While the idea of primaries and supporters is being framed as a way of making the Liberal Party more open, it is in fact one of the most disempowering proposals heading to the convention. Shifting from a delegated convention to weighted one member one vote was a good change, but we should keep our leadership selection process limited to people who believe in the party, our values and our policy vision strongly enough to become members.

At next week's Liberal Party convention, delegates will be voting on a series of constitutional proposals. Most of the proposals, which Jeff Jedras has helpfully annotated, are not very significant in terms of the future electoral prospects of the party. I support most of them and they are worth implementing, but I think it is foolish to look for the seeds of electoral success in internal constitutional tweaking. We shouldn't get too excited about this particular convention.

The changes related to creating a category of "supporters" and electing our leader through a series of staggered regional voting days (aka primaries) have probably garnered the most attention. I'm opposed to both ideas. Jeff Jedras and Andrew Coyne have already articulated some good reasons. Please read both articles if you haven't already done so.

Weighted one member one vote is a good system (WOMOV). It is very likely to elect a leader who resonates well with Liberals throughout the country. I see no reason to move away from it before we try it out.

Data collection is a red herring
Adding supporters to our constitution has nothing whatsoever to do with identifying supporters. We do that already during elections (and, more rarely, in between elections). Although it is true that we would collect data during a registration drive for a primary, it's not the only way to do so. I am a big believer in data and I find the "we need data!" line of argument to be less than compelling. The acknowledged leaders in collecting data on voters, the Conservatives, have managed to do so not only without a primary system for electing their leader, but with no leadership election at all since 2004. It's been all Harper, all the time. They have a money advantage and they are using their money well to create an information advantage. Frankly, the successive elections that we caused during the minority parliaments have probably been the biggest boost to their data collections efforts and ours.

The proposal is not really about data, which we can and do obtain in other ways. It's really about broadening the franchise for leadership elections and candidate elections to include supporters who do not want to become members. The onus is on proponents of the primary proposal to convince delegates why we should do so.

Leadership selection
Given the choices of Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff as leader and our results in the 2008 and 2011 elections, I can understand why people are focused on our leadership selection process (disclaimer: I like both Dion and Ignatieff). However, neither leader was selected by our existing selection process of WOMOV by preferential ballot. Our next leader will be. Whereas Stéphane Dion was elected with the support of 2,500 delegates, our next leader will probably need at least 45,000, depending on our membership numbers. Stephen Harper received more than 67,000 votes on the first ballot of the CPC leadership vote in 2004. That is a huge difference from 2,500.

Furthermore, no selection process is risk-free or a sure way of selecting an excellent leader. We should focus on the pros and cons, and the practical considerations, of the different methods.

What might a primary system mean in practice?
Warning: numbers and future babble ahead.

Some numbers may help to put the issue into perspective. In the last general election, all Liberal candidates combined received 2.7 million votes or 11.5% of the voting eligible population. In better times (2004), our candidates received 4.9 million votes or 22% of the voting eligible population (VEP). That gives a pretty good sense of what the upper limits on the number of supporters might be.

Turnout in US primaries varies hugely, from 2.6% of VEP in the Wyoming Democratic caucus to 32% of VEP for the Democrats in the Vermont primary (check the data out yourself). The Vermont numbers, which are the very best for any party during the 2008 primaries, are very similar to the 32.6% of VEP that Obama received during the 2008 presidential election (52.9% of the votes times 61.7% of VEP = 32.6% of VEP).

In Vermont, during the actual presidential election, Obama received 44% of the VEP (66% times 67%). So let's take that as an absolutely best case scenario: in regions where we are relatively strong, we might expect 75% of our voting day supporters to bother voting in a primary (32/44). In Wyoming, Obama received 21% of the VEP (32.5% of 64%) during the actual election and Democrats all together received 2.6% of VEP in the Wyoming caucus. So worst case scenario, in areas where we are relatively weak, we might expect to see 12.3% (2.6/21) of our voting day supporters turnout.

If we were to adopt a primary system with voting staggered by region or provinces, we might expect participation along the following lines, using 2011 as a baseline and 12.3%, 42.5% and 75% as weak, average and strong turnout discount factors applied to our most recent electoral results to estimate turnout in primaries (you can see my worksheet here). Thanks to the Pundits' Guide for election results by region.

Projection (using 2011 as baseline)

Atlantic Canada (strong): 250,000
Central Canada (average): 825,000
Western Canada (weak): 61,000
Northern Canada (average): 4,500

Total: 1.2 million

So, I think that it's fair to say that if we switched to a primary system, and if we succeeded in registering a very high proportion of our supporters, we might expect 1.2 million or so voters to participate in our primaries for a leadership election. This is 10 times as many as we might expect to participate in a WOMOV system (the Conservatives had just under 100,000 in 2004).

To review the various systems and the approximate number of votes likely needed to win:

Delegated system: 2,500 votes
WOMOV: 50,000 votes
Primaries: 600,000 votes

Reaching and mobilizing this many voters would of course come with financial and human resource implications -- similar in scope to a major provincial election, judging from the numbers. Increased spending requirements would likely limit the field of initial candidates. The winnowing process inherent in staggered voting would further narrow the field as we moved across the country.

Finally, and most importantly, adopting primaries would reduce the influence of members to roughly 1/10th of the influence they enjoy now under the WOMOV system. Considering the situation we are in right now, I don't think that disempowering members in this way, and on this scale, is a good idea. I don't know why most people would continue being or choose to become members if we made this change.

