Monday, March 20, 2006

Bloc Toronto Leadership Race Begins

And they're off!

John Godfrey joins Martha Hall Findlay in the race, with Belinda Stronach about to throw her elegrant chapeau in the ring presently.

And Carolyn Bennett.

And Maurizio Bevilacqua.

Ken Dryden won't be far behind.

Michael Ignatieff, of course.

And Bob Rae will be the 800-pound gorilla that squashes them all.

It would be easier at this point to name the GTA Liberals who aren't running or thinking of doing so.

Holding the leadership convention in Montreal is just for appearances. Having it at the Air Canada Centre where all the top contenders can get there from home on the TTC or GO bus would just be too blatantly obvious.

This is the new Liberal Party of Canada, folks, representing Canadians from Pickering to Oakville, and from Newmarket to Harbourfront.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i guess those are shrewd observations if you leave out the east where the liberals have 20 seats to cpc's 9 or quebec, where the cpc seems to have forgotten that the liberals hold 3 more seats than them. of course there's bc too. i guess only albertan's are real canadians.

Anonymous said...

Excellent point. A while back David Warren wrote a piece about how Ontario had separated from the rest of the country by embracing the Liberals to the extent that they had --but it's TO greatest accomplishment now.

It's le Bloc Torontois!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous - keep spinning - if you say it long enough and loud enough - pretty soon you start to believe yourself.

Anonymous said...

A challenge to all candidates for leadership of the Liberal Party:

In the USA Governor Howard Dean started a revolution when he dragged the Democratic Party kicking and squealing into the internet age. In doing so, he rejuvenated that party, and enable hundreds of thousands of people who had previously never been active in politics, to plunge into this noble profession.

The results are already clear: a much stronger party, with a much wider base of active members, running candidates for offices at many different levels. American democracy has benefited from Dean's initiatives.

My challenge to each candidate is this:

• Wide membership drive - strive to have as many new members signed up THROUGH THE INTERNET PROCESS as possible, whether or not these new members support you. This will build a larger base of active members for the party, and mean a more effective election fight.

• Your blog - start a blog and post – at least weekly – a personal position paper for members to read. Allow some blogger (my suggestion is CalgryGrit) to nominate the topics to be covered in each week's blogs. We will all be able to read the views and policies of each candidate at the same time. Allow room for comments on your blog.

These two steps will unleash the energy of a resurgent Liberal Party and help the party win a majority next time.