“Unquestionably it will be a significant part of the leadership race, because what we’re talking about is the voters, the people who will have a right to elect the next leader,” Matthew Certosimo, the party’s national membership secretary in charge of implementing the supporter system, told The Hill Times. “I think it would be safe to say that all of the candidates will have an interest in recruiting people to the supporter category to hopefully vote for them in the contest.”
Mr. Certosimo said that the party is establishing a fail-safe “hard registration” system for supporters to ensure the integrity of the vote as the leadership election nears.
“I understand a number of candidates are building their networks because of course people will sign up their friends and their colleagues and their contacts to support a candidate they believe in,” Mr. Certosimo said in an interview from his Bay Street law office in Toronto. “Whether they’re members of caucus or partisans or whomever, the networking and recruitment process will be crucial to a successful leadership campaign.”
Mr. Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) is arguably the best-known Liberal MP from the party’s 35-member caucus across the country. He spent secluded time in mid-August with his wife Sophie going through final conversations about whether he could sacrifice time with his family over the next months to seek the post his iconic father the late Pierre Eliott Trudeau held three decades ago.
Summer polls have suggested a Liberal Party led by the popular Mr. Trudeau, 40, would boost its voter preference by nearly double. The polls also show his campaign, with organizers reportedly already in place, could benefit most by the new party supporter category.
In the past, leadership candidates would have to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars to recruit, even buy membership cards, to elect supporting delegates to raucous conventions.
But, despite skepticism outside of Liberal ranks toward the wide-open supporter system where personal, political and social networks rather than cash could determine the outcome, Mr. Certosmo said the party is setting up an elaborate recruitment system.
He said the first step was launching supporter recruitment last May 2. Mr. Certosimo said the number of supporters has risen to “approximately 25,000” after three months of door-to-door recruitment and telephone canvassing.
Mr. Certosimo said as it gets closer to the leadership convention next April, there will be a “hard registration” that takes place.
“This is where credentials are determined for the purposes of voting and so before anyone gets a ballot there will be a registration process which will require confirmation that all of the criteria to be a supporter and to be eligible to vote are satisfied,” Mr. Certosimo said. “It’s at that point that if we had any doubts beforehand, they will be asked yet again to confirm those details, in the case of the supporters they have to be 18 and support the purposes of the Liberal Party.”
Liberal insiders told The Hill Times that if Mr. Trudeau enters the race, another well-known caucus figure, MP Dominic LeBlanc (Beausejour, N.B.), will stay out. The two are close friends, and Mr. LeBlanc has given signals he will not run if Mr. Trudeau does.
“I don’t see Dominic jumping in. Actions speak louder than words and he’s not doing the sort of stuff that a probable candidate would be doing. If Justin didn’t run, he probably would jump in, but I think the odds are that Justin will run,” the Liberal insider said.
Halifax MP Geoff Regan (Halifax West, N.S.) is seen as the most likely from the Atlantic provinces to run, although he has not yet declared his intentions, even if he is considering his candidacy.
Montreal MP Marc Garneau (Westmount-Ville Marie, Que.), the former astronaut and once head of the Canadian Space Agency who is the party’s House leader, is also a likely contender.
Vancouver MP Joyce Murray (Vancouver-Quadra, B.C.) confirmed to The Hill Times last week that she was considering an entry. A former provincial Cabinet minister, Ms. Murray said her personal experience developing and building her own business over 25 years will also benefit her, although her goal would be to ensure leadership discussion over the environment.
Toronto lawyer George Takach, who insiders said has already been travelling the country to meet Liberals in other regions, is also considering a leadership bid. He declined to comment on his plans, but he confirmed that one of the party’s best-known organizers, British Columbia Liberal Mark Marissen, who has directed federal campaigns in B.C. and was a top organizer for former prime minister Paul Martin, is assisting him with his prospective campaign.
Toronto lawyer and prominent Liberal Deborah Coyne, who was close to Pierre Trudeau and had a daughter with him, declared her candidacy last June.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: TIM NAUMETZ
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