Bold, but not smart
In speaking with proponents of this proposal, it is clear that they are very excited about the possibility of opening up the party, reaching out to more Canadians and making a bold change that they believe will make a big difference. Even though I disagree with the proposal, I'm glad they are so actively engaged with it and enthusiastic. Unfortunately, the rationale for the proposal is sorely lacking. We are being asked to abandon a perfectly good system without crucial information about the costs of this change, how exactly the voting days would be staggered, how higher spending limits would influence the field of candidates, etc. Compounding matters, we are facing a fiscal crunch with the phase-out of the per vote subsidy and we don't have a lot of time to adopt and implement this change in advance of the 2013 leadership vote -- look at how much time and effort goes into the US primaries. The idea is well-intentioned, but it is rushed and misguided. I believe we can reach out to Canadians and better inform our campaigning without enacting the proposal.

Membership has to matter. It has to mean something. If you will be attending the convention, I hope you will join me in voting against this proposal.

Note: you may want to read up on the US primary system, as it is the one we are superficially familiar with. It's actually fairly complicated, with state primaries or caucuses determining the number of delegates that the respective state Democrats or Republicans send to their national conventions, where the nominee is officially elected by the delegates. Fans of US history may recall when Gerald Ford defeated Ronald Reagan at such a national convention. Usually the outcome of the national convention is known in advance, as most of the delegates are bound by the results of the primaries and caucuses in their home states.

Update 6 Jan 2011: Based on the results seen in the Socialist Party primaries in France (2007 presidential election and 2011 open primary), I would expect participation in a Liberal Party primary to be between 470,000 to 850,000, with the lower number based on 2011 election results and the higher number based on our 2004 election results. Broken down by region, that would mean as few as 24,000 in Western Canada (2011 baseline) and as many as 585,000 in Central Canada (2004 baseline).

Roughly 2.9 million people voted in the Socialist Party primaries, which is 17.3% of the 16.7 million who voted Socialist Party in the presidential elections and 6.5% of the voting eligible population (2.9/44.4 million).

Update 6 Jan 2011: The Alberta Liberals used a primary system for their leadership selection. They signed up 27,000 or so supporters, 8,640 of whom actually voted in the leadership election (31%). Details at Blunt Objects.

The post is a typical example of negative campaigning, straight out of the Prince of Darkness' school of kicking ass in politics. It relies, for the most part, on quoting Zach's own views on policy and characterizing those views as antithetical to Liberal values, policy and general worldview. Similar to how the Conservatives targeted Michael Ignatieff or how the Liberals targeted Stockwell Day, the fundamental idea is to frame Zach as "not one of us" in the minds of Liberal delegates. The post also included a few judgments by the author on Zach's character and dealings with others.

I first discovered the post in a Facebook group about rebuilding the Liberal Party. It was posted by a guy who knew the original author of the blog post. In the subsequent flurry of testosterone-fuelled discussion, several other people, who seemed to know both the original author and Zach, commented on the thread. It was clear to me that some or all of them — none of them candidates, it should be noted — were acting in concert to promote the blog post and its goal of ensuring that Zach is not elected as national policy chair. Some of them used "our" and "we" when making their points. The whole thread was eventually deleted by the admins of the group when it got out of hand.

Partly because the principal antagonists are the sons of well-known Torontonians, the story was picked up by GridTo. It was also reported by CTV when Bob Rae responded to a tweet by Adam Goldenberg with "what is this bullshit?" (I believe Bob was pissed about the comparison with Newt Gingrich, not the Liberals infighting bit).

Anyway, back to the negative campaigning, which I generally dislike. The problem is that it's usually effective in achieving its short-term ends.

I don't begrudge the guys who are opposing Zach for doing so. They seem to be legitimately concerned about his policy views, his judgment and his ability to serve as national policy chair. All of which are fair game. But I do have an issue with how they are going about their campaign, which includes:

1. Repeatedly characterizing some of Zach's policy positions as 1) too right wing; 2) too similar to the Conservative Party; 3) inconsistent with liberalism; and/or 4) inconsistent with official Liberal Party policy. While this may be effective in driving some Liberals away from supporting Zach, it sends a message to Liberal members that 1) we are hostile to ideas and 2) if you dissent from official policy on certain issues, you aren't a real Liberal or you are unfit to serve on the executive.
2. Aggressively challenging Zach and various Liberals to defend the policies that Zach supports. It's the tone that's problematic. Unsurprisingly, no one has really engaged them in the policy discussion they so desperately want to have.
3. Vaguely referring to secondhand accounts of Zach's allegedly inappropriate dealings with other Liberals. Useless hearsay, as far as I'm concerned.

I think it is incredibly short-sighted to launch such a negative campaign, during the early stages of our rebuilding process, against a 20-year-old guy who is running for national policy chair. Yes, they may succeed in preventing Zach from being elected, but they will have severely alienated him, his core supporters and other Liberals in the process. As a result of their negative campaign, I have a pretty low opinion of the folks who are running it.

As far as Zach is concerned, I think he has handled the attack fairly well. In fact, his response belies the claims the negative campaigners have made about his character in the face of opposition. He has shown admirable restraint in responding directly to the people campaigning against him and has tried to stay positive. Even though I disagree with Zach on a host of policy issues and have concerns about his actual platform, the way he has handled these attacks has impressed me.

