a bizarre attack on middle and lower income Canadians. And, Craig, if you look at the cost of OAS today, it takes about 2.4 percent of GDP to pay for it. If you add in all of the baby-boomers that are going to retire between now and the year 2031, that cost only goes up marginally from 2.4 percent to 3.1 percent. So you have to manage it carefully. |GLOVER: What?! |GOODALE: But this is not a threat to the fiscal framework. |OLIVER: Okay, Miss Glover, I think I heard you there yelping. |GLOVER: I'm a bit in shock, to be frank with you, Craig. I mean Ralph Goodale was the finance minister. I'm glad he's frankly not the finance minister now because we're talking in dollars, he's minimizing in percentages, which is misleading, because in dollar value right now $36 billion is spent on OAS. And in 2030 it will be up to $108 billion. That's an increase of $72 billion that he says is marginal. I'm sorry, but right now we spent 13 cents on every dollar to go towards support for the elderly. Peter Julian is saying that we're spending too much on prisons. We spend 3 cents per dollar on our public safety system, including police, corrections, our prison systems, and our border security. So I'm sorry, but these two fellows need to do their homework and read some of the reports that are out there because they're way off base. We're going to do what's necessary to protect the economy and Canadians. |OLIVER: Mr. Julian... |GOODALE: Craig, there you have it. |OLIVER: Go ahead, Ralph. |GOODALE: Craig, Shelly has just confirmed the suspicion. This is an attack on seniors. |GLOVER: Oh hogwash. |GOODALE: They've been trying to soften it in the last couple of days, but the fact of the matter is, and you've just heard it from Shelly Glover that they are going to take a swath out of the OAS. |GLOVER: No, we're going to preserve it and sustain it. |GOODALE: And that is attacking the most vulnerable people in our society, and that is improper and it's not necessary for fiscal reasons. |OLIVER: Mr. Julian, just to make this clear, does the NDP think there's any need to be cutting pensions of any kind because of the demographics of Canadians threatening the pension system? |JULIAN: Well what we've been saying all along, Craig, is that what we need to do is make sure we have a very sound foundation, particularly for CPP. We've been talked about increased contributions. We think that is the way to go. Most provinces agree with it, most organizations across the country as well. What you need to do is have a sound basis for CPP. And what that does as well of course is relieve some of the pressure on OAS. So what we need to do, we've been putting this forward for years. I think that's part of the reason why the numbers of NDP MPs continue to increase in the House of Commons is that the Canadian seniors are well aware we need a sound foundation for our pension security, and for our pension system. What we're seeing from the Conservatives is an absolutely irresponsible attack on Canadian seniors, particularly middle income and low income Canadian seniors. And what they're doing is in the same time as we've seen the context of tens of billions of dollars thrown away on the prisons, on the F-35s, and as well on corporate tax cuts, it just does not make sense to seniors, and a lot of Canadian seniors who voted Conservatives are opposed to this. |OLIVER: Miss Glover, I think you're shaking your head there. |GLOVER: Well the reason I shake my head, Craig, is because we have a number of low income seniors and middle income seniors who are being frightened by what the NDP and the Liberals are doing by speculating and enflaming this very, very, very sensitive issue when the prime minister's been very clear no changes will occur. There are going to be no changes presently to the benefits. We are looking long term at the sustainability, which means we haven't decided to do anything. But we need to look at it very clearly so that we can protect it and have it for many generations to come. And it's unfortunate that they're scaring seniors, and it's despicable as far as I'm concerned and really unnecessary. |OLIVER: Folks, got to go. I appreciate you all joining us in talking about this because I think it's scared a lot of people. But Miss Glover had a chance to... |GOODALE: Yeah, especially women, Craig, especially women. |OLIVER: Okay. Miss Glover... |(OVERLAPPING SPEAKERS) |OLIVER: ...sounded like she was shifting ground just a little, but thank you very much all. Bye for now.

It should be pointed out as well, I guess, that a spokesperson for the Prime Minister, Andrew MacDougall, followed up this appearance with some Twitter messages of his own, which also maintained that OAS was not being cut but that if something didn't happen, it would be too expensive. 

Matters of state vs. matters of politics

The recent controversies over Bloc Quebecois spending -- allegations that the BQ used public funds to pay for partisan causes -- prove that karma may exist in Canadian politics. 

