Democratic Deficit
Now that most of the Calgary area ridings have had their annual AGMs and delegate selection meetings for the LPCA and Biennial conventions, I figured I’d post a few interesting observations.
As you probably know, under the Liberal Party of Canada constitution, a leadership review has to be held at the upcoming Biennial convention and due to some monkeying of the rules which occurred over the past few years, all members vote at their delegate selection meetings (DSMs) and all delegates vote at the convention itself.
Sorry, I should clarify that. All members are supposed to vote at their DSMs. You see, in several Calgary area ridings, the leadership review ballots were not handed out at the meetings. This was no doubt distressing to the many Liberals who came out to their DSMs, keen to mark their approval of the great year of leadership Mr. Martin has given us, only to be denied the honour. It does seem a little odd though; I’d be willing to guess that if Chretien had not stepped down and leadership review had happened in 2003, that certain Krusty the Clown look-alikes would have used planes/trains/dog-sleds/whatever was necessary to get those ballots to the meetings in time. And nothing has been done about it. People I know who attended AGMs nearly three weeks ago have still not been given ballots and I imagine they never will be.
Then, as certain readers of this blog have written in, the notice sent out to other ridings didn’t even make reference to the leadership review. I’d be very curious to hear comments from Liberals in other ridings across the province and country – is this going on everywhere or is it only in Calgary?
Very odd. I’d go so far as to say there is a “democratic deficit” in this party that needs to be addressed.