The negative campaigners, in going so far overboard in their campaign, have generated some sympathy for the very guy they are attacking.

They could have made different choices.

1. They could have focused on his actual platform and campaign for national policy chair. For instance, creating a independent Liberal think tank.
2. They could have focused solely on Zach's policy views and left out the hearsay about his character.
3. In criticizing his policy views, they could have refrained from characterizing them as "Conservative," illiberal, "near-fascistic," "far right," etc.
4. In pursuing their campaign, they could have simply been nicer to their fellow Liberals.

I wish they had made different choices. In the longer run, the kind of campaigning they have engaged in hinders rather than helps us rebuild the Liberal Party.

While I wouldn't have made this change in policy myself, I think it's fine. And I think people are overreacting to a change to the status quo.

First of all, in practice this policy affects very few people: in past conventions, maybe a dozen or so bloggers have been accredited as media. Of those, a bunch are probably already attending this convention as delegates. So we are literally talking about a handful of people.

Second, blogging is a lot less important now than it was 2.5 years ago. Unlike in previous conventions (2006, 2008) there will likely be at least one hundred people tweeting from the convention floor directly and posting on Facebook. Maybe several hundred. Plus all of the journalists who are now using twitter extensively. Keep in mind that in January 2008 there were eight employees at Twitter; now there are 400 employees. More than 1 billion tweets are posted per week and there are 400 million+ accounts (up from 30 million in early 2009). There will be no shortage of as-it-happens news reported from the convention.

Is there value in having bloggers like Stephen Taylor at the convention? Sure. Is it a really important issue? No.

Think of it this way: if you were to choose a group of people to attend the Liberal Party convention free of charge, would bloggers be at the top of your list? Personally, I'd rather have some non-partisan policy experts who could provide useful insight on policy.

1. Andrew Coyne is a genuine democrat and he could lead democratic reform of our politics and political institutions. As he wrote in April 2011: "What we cannot afford is the continuing slide of Parliament, and parliamentary democracy, into disrepair. Conventions once discarded, habits of self-government once lost, are much harder to regain."
2. The #lpc has a serious credibility problem and Andrew Coyne has credibility in spades. I'm sure he would resign rather than compromise his integrity.
3. Andrew Coyne advocates for smart public policy, which will appeal to reasonable people who've supported the #lpc, #cpc and #gpc. Especially environmental policy (carbon tax, road tolls, etc).
4. Andrew Coyne is a fiscal conservative who is unafraid of confronting sacred cow legacy #lpc policies such as supply management. He would shake things up in #cdnpoli, especially in the West.
5. Andrew Conyne is a strong federalist and advocate for the liberty of individual Canadians.
6. Andrew Coyne well understands our history and politics and is an excellent speaker and writer. He would perform well in the House of Commons and communicate well with Canadians.
7. Andrew Coyne would not be a handmaiden to business, as he believes in unwinding government subsidies to businesses in all their various forms.
8. Andrew Coyne is well respected for his understanding of both #cdnpoli and economics.
9. Andrew Coyne would represent Canada well to the world. He's a bilingual patriot who is well informed on international affairs.
10. It would be very difficult for the #cpc to effectively attack Andrew Coyne.

Comments from Canadians on the idea of Andrew Coyne running for leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.

• "Coyne as Liberal leader might be the only plausible scenario in which I'd reconsider my own allegiance [to the Conservative Party of Canada]" - a longtime Conservative partisan and organizer
• "That would be pretty awesome" - Curtis from Muskoka
• "#Liberals4Coyne? Yes, I can get behind this." - Brian from Ottawa
• "I highly endorse @jesse_helmer's #Liberals4Coyne campaign, although the Economists' Party hates to lose the guy" - Mike from London
• "He'd get my vote." Chris from Sudbury
• "I read your post [about Coyne for leader of the LPC] with interest." Dave from Waterloo
• "#Liberals4Coyne? Okay! #TeamCoyne" Heather from Ottawa
• "Hmmmm... that would be VERY interesting." - Matt from London
• "We should be so lucky." - Rob from Toronto
• "I'd probably vote for the Coyne Liberals." - Alex from Brantford
• "I'm serious. If you get Andrew to run, I will become a card carrying Liberal! I love Andrew Coyne (far too much for my hubs' liking... lol)" - Anonymous from London
• "Amazing choice. Would be a formidable opponent, and I know a lot of disaffected Libs that would come back for him!" Justin from London
• "It would suck, because I'm a commited Conservative.  I prefer him in the media, where he can hold all parties to account." Tony from Ottawa
• "I'm liking the sounds of this! he seems to have a very high level of integrity and respect for government and could put up a strong fight in a campaign. Andrew is a bit 'right' on some issues but would certainly be much more compassionate than Harper and his trolls. this could be that 'wow' moment..." - Sean from Niagara Falls
• "I don't know about others, but I could use a fresh breath and new ideas from outside the traditional avenues of party politics. I would certainly be willing to listen to Mr. Coyne and his concerns and perspective." - Randy from Penatanguishene
• "Although I think that what the Liberals really need is a coherent policy direction (rather than some grab bag of ideas) and an attitude adjustment, having a leader with credentials and an ability to both analyse and communicate policy would be a tremendous boost. Coyne would help bring back all the "small 'l'" liberals who have been holding their noses and voting CPC because of the perception that the Liberals are too big-government oriented. Liberalism is supposed to be about small government and personal freedom, and I think the Liberal party would do well to get back to those roots." Devin from Saskatoon
• "As a voice of reason alone I would support his leadership. Lord knows we need some of that in Ottawa." Wes from Vancouver

But Alf's analysis misses a few crucial points, some of which I've already discussed in my earlier post on the roadmap recommendations.

