Democracy and the federal Liberals don't exactly go together like peanut butter and jam. But, during his recent election campaign, the party's British Columbia president Jamie Elmhirst promised to improve that sticky relationship. And it seems veteran Liberal organizer Tex Enemark has some ideas about how that might happen. In an email sent to senior party members last month and leaked to Public Eye, Mr. Enemark, who was an executive assistant to Trudeau administration Consumer and Corporate Affairs Minister Ron Basford before becoming deputy minister to Socred Consumer and Corporate Affairs Minister Rafe Mair, makes a number of suggestions on how to reform the party.

When it comes to appointing election candidates - a controversial issue during the last election - Mr. Enemark sees nothing wrong with making sure stars are guaranteed nominations. But, to avoid accusations the Liberals are being undemocratic, he proposed an amendment to the party constitution that would explicitly allow the leader to appoint up to 10 percent of the candidates in British Columbia. And, because that amendment would have to be approved as a result of a democratic vote, he writes that "I fail to see how anyone could complain."

The veteran organizer then goes onto make some recommendations on how to solve the problem of instant Liberals, members who are recruited solely for purpose of manipulating party elections. He proposes members should be required to belong to the party for six months before being allowed to vote at a nomination meeting or convention. And, according to Mr. Enemark, the cost of membership should be increased to $25, with the payment being made via personal cheque. This would, he writes, lessen "the likelihood of signing up dogs, it being that few dogs either dead or alive have bank accounts." That's similar to a proposal Mr. Elmhirst made during his run for the presidency.

Mr. Enemark also argues the Liberals need a British Columbia-focused platform if they want to win more seats in this province. The BC Agenda, released during the last election, was a step in the right direction. But, to Mr. Enemark's way of thinking, it wasn't taken seriously because it "lacked newsworthy hard commitments" and "little attention was paid to local BC issues by either candidates or the national leader when he was BC." So what Mr. Enemark proposes is to have a series of policy conferences aimed at "redefining what BC Liberals want to stand for in Ottawa." According to insiders, the party brass has already decided to go ahead with those conferences in the spring, possibly opening them up to non-Liberal community leaders (mayors, etc.). The following is a copy of Mr. Enemark's email.

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-----Original Message-----
From: Pat Petrala [mailto:patpet@shaw.ca]
Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2004 12:22 PM
To: Wilf CoChair FLAG 0 HURD; GINNY CoChair FLAG 0 Hasselfield; Lee LPCBC Pres Council CoChair FLAG 0 Brebber; Marlene Pres. Council LPCBC FLAG 0 Brayne
Subject: Tex Enemark Discussion Paper - LPCBC Reforms - he is seeking comments and engaging dialogue (ms word attachment for easy 6 page print out)

December 5, 2004 South of the Fraser Federal Liberal Action Group

Greetings FLAG Team - Riding Presidents, Candidates, Campaign Chair people As requested, here is a 6 page discussion paper to respond to - TEX ENEMARK - E-mail: tex@ca.inter.net

Seasons Best to everyone, Pat Petrala - FLAG facilitator

Hi Pat: Can you send this out to FLAG members only. Thanks G

----- Original Message -----

From: Marlene Brayne
To: ginny
Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2004 8:45 AM
Subject: from Tex

Has he sent you a copy of this?? Marlene

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Reform
Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 19:27:36 -0800
From: Tex Enemark
To: braynem@shaw.ca

I would like to have your thoughts. How do I get this circulated to everybody by next Friday?

Tex

I look forward to receiving comments on this paper.

Suggestions for Changes in the BC Federal Liberal Party to Improve Electoral Prospects and Reduce Regional Alienation - By Tex Enemark

Over the past two years, Paul Martin has repeatedly committed himself to doing what can be done to reduce BC's sense of regional alienation and to increase the number of Liberal MPs from BC. Mr. Martin, as Prime Minister, with the help of his BC Ministers and others, can perhaps achieve the former, but electing more BC Liberals as MPs will only be done if we are able to develop a stronger and more stable Party structure, field the very best candidates, and adequately finance election campaigns. This requires changes in Party procedures and activities. With a minority government in Ottawa, we may have little time to discuss what needs to be done, and to get about doing it.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has put forward a comprehensive set of proposals for change, thus this is an attempt to get a dialogue going, based on over 40 years experience within the BC federal Liberal Party.

Objectives

In my view, we must construct an integrated series of reforms that would lead not only to greater electoral success, but to a more effective organization supporting democratic government. Thus, a commitment to the following objectives:

* longer-term membership stability,
* a recognition that the very best candidates cannot be found, and campaigns cannot be created, overnight,
* a commitment to campaign fund raising being spread over the years between elections,
* to reform candidate recruitment procedures,
* to address the "instant Liberal phenomenon" which threatens Party stability and success,
* the need for a more activist, grass roots, policy.

Some History...

In the 1958 federal election, my first federal campaign, the Liberal party won not a single seat in BC. Following that, for a decade, was a time of fundamental re-building of the Party in BC, with Liberals taking 16 of 23 BC seats in 1968. While 11 of those were lost in the disastrous election of 1972, eight were won in 1974, four of which were seats NOT won in 1968 - Vancouver Kingsway, Vancouver East, Port Alberni, and Skeena.

This is put forward to make the point that Liberals have represented most of the seats in BC in the last 35 years, yet between 1979 the 2004 election, most Party managers simply "wrote off" BC outside of a Lower Mainland enclave. The Federal Liberal Party in BC has failed to recognize the changes that have affected its electoral prospects, and has therefore not adjusted. We must, I submit, make basic institutional changes if federal Liberals in BC are going to have their voter base grow beyond about 30%, and if we are to win more seats in the Province beyond Vancouver/Victoria.

