Trudeau promotes wide-open Liberal party
Proposed changes to party’s constitution would do away with membership privileges
OTTAWA— Justin Trudeau is pushing a proposed new constitution for the Liberal Party of Canada aimed at transforming the federal party from an exclusive club into a wide-open political movement.
The proposal, adopted Saturday by the party’s national board during a three-hour meeting with the prime minister in Halifax, would do away entirely with the long-held principle that only dues-paying, card-carrying members are entitled to take part in party activities.
Indeed, there would no longer be any party members. Instead, anyone willing to register with the party — for free — would be eligible to participate in policy development, nomination of candidates, party conventions and the selection of future leaders.
The proposal builds on a change adopted by Liberals four years ago, when they agreed to let anyone willing to sign up for free as a party supporter vote in leadership contests.
Trudeau was the first leader elected under the new process, which saw some 300,000 people sign up as supporters. “We’ve tried the supporter system and it was a huge success,” party president Anna Gainey said in an interview.
“I believe that as we continue to open up and modernize and have more of a movement than a traditional political party, that this is a natural progression of that.”
Liberals will be asked to approve the proposed new constitution at the party’s national convention in May.
While the Liberals look to further open up their party to all comers, the Conservatives are going in the opposite direction.
For the current Tory leadership contest, only those who’ve been party members for six months will be eligible to vote and the membership fee has been hiked to $25. Each member must pay by cheque or credit card in a bid to prevent leadership campaigns from paying for mass sign-ups of new members. “That is a sharp contrast,” Gainey said.
Without going into details of the proposed changes, Trudeau championed the need for a constitutional overhaul during a speech Saturday to the Nova Scotia wing of the Liberal party.
“We need to be courageous and we need to show, once again, that the Liberal party is not afraid to challenge the status quo, even if it means breaking with our own traditions,” he said.
“Canadians are counting on us to keep building, modernizing and opening up our movement. We can’t let them down.”
The proposed new constitution would be shorter than the current 81-page document and give more flexibility to the national board, which includes elected riding presi- dents from across the country, to adapt and modernize party procedures in a timely way.
That includes its cumbersome policy development process. Currently, the constitution stipulates that policy resolutions are to be put forward by riding associations for consideration at annual general meetings of the various provincial and territorial wings of the party.
Priority resolutions chosen at those meetings are then debated and voted on at the national party’s biennial conventions. The process is “inflexible, it is not evergreen, it does not respond to the pace of life in the digital age,” said Gainey.
The new constitution would allow flexibility to use technology to engage all registered Liberals in policy development between national conventions.