First, there is no discussion or acknowledgment of the rise of the Green Party of Canada since 2003. In fact, there is barely any mention of the Green Party at all. In my experience, the Green Party is supported by a wide range of very reasonable people. Remarkably, the GPC increased its popular vote by 800% from 2000 to 2008 before sliding back to just over 540,000 votes in the last election. One of my provisional theories, based mostly on my own dealings with Green supporters, is that they are quite often either disaffected Progressive Conservatives or disaffected Liberals. The Green Party is also quite popular among young people. Understanding why former PCs, former Liberals and younger people vote Green is key to rebuilding our base of supporters.

Second, the paper does not adequately confront a series of uncomfortable truths:

• Alienation of the West since the Diefenbaker era, reinforced by the National Energy Policy brought in under Trudeau (there are zero mentions of energy policy in the document) and subsequent deficit of talented and experienced Liberal politicians elected in the West (there have been a few)
• The damage done to the credibility of the Liberal Party by the Chretien/Martin infighting and the sponsorship scandal, especially in Québec
• The departure of a significant number of successful Liberal politicians with experience in cabinet (Chretien, Rock, Manley, Martin, Copps, Graham, McLellan, Peterson, Robillard, Boudria, Pettigrew, Stewart, Mitchell, Collenette, Caplan, Anderson, Cauchon), including virtually all of the ministers with experience in economic or international portfolios except John McCallum, Ralph Goodale and Reg Alcock (who has since passed away).
• The disastrous attempt, shortly after the election in 2008, to form a governing coalition with the NDP, supported by the Bloc Québecois
• The interim-to-ratified-Leader path that Ignatieff followed, and its influence on how he was perceived by Canadians
• The successive selection of two Leaders (Dion, 2 years; and Ignatieff, 2.5 years) who were not well liked by Canadians and who quit as Leader after leading the party to defeat in one election

This chart from the Pundit's Guide shows the cumulative effect of these events. The decline started showing up after the 2000 election.

The alienation of the West is a huge problem and one that has, in fact, gotten worse in recent years. In 2004, running against the new Conservative Party and Stephen Harper, the Liberal Party received 22% of the vote, won two seats and placed second in every other riding (26). In 2011, the LPC received 9.3% of the vote and only placed second in three ridings. In 2008, local Liberal candidates in Alberta only spent 24% of the spending limit (presumably 2011 was just as bad, or worse). We need to listen to folks in the West and propose policies that reasonable people will support. Exaggerating the danger posed by the Conservatives will be counterproductive for us, especially in the West. Many of the ideas in the roadmap regarding EDAs will apply in the West, especially Alberta.

The sponsorship scandal: any time it comes up, we need to apologize for it happening while we were the government. Paul Martin's address to Canadians was actually very good in this regard:

I want to talk to you directly tonight – about the problems in the sponsorship program; about how I’ve responded to them as your prime minister; and about the timing of the next general election.

Let me speak plainly: what happened with the sponsorship file occurred on the watch of a Liberal government. Those who were in power are to be held responsible. And that includes me.

I was the Minister of Finance. Knowing what I've learned this past year, I am sorry that we weren’t more vigilant - that I wasn't more vigilant. Public money was misdirected and misused. That’s unacceptable.

But the Conservatives love to keep bringing it up and we need to respond responsibly when they do because it was very serious failure of governance. For example, in 2010, in response to David McGuinty's questions in the House of Commons about Rahim Jaffer and Helena Guergis, John Baird said: "Is there a single member in the Liberal caucus who will stand and apologize right now for the Liberal sponsorship scandal? Just one member stand up right now." Rather than continuing on about Jaffer/Guergis, McGuinty should have simply acknowledged that the sponsorship program was a mess and that he was sorry that it happened on the watch of a Liberal government. Beyond being a huge waste of public funds (see the auditor general's report if you've forgotten the details), the sponsorship scandal severely damaged the credibility and morale of Liberal members of parliament, staffers, members and supporters, especially in Québec. We owe them an apology as well.

Unfortunately, there is not much we can do about the retirement of senior Liberal politicians. But we should realize that we no longer have the credibility that these folks provided and that it is up to a younger generation of Liberals to lead the way. There is hope for these aspirants: Stephen Harper was just  34 years old when he was first elected as an MP, 45 when he was Leader of the Opposition and 47 when he became Prime Minister. Rebuilding our party will take a long time, so this younger generation will have to be determined and persistent in the face of adversity.

The attempted coalition, while a perfectly legitimate means of governing, was a terrible idea. Coming as a surprise, in response to a threat to party financing, and in partnership with the NDP and Bloc, this was perhaps the single biggest failure of the Liberal Party since Harper became Prime Minister. I am sure the intentions of those involved were noble, but for the Liberal Party, this one decision tarnished our credibility with voters who do not support the NDP or the Bloc. Here are the main reasons why, in my view:

• It was too soon after the election, so the move appeared anti-democratic.
• The economic update threaten public financing of parties, so the moved looked selfish.
• The person put forward as Prime Minister, Stéphane Dion, had very low personal approval ratings in the polls, so it seemed unjust.
• The coalition would have to depend on the support of the Bloc, but many of our supporters have a distinct antipathy towards the Bloc.

