Ah, the contrast. While the high-powered help in the PMO (the so-called “boys in short pants”) can’t get their stories straight on the Senate scandal, the Conservative party grassroots showed incredible wisdom.
On Friday, two potentially divisive, if not downright destructive, resolutions on how party leaders are chosen were defeated rapidly and decisively by a hefty majority of the 1,000 voting delegates at the party’s national convention.
Resolutions C-132 and C-133 — dubbed the “Peter MacKay Meltdown resolutions” by one Tory MP who asked to not be named — were apparently shot down by a margin of about three-to-one.
Prior to the June convention that was cancelled owing to the floods that devastated southern Alberta, MacKay had warned that the implication of introducing one-member, one-vote for the next leadership vote is “people would leave the party.”
When asked if he would be one of them, he replied: “I’d think about it. It would be a very different party, with a very different future.”
A central Canadian MP quipped after the vote: “Peter MacKay gets to keep his marbles and not go home.”
When asked if that was a good thing, the MP, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was unequivocal. “Of course it’s a good thing. This party doesn’t need any more drama right now,” he said, referring to the Senate debacle that has made headlines now for six months and counting.
When MacKay, who has leadership aspirations, and Stephen Harper agreed to merge the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties in 2003, the PCs insisted that each riding would have an equal say in a leadership vote, receiving 100 votes each regardless of the number of party members in each riding. MacKay has said if that wasn’t the case, there would have been no merger.
Resolution C-132 pushed for a weighted kind of voting system. Each electoral district would be allocated a minimum of 100 points. However, for each ballot cast in an electoral district over 100, an electoral district would be allocated an additional point, to a maximum of 200.
Even more contentious was Resolution C-133, which would have given every party member one vote.
The purpose behind giving every electoral district 100 votes regardless of the number of members was to ensure that the party’s deep western Reform/Alliance roots wouldn’t choke off the tender shoots of party membership in Atlantic Canada or the North.
Calgary East MP Deepak Obhrai says he voted against both resolutions.
“Up to now, things have worked very well for us, and when things are working well for you, there is no need to change it,” said Obhrai, who is also parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs.
But some party members were disappointed. Former party whip and House leader Jay Hill said he believes the party is mature enough to make the leadership vote system more democratic and fair.
“I’ve always believed that there should be a compromise position — somewhere between one member one vote and the equality of the ridings, and I think the one resolution dealt with that, so a riding with 15,000 members would get a maximum of 200 votes and a riding with 50 members would still get 100. It’s fairer than the current system,” said Hill.
“I know one person who will be very happy with this vote, my good friend Peter MacKay, but I feel having been involved on the Reform side since the birth of the party back in 1987, it does not help to build strong riding associations when there’s no benefit to having extra members.”
Hill makes a good point, but the opposite can also be argued. The relatively lonely Conservatives in Atlantic Canada might just give up on the party if they felt their involvement held little sway. Also, the leadership candidates would then be tempted to pander to larger ridings, while ignoring the regions.
Under the current system, candidates must woo members from every part of the country, developing policies with wider appeal, which holds the party in better stead for the future.
Calgary Centre-North MP Michelle Rempel says she was impressed with how “respectful” the tone was between the various camps and how quickly those who lost the vote moved on without grumbling.
And that seems to be the case. It was difficult to find grumbling delegates. And if there was grumbling about the T. rex in the room — the prime minister’s mishandling of the Senate scandal — it was kept to a soft whisper during the convention, with the exception of Brent Rathgeber, the former Conservative backbencher who resigned in June from the Tory caucus after the Prime Minister’s Office “unreasonably” watered down his private member’s bill to bring in sunshine laws for public servants’ pay.
“The issues management on this file has been a botch job from Day 1,” said Rathgeber, who has a paid up party membership but is not a voting delegate. Rathgeber voiced what many Tories hoped would happen — that Harper would address in a more fulsome way the Senate expense scandal with Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau and the role Nigel Wright, Harper’s chief of staff, played in giving Duffy a $90,000 cheque to compensate him for his inappropriately submitted expenses.
But it was not to be.
Harper’s speech played to his strengths — his economic stewardship — and just touched on the scandal, and it appeared to work on the enthusiastic crowd at the BMO Centre on the Stampede grounds.
Rightly boasting about the Canada Europe Trade Agreement garnered sustained applause and cheers.
But it was the voting delegates who deserve the greatest applause at this convention for avoiding a major pitfall on those two leadership-vote resolutions and showing a wisdom that seems to be lacking in the PMO.