The Bloc, let's remember, was the first to be outraged over the old Liberal program of advertising and sponsorship after the 1995 referendum. The scandal, as the Bloc initially saw it, was that public money was being spent to prop up what they regarded as a partisan cause. What the Chretien government saw as "defending federalism" was translated by the Bloc as "defending Liberalism."  

Outside Quebec, it's sometimes difficult for us to see federalism as a partisan issue. We in the English-language media were allowed to call the old debates "national-unity" struggles, for instance, because for our readers, there is only one nation -- Canada. Our colleagues from the Quebec media, on the other hand, had to be a bit more nuanced, so as not to be seen favouring one side over the other. (At a recent conference I attended, by the way, a BBC executive said that they'd be looking hard at CBC's example for guidance on how to cover the coming Scottish referendum. There will be a bit of a difference between how Scottish and British listeners  are following events.) 

This little distinction came to mind today when I was reading Kady O'Malley's recent blog post, featuring a missive from the PMO with the headline: "Foreign Radicals Threaten Further Delays."

It was another screed against environmental groups who oppose the pipeline. I immediately wondered: Is this my government at work, or the Conservative party? The line can be a fuzzy one in Canada, and we Canadians, trusting souls that we are, usually rely on governments themselves to draw the distinction between enemies of the state and enemies of the party in power.  

Maybe most Canadians don't care about the distinction -- politics, government, all the same thing, to the victor go the spoils, etc. But actually, it's a distinction that we all should keep monitoring. Why? Well, because we don't want anyone using the state's power to go after political enemies. That's what they do in banana republics. How would you like to find your tax returns repeatedly audited, for instance, because you happen to have made donations to the "wrong" political parties? 

Anyway, this brings me back to the original point. I'm wondering if today's environmentalism is yesterday's sovereignty-movement, in the eyes of the government. It   now being  deemed as un-Canadian  to oppose the pipelines, does that justify the state stepping in to fight this point of  view? Or should that PMO release more properly have come from the Conservative party? 

 

The PM and the Liberal pollster

Not long before last year's election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper sat down for a  chat  with Pierre Trudeau's former pollster. Yes, you read that correctly. Martin Goldfarb, who was the official Liberal party pollster from 1973 to 1992, gave Harper the benefit of his advice (free) at a meeting only weeks before the late-March collapse of the last Parliament and the subsequent election. 

The meeting was arranged by Conservative senator Don Oliver, apparently, who had read Goldfarb's  latest  book, Affinity: Beyond Branding, and thought the Prime Minister should get a taste of some of the insights within those pages.

The book, not much noticed when it was released in 2010, landed in my sights because I'm now working on my own book project (hence the only-occasional blogging) and Martin Goldfarb's work over the decades is a part of it.

 On my way from Ottawa to Toronto yesterday, I read Affinity and it is a fascinating look into how consumer/brand culture has worked in Canada  -- and, relatedly, what political people can learn from the intersection of those worlds. Harper's Conservatives have been masters of this understanding in recent years -- branding is big with this government, as we know.  One wouldn't think that they'd be out looking for counsel from Liberal folks on this issue, but hey, the best politicians understand the thinking of their rivals as much as they understand themselves. 

Anyway, while I was interviewing Goldfarb yesterday, getting his views on how the Conservatives have been doing branding, he offhandedly mentioned the meeting with Harper, and said that some of the stuff he was telling me, he'd shared with the Prime Minister himself about a year ago. 

The meeting took place at the Prime Minister's office on the third floor of Centre Block. "Have you ever been in this room before?" Harper asked Goldfarb. "Yes," the pollster replied, "but when the office belonged to a previous occupant." 

Goldfarb was under no illusions that Harper had read the book, but he gave him a little summary of the political-brand counsel contained in the final chapters. Here are some snippets (or you could go buy the book.) Keep in mind that it was written before the election, and that it's coming from a man who, though no longer the party pollster, would prefer to see the Liberals in power, even if he thinks the party has lost its way. 

• "Harper is still searching for the big idea that will establish his brand promise for himself and his Conservative party.... A series of attributes unconnected to a big idea, or a brand promise, will not attract people." 
• "Michael Ignatieff became the   leader of the Liberal Party without thinking how to put his imprint on the Liberal brand. ... I believe Ignatieff's writings are his true thoughts. He is now trying to speak as if those writings never happened. The public smells that he is not transparent with them." 
• "(Paul) Martin, as leader, could not convince the public that he was bigger than his ideas."
• "Dion's environmentalism was  admired, but it was never connected to the Liberal brand or convincingly related to Liberal values." 