All of these reasons would motivate blue Liberals to support the Conservatives instead of the Liberals. These are exactly the people the Conservatives needed to peel away from the Liberal Party in order to secure their majority government. We could not have made it any easier for the Conservatives.

The appointment and ratification of Ignatieff as Leader was short-sighted. I say this as someone who supported Ignatieff from the start and who believes that he is a good man who did a good job in very bad circumstances. But we should always rely on the considered judgement of our members to choose our Leader. In addition to alienating many of our members, appointing and then ratifying Ignatieff as Leader played right into the way the Conservatives were framing him as an out-of-touch elitist.

Like many of the points above, our successive selection of Dion and Ignatieff as leaders of the party, and their rather short tenures, has further damaged our credibility with voters. Given the scope of the defeats, and the circumstances after the 2008 and 2011 elections, I can understand why both of them resigned. But it is very harmful to be continually introducing a new person as leader of our party. Since Paul Martin in 2006, we have had four others: Bill Graham, Dion, Ignatieff and Bob Rae. Only Dion was selected by members and none were selected using our new weighted one-member, one-vote system. As we look forward to selecting our next Leader in 2012, we should keep this in mind: we need someone who can survive a defeat, if that happens, and who Canadians can come to know over time as a reasonable and better alternative.

While I agree with quite a few of the ideas proposed in the paper (comments are below), and they are certainly worth debating, I think the paper misses a few important points that are crucial to our future success as a political party. We can make all the internal improvements we want, but if we don't get the high level stuff right, we're sunk.

1. The Liberal Party should be a party of choice for reasonable people.
   1. Treatment of opponents: the corollary of this is that all forms of exaggeration and hyperbole, both positive and negative, should be avoided. The Leader and caucus, who are the public face of the party as represented by the news media, should not engage in doomsaying about our opponents. Every time we attack the Conservatives or NDP with exaggerated claims that make them look as bad as possible, we alienate the reasonable people who have voted Conservative or NDP. This has obvious implications for Question Period and how caucus behaves in the House of Commons. It's as simple as following the golden rule: treat our opponents as we would like them to treat us. Failing to follow this simple rule has led our politics into the sad state it is in now.
   2. Policy development: reasonable people need to be convinced of the merits of policies before they will support them. So we need to be engaged in continuous policy development, seeking good ideas and expertise wherever we can find them. This means that we need to respect and believe that Canadians are experts on their own lives and can help us identify problems that lend themselves to a public solution. It also means that our policies should be based on evidence and refined through consultation to be as good as possible. As a result, we should not have any "surprise" policies or hold back our policy ideas. Our good policy ideas should survive elections, whether we form the government or not.
   3. Fiscal policy: we need to be honest with Canadians about both revenue and expenditure. Federal taxes as a percentage of GDP have never been lower, but we have said nothing about the huge cut to the GST and its relationship to the deficits we are running at the federal level. We must have the courage to talk about tax increases when they are necessary just as we must have the courage to review programs and cut expenditures when they are necessary.
2. The Liberal Party should be a party for liberty and opportunity.
   1. Reform of existing policy: I don't mean that we need to start dismantling the welfare state as it exists in Canada, but we do need to re-assess a lot of the regulations, laws and institutions that exist (and in many cases were implemented by the Liberal Party) -- are they really necessary? This will mean re-examining and reforming a lot of sacred cows: the Wheat Board, supply management, private delivery of health care, the criminal code & sentencing, federal-provincial jurisdiction and powers, the Senate, immigration, the military, EI, copyright and intellectual property law, review of foreign investment, etc.
   2. Poverty: we should seek to reduce poverty (i.e. the lack of opportunity) as much as possible.
   3. Inter-generational equity: we should keep in mind the impact that our decisions today will have on the liberty of future generations. This has obvious implications for environmental policy, natural resource policy, the federal debt, education and many other areas.
   4. Taxes & spending: prioritizing liberty doesn't mean that we hate taxation, but it does require that we spend tax dollars effectively and continuously review and improve programs.
   5. Openness: we should push for government to be more open, with the default being that government information is open, not secret.
3. The Liberal Party should be a party of integrity.
   1. Our leader and candidates should be people of great personal integrity.
   2. In the short term, our policy should be consistent, whether we are in opposition or in government. Over the longer term, our policy will likely change as we learn and discover news ways of addressing public problems. We will only succeed in electoral politics if we can gain the trust of reasonable people. Consistency in policy coupled with open-mindedness over the longer term is key to our credibility.
4. The Liberal Party should stop evaluating elections solely in terms of forming the government or not forming the government.
   1. Hopefully, one positive result of our falling popular vote has been a shift in thinking within the party that "winning the election" only means "forming the government." Obviously, it is easiest to advance our policy agenda if we elect enough MPs to form the government. And surely, we want to elect as many MPs as possible, but we should have other goals as well: what policies did we advance in campaign? How did perceptions of those policies change during the campaign? How good are the candidates we run in each riding? How qualified and effective are the members of our caucus to advance our policy agenda? The members of cabinet or critics? How much support do we have throughout the country? The collapse of the PC Party and the rise of Reform and the Bloc masked our failures in some of these areas for many years.
   2. We should not necessarily demand or expect that our Leader resign if we do not form the government. It takes time for Canadians to get to know and support the leader of a political party. Handling defeat well is something Canadians will respect.
   3. Post-election coalitions or cooperation is a legitimate means of forming a government. But we must be clear with voters in advance if we are willing to enter into such arrangements with other parties. No surprises after the fact. And we must believe that forming the government in a coalition is a better way of advancing our policy agenda than being an effective opposition party.