Original Article
Source: calgaryherald.com
Author: Licia Corbella
On Friday, two potentially divisive, if not downright destructive, resolutions on how party leaders are chosen were defeated rapidly and decisively by a hefty majority of the 1,000 voting delegates at the party’s national convention.
Resolutions C-132 and C-133 — dubbed the “Peter MacKay Meltdown resolutions” by one Tory MP who asked to not be named — were apparently shot down by a margin of about three-to-one.
Prior to the June convention that was cancelled owing to the floods that devastated southern Alberta, MacKay had warned that the implication of introducing one-member, one-vote for the next leadership vote is “people would leave the party.”
When asked if he would be one of them, he replied: “I’d think about it. It would be a very different party, with a very different future.”
A central Canadian MP quipped after the vote: “Peter MacKay gets to keep his marbles and not go home.”
When asked if that was a good thing, the MP, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was unequivocal. “Of course it’s a good thing. This party doesn’t need any more drama right now,” he said, referring to the Senate debacle that has made headlines now for six months and counting.
When MacKay, who has leadership aspirations, and Stephen Harper agreed to merge the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties in 2003, the PCs insisted that each riding would have an equal say in a leadership vote, receiving 100 votes each regardless of the number of party members in each riding. MacKay has said if that wasn’t the case, there would have been no merger.
Resolution C-132 pushed for a weighted kind of voting system. Each electoral district would be allocated a minimum of 100 points. However, for each ballot cast in an electoral district over 100, an electoral district would be allocated an additional point, to a maximum of 200.
Even more contentious was Resolution C-133, which would have given every party member one vote.
The purpose behind giving every electoral district 100 votes regardless of the number of members was to ensure that the party’s deep western Reform/Alliance roots wouldn’t choke off the tender shoots of party membership in Atlantic Canada or the North.
Calgary East MP Deepak Obhrai says he voted against both resolutions.
“Up to now, things have worked very well for us, and when things are working well for you, there is no need to change it,” said Obhrai, who is also parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs.
But some party members were disappointed. Former party whip and House leader Jay Hill said he believes the party is mature enough to make the leadership vote system more democratic and fair.
“I’ve always believed that there should be a compromise position — somewhere between one member one vote and the equality of the ridings, and I think the one resolution dealt with that, so a riding with 15,000 members would get a maximum of 200 votes and a riding with 50 members would still get 100. It’s fairer than the current system,” said Hill.
“I know one person who will be very happy with this vote, my good friend Peter MacKay, but I feel having been involved on the Reform side since the birth of the party back in 1987, it does not help to build strong riding associations when there’s no benefit to having extra members.”
Hill makes a good point, but the opposite can also be argued. The relatively lonely Conservatives in Atlantic Canada might just give up on the party if they felt their involvement held little sway. Also, the leadership candidates would then be tempted to pander to larger ridings, while ignoring the regions.
Under the current system, candidates must woo members from every part of the country, developing policies with wider appeal, which holds the party in better stead for the future.
Calgary Centre-North MP Michelle Rempel says she was impressed with how “respectful” the tone was between the various camps and how quickly those who lost the vote moved on without grumbling.
And that seems to be the case. It was difficult to find grumbling delegates. And if there was grumbling about the T. rex in the room — the prime minister’s mishandling of the Senate scandal — it was kept to a soft whisper during the convention, with the exception of Brent Rathgeber, the former Conservative backbencher who resigned in June from the Tory caucus after the Prime Minister’s Office “unreasonably” watered down his private member’s bill to bring in sunshine laws for public servants’ pay.
“The issues management on this file has been a botch job from Day 1,” said Rathgeber, who has a paid up party membership but is not a voting delegate. Rathgeber voiced what many Tories hoped would happen — that Harper would address in a more fulsome way the Senate expense scandal with Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau and the role Nigel Wright, Harper’s chief of staff, played in giving Duffy a $90,000 cheque to compensate him for his inappropriately submitted expenses.
But it was not to be.
Harper’s speech played to his strengths — his economic stewardship — and just touched on the scandal, and it appeared to work on the enthusiastic crowd at the BMO Centre on the Stampede grounds.
Rightly boasting about the Canada Europe Trade Agreement garnered sustained applause and cheers.
But it was the voting delegates who deserve the greatest applause at this convention for avoiding a major pitfall on those two leadership-vote resolutions and showing a wisdom that seems to be lacking in the PMO.
Original Article
Source: calgaryherald.com
Author: Licia Corbella
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