Goldfarb doesn't believe that his meeting with Harper had any significance in ensuing political events, or the Conservative party's majority election win. He still thinks Harper is lacking the "big idea" and that Liberals have still lost their way. And what did he think of the man who now has Trudeau's old office? 

"He was very polite," Goldfarb said. 

Twitter score at the Liberal convention

Twitter, of course, is a big part of this Liberal convention, when all the talk is of bringing the party (kicking and screaming, perhaps) into the 21st century. And  an outfit called MediaMiser, helpfully, is keeping score of Twitter progress at this weekend's big gathering at the Ottawa convention centre, especially when it comes to the presidential race between candidates Sheila Copps and Mike Crawley. 

As of 12:36 p.m. today, here are the raw stats they've sent along:

• The most influential tweeters of the hashtag #LPC12 so far today (of tweeters with three or more tweets) are @adamgoldenberg, @gmacofglebe, @davidakin and @susandelacourt.    
•  In terms of volume of tweets, Mike Crawley appears to be winning the Twitter battle - at least so far. When it comes to the #lpc12 hashtag (in # of  tweets): 
• @Sheila_copps        3
• @Youth4sheila        0
• @_mike_crawley    10
• @Aboldnewred        78

 

• (The Copps team's numbers climb under the #ott12 hashtag, with 25 total tweets being issued under that tag).
• * As well, the hashtags #boldnewred and #teamcrawley have been mentioned under #lpc12 99 and 71 times, respectively. By contrast the hashtag #youth4sheila has been mentioned only  twice in relation to #lpc12.
• * Overall mentions of "Copps" and "Crawley" under #LPC12 are: Copps 85 mentions, Crawley 50 mentions.
• * Under #ott12 the overall mentions of Copps and Crawley are 68 and 79, respectively.
• Overall, we've collected nearly 1700 tweets with the hashtag #LPC12 and nearly 2000 with the hashtag #ott12 (some tweets have both hashtags and therefore appear in both numbers).

 

At the Liberal convention

All this weekend, I'm at the Liberal party's Ottawa convention and in between filing for the paper, constant Tweeting and chatting to folks in the corridors, this poor blog has been getting neglected. So, a little catching up...

* It is true -- if you had been out of the country for the past six years or so, out of contact, you could arrive at the convention centre in Ottawa this weekend and remain unaware that the party had been kicked down to historic lows. There are more than 3,000 registered delegates, tightly fought races for the executive and all the requisite red swag, hospitality suites  and hoopla. Former cabinet ministers are mingling in the hallways and former prime ministers (except Chretien, who's abroad) are sailing from room to room with small entourages.  Of course, you'd  be reminded of the defeat  as soon as anyone spoke -- every speech at this convention dwells on the crushing loss and its suggested causes. 

* All the events have been open to the media, except one I *really* wanted to attend, which was a briefing about new technology and the "permanent campaign." Liberals,  about 10 years too late, are doing a lot of talk about the need to "micro-target" their support, as the Conservatives do. I remember several years ago, when CBC TV reporter Keith Boag did an excellent piece on the Conservatives' CIMS database, and Liberals saying afterward that they needed to match that impressive feat. (Sorry, no link; the CBC seems to have buried this great piece somewhere in inaccessible archives.) Keith did his documentary in 2007 and it's now 2012.

I'd been curious to hear why the Liberals still haven't adopted this tool and it's just my suspicion, but I think the obstacle may be cultural as much as technological. When party president Alf Apps started talking up the need for an extensive database at one session yesterday, several grassroots Liberals started grumbling about not wanting to annoy supporters with pestering emails. It's weird -- it's the Conservatives who are supposed to hate "intrusive" databases like the gun registry and censuses, but they seem to have no problem with their party keeping  extensive records on them. Liberals, on the other hand, seem okay with the registry and the census, but a political-party database makes many squeamish, judging from what I heard yesterday. (I'll have more to say on this in blogs ahead, and also, not incidentally, in a book I'm knuckling down to write in the next couple of months.) 