Proposals from the Roadmap for Renewal

1. Major themes and priorities: obviously, I think these are less important than the four main points that I've made above. The first point about EDAs is probably not accurate: I know from experience that our EDA in London West is doing really well, but we still only came second. The NDP EDA in the riding is not very active, and they did quite well in the election. I believe it had nothing to do with their EDA.
2. Funding the party: reasonable ideas to raise more money, but nothing revolutionary. I like the idea of axing the Revenue Committee -- what does it do, anyway?
3. New category of "Supporter". This is basically a shift to free party membership.
   • Cons: it is very likely to increase the costs associated with Leader and nomination contests, as it costs more money to connect with more potential voters. Given existing rules for political fundraising, and expected future revenues of the party, this could be very problematic. For example, Obama raised $23 million for the primaries and caucuses in the USA and Hilary Clinton raised $20 million. Translated to Canadian scale, that would be $2.3 million and $2 million. Also, I'm not sure how this higher threshold for costs would affect the quality and quantity of candidates.
   • It contributes to the perception that the Prime Minister is directly elected by the people instead of serving in the role as first among equals because he or she is leader of the party. I'm not sure I like adopting more aspects of republicanism.
   • It is likely to increase the influence of the Leader relative to the influence of the other elected MPs, possibly leading to less incentive for people to run for election as an MP, less effective MPs and worse decision-making.
   • I'm not so worried about the possibility of a "takeover" by fake supporters, especially if it were done by preferential ballot.
   • Pros: it would encourage identification of supporters outside of election campaigns.
   • It may also further democratize the selection of our Leader and candidates. In conjunction with more open local nominations, this could encourage people who don't have a long history of political involvement to run.

Right now, I'm in favour of trying the weighted one-member, one-vote approach, which we've never used, before switching to this system for selection our leader.

4. Online and electronic voting: this is a terrible idea. The consequences of a compromised election are very bad and widespread (it affects everyone, not just the people whose votes are compromised), it is very hard to maintain a secure system, and scrutineering/auditing the results is very difficult. This is an idea that people support because very few of them understand the serious risks associated with it.
5. Mail-in voting: this is a good idea. Much easier to audit and much harder to compromise. Did you know that Oregon has very high voter turnout and they love mail-in voting? It's true.
6. Open nominations: great idea.
7. Streamlining of operations (i.e. getting rid of the PTAs, sort of): I don't see a need for any provincial or territorial associations. If anything, I think we should organize the national party by function (policy development, contesting elections) and have geographic representation for cities and other regions (i.e. regional rather than by province/territory) on the national board. For example:
   • if we really want regional representation, instead of the president of each PTA, let's have one representative each for the GTA, Metro Montreal, and Metro Vancouver (the three really big cities) and one each for BC (non-Metro Vancouver), AB, Saskitoba (SK, MB), Ontario (non-GTA), Quebec (non-Montreal), the Atlantic provinces (NS, NB, PEI, NL) and the North (NWT, NU, YK). That's ten representatives instead of 12 and more representative of the population and urban/rural realities.
8. I'd get rid of all of the commissions -- I don't see the value in dividing people up by gender, age or ancestry and it adds unnecessary complexity.
9. Director of Digital Operations reporting to the board -- seems strange to have the person report directly to the board instead of to the national director (i.e. CEO of the party). Regardless, not a big deal.
10. Putting more resources into Liberalist: great idea.
11. Strategic plan and annual report: yes! Both very good ideas and long overdue.
12. Council of Presidents: not really sure what this body does or why we need it. With 308 members, it's unwieldy.
13. "Preparing for Victory": see not exaggerating and what winning the election means, above. Deadlines for election readiness stuff: seems reasonable.

Let's compare the Ontario PCs under Mike Harris and Ernie Eves (1995-2002) and Dalton McGuinty (2003-2010), two eight-year periods (the transition of government occurred part-way through 2002-2003). Please see the notes at the bottom of the post for important caveats about the Education Property Tax and Government Business Enterprises.

Bottom line: No, it's not true. Harris/Eves and McGuinty have taxed Ontarians to roughly the same extent. Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP was 10.57% under Harris/Eves and 10.47% under McGuinty.

Tax revenue generally increases along with GDP, and we can see in Chart 1 that GDP and tax revenue have increased under both the PCPO and the OLP. For this reason, a good measure of the tax burden is tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. As Chart 2 shows, this metric has been very steady over the 16 years in question, through both PCPO and OLP majority governments. If McGuinty is a "taxman," then Mike Harris and Ernie Eves deserve that moniker, too.

So why does this myth of Dalton as a "taxman" exist?

It is an invented marketing message, created by the PCPO, designed to convince voters to turf McGuinty. Although it's inaccurate, there are elements that resonate with voters. Ironically, one true element of the myth is based on a decision by McGuinty that you would expect the PCPO to be in favour of: increased transparency in taxation.

