Modeling Journey

Unlike the Harper brand of Tory party, which is the closest we have yet come to the Lenin-Stalin party model (of one man one vote with the leader being that man), the Liberal Party is a fairly loose association of provincial power bases. It is not surprising then that every now and then conflicts erupt between the centre and the provincial power bases:

"He dropped another bombshell, too, questioning the political acumen of the rather-new-to-politics Toronto crowd around Mr. Ignatieff, wondering how Quebec politics can be done from Toronto. He was referring to the fact that it appeared decisions around who should run in the Montreal riding of Outremont were being made in Toronto, by Mr. Ignatieff's inner circle, and not in Quebec by Mr. Coderre and his team.

It has been a constant criticism of the Ignatieff inner circle that too many are from Toronto, but Mr. Coderre was the first to say so publicly.

Mr. Ignatieff is not immune to this, either. He is said to be disappointed in himself. In conversations with friends over the weekend, he lamented the fact that he hasn't taken seriously enough the caucus's concerns about making his office more broadly based.

“Michael is a lot of things, but he's not stupid,” a veteran Liberal official said. “He knows that this is not very good.”"

The Cat gives this word of advice to Michael Ignatieff.

Announce immediately that you are going to set up a commission (the "Selection Commission") with a mandate to report back to you by no later than June 30 2010 on methods used to select candidates. And then deal with the fracas in Quebec.

The commission you set up should be tasked to examine the methods used to nominate candidates for the Liberal Party, the rights of provincial party leaders and of the Party leader, the methods used in contested nominations, and to provide you as leader with several alternatives for you to consider.

Selection Commission members should represent all provinces, proportional to the population in each province.

The Commission is to recommend how an ongoing, permanent Candidate Selection process is to be instituted, such that the Leader can receive advice from a permanent Selection Advisory Group, with respect to any contested nominations.

The Commission should frame its advice by considering what selection criteria should guide the permanent Selection Advisory Group and the Leader of the Party when it comes to selecting a candidate. These selection criteria should be ranked in order of priority, and should include a consideration of the obtaining of the correct balance of male and female Liberal MPs in Parliament.

The Leader will of course retain the right to overrule the recommendations of the permanent Selection Advisory Group if it his or her opinion a higher ranking selection criterion should apply in any given case.

By committing to such a commission now, Ignatieff can ensure that the issue will be properly addressed, while clearing the decks for fighting the coming election. Most Liberals would be satisfied with the proposal, and we can turn to preparing to fight Harper's do-nothing government.