Modeling Journey

Dion has a chance to make a quantum leap forward in political parties, making the Liberal Party a world leader in the advancement of women's involvement in politics.

He can do this by tackling the job in several blocks:

First, he can change the representation of officers in the Party throughout the country to be 50/50 male/female.

Secondly, he can ensure that his advisers are balanced equally between women and men.

Thirdly, he can impose candidates on ridings where the Liberals stand the best chance of winning, by exercising his powers of appointment to parachute women into ridings where they will win. This means ridings which already have Liberal MPs. By so doing, he will clearly indicate that this gesture is not mere tokenism, but a serious commitment to remedying the democratic imbalance in the Liberal Party. He can select the ridings by random choice. He can draw up lists of women candidates, inviting contributions from Liberal members. He can give ridings choices of women candidates, so that they can vote for the one they prefer from the list of elegible candidates.

Fourthly, he can commit the Liberal Party to passing legislation within 90 days of it assuming power as the government, designed to ensure the democratic imbalance is remedied throughout all 308 constituencies. The contents of the legislation should be drafted by the panel he is setting up to review the issue of women in politics.

Fifthly, he can commit the Liberal Party to reviewing the adoption of proportional representation at the federal level, with a referendum, similar to BC and Ontario. This will solve a host of problems, and ensure that all votes are equal, and all votes matter.

Sixthly, he can launch within the Party a separate initiative to train and fund women who wish to seek election as candidates, for both party positions and to run for election. The panel can come up with a range of training, mentoring and financing alternatives.

These steps would certainly amount to significent party renewal, and would catapult the Liberals into the forefront of gender-democracy.