When McGuinty introduced the health premium, he could have chosen to increase personal income tax rates instead. If he had, there would be no "health premium" for PCPO to complain about incessantly. Establishing a new tax specifically for health at least associates the revenue with a particular area of expenditure. It is worth noting that the PCPO isn't proposing to cut or eliminate the health premium.

Similarly, the PCPO rails against eco fees, which aren't a tax collected by government but a means for business to organize and fund its own recycling through a non-profit. They also complain constantly about the HST, which is more efficient, better for manufacturers and reduces the paperwork burden on businesses. They don't propose to get rid of the HST.

The PCPO calls Dalton the "taxman," but tax revenue has increased under his government as it did under the PCPO governments of Harris and Eves. They apparently hate the health premium and the HST, but they don't propose to get rid of either tax. Perhaps they should look in the mirror while they are calling McGuinty names.

Or, better yet, propose a credible and better alternative to the tax policy of the current government.

Data

Check out the data for this post in a Google spreadsheet, compiled from the public accounts of Ontario.

Summary metrics

Distribution of tax revenue (2010, %)

• Personal Income Tax (39.4%)
• Sales Tax (28.8%)
• Education Property Tax¹ (not included)
• Corporations Tax (9.5%)
• Employer Health Tax (7.7%)
• Ontario Health Premium (4.7%)
• Gasoline Tax (3.9%)
• Tobacco Tax (1.8%)
• Land Transfer Tax (1.7%)
• Fuel Tax (1.1%)
• Electricity Payments-In-Lieu of Taxes (0.9%)
• Other Taxes (0.5%)

Note 1: Previous to 2008, the Education Property Tax was netted against school board expenditures and not included in the government revenues in the public accounts. In 2008, the government moved to a simpler means of accounting for this revenue and now reports the tax revenue separately from the expenditures. For purposes of comparison, as the prior public accounts have not been restated, I've excluded it from these figures. The impact should be negligible.

Note 2: The government also receives income from Government Business Enterprises like Hydro One, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, Ontario Power Generation and the LCBO. In 2010, net income from these GBEs was $4.2 billion.

It is worth reading the Change Commission report (and other important party documents). The Change Commission has already identified a number of things that we need to improve. While we have made some progress on some of these issues, more work remains to be done.

The party is a complex organization, so an outline will help clarify what we are try to talk about.

Within the extra-parliamentary organization:

• There are roughly 60,000 members (or 195 per riding association)
• There are 308 volunteer-driven electoral district associations with varying levels of human and financial resources.
• There are ten provincial organizations, plus the territorial organizations (PTAs). In the larger provinces, there are layers of volunteer area directors, regional presidents, etc. And of course there are permanent, paid staff in the provincial organizations.
• There is the national party, governed by the national board of directors, and its various commissions (Aboriginal, Women, Youth, Seniors) plus the full-time staff in the national office, starting with the national director (Ian McKay).
• There are four major committees (composition described from pages 22-29 of the Constitution):
  • The National Management Committee
  • The National Revenue Committee
  • The National Election Readiness Committee
  • The National Policy and Platform Committee
• The National Liberal Fund, the fundraising organization for the party (created just last year) under the management of Adam Smith

Within the parliamentary organization:

• 34 Members of the House of Commons, plus their full-time staff (3-4 people per MP or roughly 120 people) in Ottawa and the local ridings.
• 54 Senators, plus their full-time staff

And then there is the Leader's Office:

• The Leader plus a bunch of full-time staff

And then there is the campaign organization, which springs into being for each election.

• 308 candidates, nominated by local riding associations or appointed by the Leader, plus their volunteer campaign teams
• Various co-chairs, policy/platform people, etc, many of whom are appointed by the Leader

There are organizational improvements that we should make, and I am in favour of many of the Change Commission recommendations. We certainly do need to improve at the local riding level, especially in areas where we have lost many elections. We need to do these things but we can't stop there.

The Leader, the caucus and especially the actions of Members of Parliament between elections, the resources we have at our disposal to wage the campaign, the platform, and the candidates we have nominated in the ridings are very important electoral factors that are under our control.

We need to reconsider conventional wisdom on some of these things:

• Conventional wisdom: we should announce the platform during the election and no sooner than necessary in order to prevent our opponents from 1) stealing the ideas they like and implementing them and 2) launching attacks against ideas they aren't inclined to implement.
• Unconventional: as soon as we come up with a policy that would benefit Canadians, let's advocate for that policy. If our opponents adopt the idea, great! If they attack and resist it, let's use those attacks to refine and sharpen the idea for presentation during the election campaign.

• Conventional wisdom: we should wait (12, 18, 24 months) to select a Leader because a leadership race would distract from the rebuilding we need to do (a nearly unanimous sentiment, according to Alf Apps).
• Unconventional?: we need the Leader engaged in the process of rebuilding and the more time he or she has to do so, the better. More time as Leader also means more time for Canadians to get to know him or her. Both Dion and Ignatieff had been leader for roughly two years when the election was called. Why repeat that scenario again against Harper and Layton, both of whom will have been leader for at least 11 years by then?

