Gerard Kennedy has just announced the most comprehensive renewal platform of any leadership candidate. His announcement can be read here and his renewal platform can be read here.
This announcement emboldens Gerard Kennedy as the candidate who will renew the Liberal Party into the party of the 21st Century. Gerard stated to McGill students recently:
"Today, we face a united and disciplined opposition in the Conservative Party, creating different conditions than we have faced in the last 13 years spent in government," said Kennedy. "The Liberal Party lost the last election because we somehow lost contact with working Canadians. We became a victim of our own success. We became divided and Canadians believed we stopped listening."
The renewal platform put forth by Kennedy goes into great depth about the exact reform measures that are necessary. Those measures include:
· An annual ability for members to identify key issues and hold votes, whether policy or process, through electronic means. An indication of 50 per cent dissatisfaction would lead to a sanction or veto process that would require a two-thirds vote.
· Developing a detailed and ongoing policy process that will engage Liberals and other interested Canadians including regularly circulated discussion papers and a policy weekend to discuss and debate reports
· Developing a 308 riding strategy for the next election to win seats and become more competitive in traditionally unheld ridings
· Implement a three-line voting system. To make the system meaningful, in any parliamentary session, no more than 25 per cent of votes should be three-line votes (ie - confidence motions) and at least 50 per cent of votes should be one-line votes (ie - free votes).
· Implement one policy developed entirely by youth annually
· Mandate that every caucus member hold six town hall meeting per year with their constituents in order to qualify to run in the next election
The greatest feature of this paper, is that there are guarenteed targets to evaluate the platforms success. This one factor allows for the greatest accountability achievable and yet unseen in other parties.
Specific targets for improvement to the Liberal Party of Canada will include committing to:
· a 50 percent female caucus, and 50 percent female cabinet within two or three elections
· growing the party membership to 500,000 members within 3 years
· increase the number of members participating in the policy development and implementation process to 50,000 members within 3 years.
· at least 50 per cent of votes in the house being single-line, free votes.
· increase the number of unique donors to 100,000 from 28,000 within 3 years.
Some other great features of Gerard Kennedy's renewal platform include:
Meaningful Membership – Strength from Engagement
We need to change the way we do business as a party. It is no longer sufficient to have a Leader who tells the members “you can trust me”. The relationship must be reversed. The future for the Liberal Party of Canada lies in our leaders ability to trust members of the Liberal Party and Canadians. We need a new type of relationship–one that represents a profound and important change from the past.
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New Accountability
The new Leader should immediately accept the requirement to fully engage the membership and the party structure in the direction of the party. A stronger Leader will self-impose the need to keep communication
lines open, draw from the diverse views of the membership and reach out to persuade members on difficult issues.
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Grassroots Policy Decisions
Members should be able to take part in the development and implementation of policy and platform.
There has been a tremendous amount of work done on a volunteer basis to put together more than 30 reports by Tom Axworthy’s Renewal Commission. We should use those reports as a basis for a meaningful consultation process and as a springboard for the creation of the next party platform.
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Unheld Ridings Program
Dedicated resources should be applied to the development of unheld ridings in each region of the country, including Leader visits and events, and support for locally initiated projects. The Liberal Party of Canada has always been a proud, national party. Our ability to claim to be national is slipping, however, as we continue to have little to no representation in Alberta and much of Saskatchewan and Quebec. We are also under represented in many rural communities across the country. As a party we need to come to grips with this reality and make some tough choices.
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New Opportunities for the Party
Critic’s networks
Members should be able to join groups of experts, provide citizen reaction and feedback to Critics in opposition and Ministers when in government.
Leader Accessibility Sessions
Members should be able to attend well-advertised, open sessions at least once a year in each province to question the Leader directly.
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Limits on Candidate Appointment
The only way for us to rebuild as a party is from the grass-roots up rather than the top-down. As such, we should only use the power of the leader to appoint candidates in one circumstance: if it is necessary to ensure that we are on target to reach an objective of 50 per cent female candidates. Even with the target for female candidates, we should only use the power in extremely limited circumstances as an absolute last resort.
Full Engagement and Support for Members of Parliament and Past Candidates
One of the key connections for members to the party is their identification with their local MP or candidate.
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New Politics for a Renewed Liberal Party
Women in politics
We must have 50 per cent female candidates running for the Liberal Party of Canada within two or three elections. As a party, we need to do everything possible to ensure this happens. We need to create an Equal Voice Unit shared between the leader’s office and the party s Leader, as a means to ensuring that 50 percent of candidates and 50 per cent of cabinet are female. This unit will develop a system of fundraising, candidate recruitment and help train female candidates and female campaign managers to help ensure we meet the above outlined targets.
Youth
It is time to commit resources to a fully engaging program for youth members of the party. The Leader must work with the party to set up a civic engagement program that sees our youth initiating community projects across the country to provide tangible activities for youth, including high school based programs to introduce youth to the political system. Further, one policy developed entirely from youth will be accepted annually as part of our outlook going forward, so that youth are undertaking a real responsibility on their own, in addition to their contribution to the wider party.
Visible and Ethnic Minorities
The Leader should appoint an advisory group to monitor progress for full participation in staffing, engagement in key party positions, critic networks etc. Their report will be made public annually. We must dedicate significant resources and time to outreach into minority communities.
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