Nokha Dakrou (Delegate Mississauga-East Cooksville.)
The convention that took place this past weekend felt like a much-needed family reunion after a period of mourning and grief. With 3200 delegates present, it was more than I had even hoped for or anticipated. It was difficult to find people amongst the crowds, hard to find a seat in any of the sessions, the voting line was extremely long, and I couldn’t have been happier! After months of hearing and heading the Liberal Party’s obituaries, we were finally in a building where the future
of the party, the youth, were present and pleasantly loud.
One of the things that I was most pleased with was that the policy process would be shifted towards an online system. The truth is, it is unrealistic to expect to get thousands of people in a room to debate issues they feel strongly about and be out of the room on time for the next session. So, we’re moving towards the future in that case, and I think it’s about time. The primaries didn’t make it and I was surprised about that even though I was not in support of it. I thought it would have been dangerous to open up the party to that extent and I was concerned that it would cost a lot of money that would be better spent fighting the Conservatives, and the NDP during general elections. The creation of a two-tier membership was a bit difficult to get on board with since I would’ve preferred to cancel membership fees and allow everyone to be a member while protecting equality between members of the party. On the other hand, it does make room for a ‘safer’ and more open leadership race. I am interested to watch how that will play out.
What I found astounding was the fact that the leader’s power to appoint was protected by the membership. It was strange to watch the grassroots vote against giving the power to the grassroots. After our defeat in May, I was surprised to see the sense of denial about how many appointments have gone absolutely wrong. I was also in favour of that particular amendment because when a candidate or a sitting member is required to win a nomination fairly, they would have to organize in their own riding. This means going into a general election, they would have a base of support in that particular riding. The only concern that I shared was the need to increase the percentage of female candidates in the party. It is undeniable that it is much harder to get women to run for office, let alone fight nomination battles. However, I was hoping that we would be able to find other more democratic ways to support and encourage female candidates.
The results of the executive board elections were not always in favour of the candidates I had supported. However, I am not one to ever complain about election results even if I had worked on another candidate’s team. Mr. Crawley was successful in convincing the membership that he was the person for the job and I am sure that he will live up to that standard. I look forward to working with him, I wish him the absolute best, and I hope that we will all be there to support him going forward. It will be a tough road to get our party back into first place, because anything less than that won’t do, but I am sure it can be done and I’m looking forward to every step of the rebuilding process.
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