• Conventional wisdom: we should use Question Period to embarrass and draw media attention government misdeeds or mistakes in order to erode support for the government, and these questions should be formulated according to recent events in order to maximize negative media coverage of the government. We should respond in kind to heckling, non-answers, etc, in the House of Commons.
• Unconventional: we should use Question Period to ask legitimate, fair questions of the government. We should formulate a coherent, medium-term strategy that focuses on policy areas that matter to Canadians. For example, we could focus for a week or two on health and fiscal policy, then defence and foreign affairs, then immigration and human resources, then agriculture and fisheries, etc. We should not let events of the day dictate our questions. We can let the media cover the bad news while we advance our policy agenda.

• Conventional wisdom: we should wait a few years before nominating candidates for 42nd General Election.
• Unconventional: we should nominate candidates as soon as possible and local ridings should keep engaging with citizens throughout the four years leading up to the election. It's a permanent campaign, not once every four years.

• Conventional wisdom: we must advocate for the per vote subsidy to maintain our existing party infrastructure and ability to contest the next election.
• Unconventional: we should agree to get rid of the per vote subsidy as long as the limits on donations are increased to $5,000 per person per year from $1,100. There are already substantial public supports for political parties through the spending rebates (60% of local campaign spending during elections) and generous tax credits for donors (up to 75%). The per vote subsidy is a crutch that impedes the development of successful party fundraising.

These are just a few suggestions. What do you mean when you say let's reform the Liberal Party?

1. Section 54.3 requires that the national board of directors, in consultation with caucus, select an interim leader within 27 days of Michael Ignatieff's announcement that he intends to resign. It says nothing about whether that interim leader is allowed to run for leader.
2. The national board of directors also has to set a date for a leadership vote within five months (plus as many as 27 days from the day the leader announced his intention to resign) and fix the amount of the deposit each contestant needs to put forward in order to run for leader ($50K in 2006, $90K in 2008).
3. Although the constitution provides for an earlier vote, it does not provide for a later vote.

So, that would mean we are looking at a leadership vote around 30 October 2011. This would put the leadership vote immediately after the provincial election in Ontario.

So who's in the running, especially with so many MPs losing their seats?

Interim leader

I'd like to see someone with experience who can be neutral in the actual leadership race as interim leader. Perhaps Ralph Goodale? Or Irwin Cotler? I don't think anyone who is running for leader should be selected as the interim leader. I think it would rude to ask Dion to serve as interim leader.

Leader

Also-rans and recent aspirants to the leadership:

• Not many previous aspirants to the leadership are left standing: Martha Hall Findlay, Ken Dryden, Gerard Kennedy, and Joe Volpe all lost their seats. Hedy Fry and Carolyn Bennett (both of whom withdrew in 2006) remain but John Godfrey and Maurizio Bevilacqua are gone.
• The following people still have leadership contest debts outstanding: Volpe, Dryden, Kennedy, Hall Findlay, Dion, Fry, and Bevilacqua.
• Bob Rae (age 62), Dominic Leblanc (age 43) and Scott Brison (age 43) were re-elected, but Brison has said that he isn't interested in running. I would like to see Brison run for leader, as I think we need to move in the direction of being fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

Considering the tight timeline of a six-month leadership race, I would expect both Rae and Leblanc to run.

Other contenders

• Frank McKenna (age 63), I'm sure, is very comfortable as deputy chairman of TD Bank. He would be 71 years old eight years from now -- like Manley, I think his opportunity has passed.
• Allan Rock (age 63) is President of uOttawa. Having done that for three years, is he looking for another challenge?
• John Manley (age 62) would provide a centre-right alternative to Bob Rae. Not sure if he could muster the organization required on short notice or that he wants to leave his job as CEO of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (he has only been in the role for just over a year). The opportunity has probably passed him by.
• John McCallum (age 61) would provide a similar centre-right alternative to Bob Rae. Not sure he has the charisma or the desire to serve as leader for the next eight years, however.
• Carolyn Bennett (age 60). Supported Bob Rae after she withdrew in 2006. Doubt she would run now.
• Jane Stewart (age 56). Former minister under Chrétien and former MP for Brant. [added on 10 May after Twitter discussion]
• Joyce Murray (age 56), has experience as a minister in the BC government and is an environmentalist and entrepreneur.
• Jim Karygiannis (age 55) is one of the more socially conservative members of the Liberal Party. If he were ever going to run, it might be now.
• David McGunity (age 51). I can't see him running for the leadership at the same time as his brother, Dalton, is running for re-election as Premier, but stranger things have happened.
• Denis Coderre (age 47). I hope he runs and loses. I dislike his policy and his approach to politics.
• George Smitherman (age 47) lost to Rob Ford in the Toronto mayoral race. Not sure that he could muster a national campaign, but he's available and ambitious.
• Kirsty Duncan (age 44) might run and I could see Bennett supporting her.
• Mario Silva (age 44) might have been in the running, but he lost his seat in Davenport and received fewer than 11,000 votes. Maybe he can make a comeback, but not right now.
• Desirée McGraw (age 42) might run. She hasn't served as an MP, but she's very involved in policy and Liberal politics. She was mentioned as a contender back in 2007. [updated on 23 June 2011]
• Scott Simms (age 41), who, despite his relative youth, has been an MP for almost seven years and won his riding handily with 57% of the vote in 2011 (70% in 2008!).
• Justin Trudeau (age 39). I hope he does not run. Unfortunately for him, his lineage is a handicap and clouds judgements of his own merit as a politician.
• Robert Ghiz (age 37) is the Premier of Prince Edward Island. He might run but he would have to resign as Premier to do so -- seems a bit unlikely.