While Michael Ignatieff has certainly given the Libs a bump in the polls and the party bank account, his coronation last weekend in Vancouver underlines some sad facts about the state of political participation these days.
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If the grassroots of the party showed some pluck in voting for Stéphane Dion in 2006, they have caved since Dion’s flameout, as if to say with relief, “Please, oh powerful ones in the Liberal executive, don’t invest us with this awesome power. Look what we did with it last time.”
And who better than Ignatieff, who can trace his roots to the court of the last czar of Russia, to save a neutered rank and file that would rather be told than tell?
Only about 2,000 delegates of an eligible 8,000 showed up in Vancouver, well over 600 of them party officials, MPs, etc, points out U of T prof Nelson Wiseman. “Add all that up and the convention was a real comment on how little importance Canadians place on political parties.”
It also displays how little importance the political parties place on Canadians. Sure, Iggy told the Young Liberals that they make him possible, but it only took him a day to show that he gave less than two hoots how delegates voted on resolutions. After the party passed a resolution advocating a carbon tax, he nixed any idea that the party’s election platform would contain a Green Shiftesque tax.
(By the way, Iggy himself advocated such a measure when he ran for the leadership in 2006.)
Liberal blogger and Vancouver delegate Jeff Jedras expresses the prevailing skepticism about member clout. He remembers fondly the grassroots’ breakout moments, like when former PM Paul Martin was all juiced about George W’s missile shield but backed off after feeling the heat from Liberals at the 2005 convention.
“That said, influence of the rank and file is usually fairly minimal,” he say, “though it isn’t much different in other parties.”
He’s got a point. We’re getting increasingly used to parties’ nudge-wink strategies around honouring promises to their respective bases. And, says Ryerson political scientist Greg Inwood, Canadians are getting the message and staying on the margins. One big issue, he says, “is the consolidation of power among party leaderships. Think of the concentration of power in the Martin, Chretien and now Harper governments.”
Just look at how many sacred tenets of the Reform/Conservatives have been thrown under the bus by Stephen Harper: opposition to special status for Quebec, taxing income trusts, deficit spending, to name a few.
The NDP, which along with the Bloc is generally more beholden to policies voted on in conventions, has never seriously, for example, embraced convention-approved calls for Canada to get out of NATO, despite the party’s opposition to the Afghan war.
But former Dion supporter and one-time Liberal policy chair Akaash Maharaj says that if there’s a lesson for Iggy in the Dion debacle, it’s to engage all Liberals more fully.
“The Green Shift emerged fully formed in the mind of [Dion],” he says. “Liberals’ grassroots were then asked to defend something they had no impact on.”
Ignatieff needs to resist the temptation to centralize power, he says, if he wants to avoid deepening the disaffection. (By Maharaj’s count there are about 50,000 Liberal members, down from about 250,000 before the 2004 election.)
One need only look to the Tory PM for a cautionary tale. “In order to win, Harper gagged everyone,” says Maharaj. “If someone whose core identity is tied to grassroots engagement can do this, you can well imagine the impulse.”
Indeed we can.
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