 * Speaking of Conservatives, they  do have observers at the convention, but it's not the Prime Minister's Office senior staff (as it was, oddly, I thought, at the 2006 Liberal leadership in Montreal.) The party's communications guy, Fred Delorey, is lurking in the corridors, as is Stephen Taylor from the National Citizens' Coalition. The New Democrats, meanwhile, have sent Olivia Chow and the affable Karl Belanger. I ran into Chow last night and she told me she'd worn an orange scarf with red splashes, just to sort of fit in.

* Many people were fretting about the planned "tribute" for Michael Ignatieff last night, as in "how awkward is that going to be?" More to the point, how do you fete a leader who brought the party to the result last election? It turned out to be okay, as Les Whittington is reporting in our paper.  Some people in the media seats were complaining about the tribute as it unfolded, but I've seen worse. The tribute to Stephane  Dion in Vancouver in 2009 was bizarre, including a way-too-long, I-was-right-all-along speech by the man himself, while the 2003 tribute to Chretien had a bizarre element to it too, with Paul Anka serenading the crowd, Vegas-style, and a Cirque de Soleil performer rolling around inside a large transparent ball.

I saw Ignatieff when he arrived yesterday (as sort-of-reported here, a selective account that appeared to miss the fact that several reporters greeted him similarly.) What Ignatieff said, on seeing the gaggle of media, was: "Oh no, the reptiles." Then he laughed, shook some hands, greeted the female reporters with kisses and moved on. There was apparently a suite in his honour last night, which according to Twitter reports was well-attended.

I didn't go to any of the suites -- the prospect seemed just like too much work at 10 p.m. last night. But from what I also read on Twitter, there was a lot going on at Premier Dalton McGuinty's suite -- his speech to the convention was massively well received, and I'm betting a lot of Liberals are taking yet another look at getting him to run for the leadership. You might remember than when his brother, David, mused about this in the media a little while ago, the Premier said that he'd be forcing him to sit at the little kids' card table for Christmas dinner with the family. David told me last night (jokingly, I think), that he had been consigned to that table, but that the brothers hadn't come to blows, since Dalton is aware that David would win any physical scuffle. 

* Ignatieff delivered a small shot to Peter C. Newman in his speech last night, not naming him, but referencing the book in which Newman declares the Liberal Party dead. "What is he talking about?" Several of us were joking last night that something like this would have been more fun. Rae has also taken some veiled shots at Newman in his speeches, and the author is wandering around the convention. I don't see his books for sale anywhere in the corridors, though. 

And that's it for now... Proceedings start today and tomorrow at 8 a.m., so that's where I'm headed at this ungodly hour on a Saturday. For quicker updates from me, you can check Twitter, where I'm also posting the odd photo here and there. 

Speaking of NDP defectors....

 Whenever someone crosses the floor to another party, we usually scramble a bit to see if they've said things about their new, political  family that they now regret. Every now and then, for instance, you'll hear the Conservatives dredging up Scott Brison's old quotes about the Liberal party, uttered when he used to be a Progressive Conservative. Same goes for the current interim leader, Bob Rae, who is obviously the most high-profile of New Democrats turned Liberals in Canada today, and is often reminded of the things he used to say about the party he now leads.

So today, when Lise St.-Denis moved from the NDP to the Liberal caucus, I was idly wondering whether she had made any comments she would now regret -- maybe she said the party was dead or something like that in the last election? I'm sure we'll find out. Past political lives can be hard to shake. 

That's certainly the case, it seems, with Paul Summerville, a former NDP candidate in the Toronto  riding of St. Paul's, who is experiencing some flashback political regret this month -- so much, that he felt he had to air it on his website in the past week. Summerville is now a Liberal and would like to be elected as policy chair at this weekend's convention.

During his time as a New Democrat,  Summerville had what he calls "a footnote" part in a rather large catastrophe for  his new party.  Summerville's signature was on the 2005 letter asking  for an investigation  into   alleged  income-trust leaks by then-Liberal finance minister Ralph Goodale. The announcement of that investigation, in the last days of 2005, is widely seen as the fatal seal of Liberal fate before the Conservative election victory of January, 2006.

Summerville calls this "unfortunate." Goodale was cleared of all alleged wrongdoing in 2007.

Here's what Summerville posted on his site:

A Letter to the SEC

PAUL SUMMERVILLE • JANUARY 5, 2012

 

 

I wanted to address an issue that came up yesterday about a footnote in Canadian political history that I occupy.

