(Chris and Joseph: excited to be at Biennial!)
The 2012 Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) Biennial meeting was the fifth Biennial meeting I’ve attended as Liberal delegate from Toronto Centre. As with previous Biennial meetings, it was a great experience and offered some unique moments as these meetings always do. I’ve compiled a few observations on some of the hard-working people I noticed, the excitement of the constitutional plenary session and the place where 3,000 Liberals from across the country gathered, Ottawa.
People:
As the Returning Officer for the Young Liberals of Canada elections, I was publically neutral for the LPC Executive Board race. This allowed me to sit back and watch what my friends and fellow Liberals were doing to support their candidates. When various speakers or Liberal MPs noted at the microphone that the party couldn’t be dead with so many passionate Liberals they weren’t joking. If this was a dead party, why would so many of my friends fight so hard for their candidates to win and help rebuild the party? Here’s a quick snapshot of some of the star volunteers I noticed:
Theresa Lubowitz – Whether it was Facebook posts or tweets, I was constantly noting that Theresa was highly engaged at promoting Mike Crawley’s campaign. The unique perspective Theresa demonstrated was that this was her first Biennial and likely the first time she’s got involved on an executive board campaign. You wouldn’t have guessed she was new to campaigning given how much she was doing to reach out and let folks know what a new bold red would do for the Liberal Party. I’m confident we’ll only see more good things and social media content from Theresa!
Kaisha Thompson – Kaisha was passionate in her support for the Sheila Copps campaign. I don’t remember exactly when I met Kaisha but she’s from one of my favourite places in Ontario: Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound. Kaisha was extremely active on Facebook promoting the Copps campaign and her proposals for the Liberal Party. I found them to be relevant and certainly checked out the links she posted. Although the end result isn’t exactly what Kaisha wanted, she should be proud of her dedicated contribution to the Copps campaign and the energy she brought.
Hillary Buchan-Terrell and William Norman – It’s never easy to decide to support a candidate who isn’t as well known as the other candidates in internal party elections, but that’s exactly what Hillary and Will did. I probably wouldn’t have heard about Alexandra Mendes without the work of Hill and Will to promote her candidacy. They genuinely outlined to me why they supported her and why her being President would make the party stronger. When you have Liberals like Hillary and Will who are experienced and awesome, encouraging you to vote for someone, it’s hard to say no! (Sidenote: they also let me stay at their place for two nights which I was very grateful for!)
Team Hansra – Harpreet Hansra and his crew organized a coffee and conversation for Sheila Copps at the convention. It was a good turnout and drew a number of key Copps’ supporters including the Hon. George Smitherman and former MP Derek Lee. Harpreet is a terrific organizer and fully gets the concept of politics being a ‘team’ sport in that it’s important to get your friends and family involved to organize for change.
Andrea Micieli - Andrea worked on the Zach Paikin campaign and was constantly a source of optimism and energy. Zach was running in a very competitive election for Policy Director with several candidates. The campaign was long and required dedicated volunteers like Andrea to keep it going. The closeness of the result is a reflection of how hard the volunteers for the candidates in this race worked so great work Andrea!
Plenary:
I was a strong supporter of the Open Membership (IE the new “Supporter” category) constitutional amendments. The moment to make the decision finally came and I was struck by the quality of the debate and many of the Liberals who got up to the microphone. I was particularly impressed with some of the Alberta Liberal delegates who spoke about how Open Memberships helped to increase the number of supporters to the Alberta Liberal Party and that this proposal would make the federal Liberal Party grow stronger. Being the social media fanatic that I am, I immediately went up to some of these speakers after they were done at the microphone to snap a picture with them and congratulate them on their passionate speeches. Below are a few pictures!
(Another passionate speaker: @hapnoc. Best way to stop “hijackers”, get more people involved. Outreach!)
One of the funniest moments came when there was an opportunity to debate the revote on the open membership proposal due to technical difficulties. The chair informed us that if there were 25 people standing the debate would reopen. A group of about 8 friends and I were standing on the sidelines as they were no chairs. When we heard that “anyone standing” would count towards the 25, my friends and I grabbed each other and said “Down! Down! Down!” and quickly dropped to sit on the floor!
Places:
The planner in me is always looking around when I’m at a conference and making observations. So here are some quick hits for Ottawa.
The Canal – Was not open! I was hoping to skate the length of the canal while in Ottawa and didn’t get a chance. I blame climate change and Steven Harper for not believing in climate change. We’re going to replace your Government Mr. Harper!
Library of Canada – Absolutely my favourite building on the Parliament Hill complex. I had a chance on Sunday to snap this picture.
The Bus Stop - Rows and rows of OC Transpo lined the street beside the convention centre. The good news is that due to the leadership of Mayor Jim Watson, former Mayor and current Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Bob Chiarelli and of course Premier Dalton McGuinty, Ottawa is getting light-rail transit! LRT will ease congestion and encourage more people (and visitors) to take transit.
Final Thoughts:
Bob Rae’s closing convention speech was fantastic and a great end to the convention. Bob spoke about the Liberal Party embracing change and becoming a more open and welcoming party. He also worked in several key domestic and international policy issues and reminded us Liberals what we would do differently than Harper.
Sadly, I had to miss the Policy Plenary as I was in the vote count room counting the YLC ballots (note to candidates: make sure your scrutinneer shows up on time or they won’t be let in the room!). However, I was able to ask the Liberal transportation critic during the Caucus availability session if LPC supports high-speed rail in Canada. The answer was yes!
Biennial 2012 was a wonderful experienced and I’m excited to continue to build a strong Liberal Party!
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