 

Yesterday news came that an NDP press release from December 2005 regarding the letter dated December 18, 2005 that Judy Wasylycia-Leis and I wrote asking the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate an unusual pattern of stock and income trust trading was making the rounds with delegates.

 

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/wasylycia-leis-and-summerville-ask-for-investigation-572558.htm

The facts are that there was a leak and there was criminal conviction.

 

http://www2.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/city/story.html?id=a9423bad-99ab-46ad-abe2-35dcf3706241

However, the announcement by the RCMP to conduct a criminal investigation ''regarding a possible breach of security or illegal transfer of information in advance of the federal government's announcement of changes to the taxation of Canadian corporate dividends and income trusts Nov. 23, 2005” that was announced on December 29, 2005 had nothing to do me, and was not the intent of the letter.

 

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=17a25375-a1c8-4219-bedd-6199a28d191b

The fact that this cast a shadow over Ralph Goodale’s good name who was Finance Minister at the time was very unfortunate.

 

I think most observers including me would argue it was unfair, and of course his office was cleared of any wrong doing.

 

http://www.macleans.ca/canada/national/article.jsp?content=20070215_134912_10588

Over the course of the next few days much will be googled and much will be said.

 

When it involves me please let me know.

 

I will delighted to answer all your questions.

Just don't tell Tony Clement he can't spell

The local CBC morning radio show here, Ottawa Morning, did a little segment today on politicians on Twitter. As usual, Treasury Board President Tony Clement was cited as one of the most successful and prolific cabinet ministers on social media. In a tweet (naturally), Clement told host Robyn Bresnahan the three-word secret  to his Twitter success: "Authenticity, dimensionality and engagement."

But near Parry Sound, Ontario, there's a 15-year-old  lad  named Keith Pettinger (Twitter handle @KeithPettinger) who might want to add a fourth word to Clement's list: profanity.

Young Mr. Pettinger got into a bit of a spat with Clement on Twitter over the weekend, over spelling mistakes, of all things, and the Treasury Board President, in a direct message, called him a "jackass."

Clement acknowledges the outburst and has apologized for it, saying in an email:

"The message was a private communication. That said, in hindsight, I could have been more polite. I apologize for offending him."

Here are the screen shots of the conversation, supplied by Pettinger: 

Grassroots or pesky weeds?

 Ask 2,500 Liberals what's wrong with the Liberal party, what's behind its decline, and you'll likely get 2,500 answers. One persistent theme, though, is that the party, when in power, grew too distant from its grassroots, especially in terms of policy.

So among the fixes proposed at this weekend's convention is a guarantee that policy proposals from the rank and file will end up in the party's election platforms.

26. Inclusion of priority policy resolutions in Party Platform
Proposed amendment: That the LPC amend its Constitution to provide that a minimum of three (3) Priority Resolutions of the most recent Convention be included in the next Election Platform of the LPC.

Is this going to help the Liberals do better in the next election? Well, let's see what other federal parties do with their policy resolutions.

Fortunately, we have two recent examples -- Conservatives  and New Democrats held conventions in June and presumably, since they've both done well with the electorate lately, we should be able to see how they value the policy contributions of their grassroots membership.

So let's head over to the Conservative party website and search for policy.(See image left). There is indeed a link for "Policy," but the only material there is the election platform and the Government's recent budget. Late last week, I asked the Conservative Party's communications people where I could find the policy resolutions passed at the last convention and so far, no answer. Perhaps they are still looking.

Update: Through the magic of Twitter, one correspondent has directed me to this link: http://www.conservative.ca/media/2011-CPC-Policy-E.pdf

Okay then, let's check with the New Democratic Party. Where are their policy resolutions from last June's convention? Here's the NDP  website, with lots of notice about the upcoming leadership convention and past caucus activity.  

I can't seem to find anything here either about policy resolutions from the last convention. But again, perhaps I'm missing something.

There are a couple of possible conclusions you can draw here. First, of course, is that the Liberals are trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist for other parties -- that Conservatives and New Democrats aren't all that fussed about getting grassroots policy into the central policy platform. Or, that it's simply assumed that they're one and the same -- in a way that hasn't been true for the Liberals. 

So, is there anyone out there who knows the answers to this? What do the Conservatives and New Democrats do with policy resolutions from their convention?