Since about 1965, the external environment within which the federal Liberal Party must operate has changed, yet there has been no conscious examination of those changes and how they affect the party and its electoral prospects.

For instance, in the 1960s, the period between the issuing of the writ and Election Day was over 60 days, while today it is 40. This has a profound impact on how much a candidate and his organization can do during the campaign.
In the 1960s, most of the constituency campaigns were largely financed by funds collected from corporate donors. The central campaign committee kept control by doling out funds on the basis of endowing ridings the Committee thought were "winners". By the 1970s, with some election finance reform, much more responsibility was placed on the candidates and their riding associations to adequately fund the campaign, and more money came from individuals.

By 2004, with corporate fund raising increasingly difficult, even more of the burden is placed on the candidate, but there has been a concomitant loss of influence and control in some ways by central committees. However, centralized sign production has supplanted the practice of each riding having its own sign shop, the centrally - supplied Candidates' Election Package, has created greater consistency of basic campaign tools, centralized, paid for, phone banks have brought a degree of professionalism to those constituencies that have the money to hire them.

In the 1960s, Party "regulars" dominated party activity both during and between elections, while "packed nominations" and "instant Liberals" were a rarity. Today, "regulars" maintain a tenuous hold on the Party apparatus in many ridings, while irregular nomination processes have become such a norm that many elected MPs in Ontario are fearful of facing the prospect of re-nomination, and are demanding that their nominations be "protected" by the Leader. Yet, insulating MPs from the re-nomination process only began in 1997. Before that, it was simply a fact of political life that MPs had to pay attention to their riding associations, or risk the loss of re-nomination. However, such were the political norms of the Liberal Party until the '90s that few MPs were ever challenged.

And earlier, because so much campaign funding was not riding - generated, the Central Campaign Committee could informally make it clear to potential interlopers that, should the incumbent be defeated, the interloper was on his own. Or not.

Over the years, too, there were changes in other ways--the dynamic of Party activity, voter turnout, the nature of political opposition, and federal policies in general. Each of these has had an effect on Party activity and election outcomes, mostly not for the better. The result was that, by 2004, while the Prime Minister was anxious to improve representation from BC, recent Party divisions, the "sponsorship" imbroglio, and the negative press coverage of nomination procedures all served to frustrate that desire.

In my considered view, there is no point the BC Liberal Party moving forward, pretending that the old ways will work any better in the future than in the past thirty years, nor that recent problems can be ignored. Rather, if federal Liberal political fortunes are to improve, it falls to the BC Liberal Party to recognize and discuss the necessary changes.

Party Activity...

In the 1960s and 70s, many "active" Liberal Constituency Associations held general meetings almost monthly, likely about 8 per year. There were speakers on current issues, once in a while an MP would appear, there were policy discussions, and so on. They were also very social affairs. Today, other than the requisite annual meeting, and nomination meetings, there are very few gatherings of constituency organizations for any purpose other than fund raising dinners. In part, technology - e-mail, for instance - has replaced the need for meetings to aid communications, yet email, etc., does not replace the need in a political party for group interaction, idea exchange, the communications of "values", and so on. I have joked that the Liberal Party was trying to eat its way to victory, but I think more and regular General Meetings are the place to start re-building.

"People will not come to frequent constituency meetings," say many. "Things have changed, people are too busy, and they are not interested". My response is that, frankly, to the best of my knowledge, no one has tried. And "trying" means recruiting people interested in federal politics, in putting on interesting programs, and in making participants feel they are contributing to a worthwhile activity.

It must be said that, for many of the past 30 years, it has often not been a pleasure for federal Liberals in BC to admit their allegiance, such was the sense in BC that Ottawa cared not at all for the views - or the future of British Columbians so, "why waste your time?". The case can be easily made that all this has changed. We should be able to take advantage of this turnaround.

It seems to me fundamental that, if voters are going to be asked to have confidence in a political party, they should know that it is open and accountable, and that the views it expresses are respected in Ottawa. Thus, a reformed Liberal Party must build on an ACTIVE party structure.

Party Financing...

As noted above, prior to political party financial changes of the late 1960s that provided tax breaks to individual donors, and government subsidies to parties and candidates, much of the money to run local constituency campaigns came from the BC Campaign Committee, and much of the money came from corporate sources. As noted above, among other things, this allowed the central committee to have a great deal of influence on the choice and behaviour of candidates.

While the Leader of the Liberal Party did not have the power under the Elections Act to approve or accredit individual candidates, and lacked the power to remove candidates, party financing procedures made such authority almost unnecessary.

The campaign financing laws in place for three decades prior to 2004 gave much fiscal autonomy to riding campaigns. However, the new (2004) campaign financing rules, which severely limit donations from businesses, and the increasingly short election period, have made it very difficult for many ridings to raise the funds permitted/needed to adequately run a campaign within the shorter campaign period. It is the writer's estimate that no more than forty percent of the Liberal Party's BC candidates in 2004 were fully funded. One simply cannot ignore the fact that, to get elected, a candidate has to be able to do everything possible, and having half the money needed is a recipe for failure.

The fact is, in most ridings, adequate funds cannot be raised in a sufficiently short time after the campaign begins for firm budgetary commitments to be made early enough to plan a competent, fully funded campaign. That is, the money might come in eventually, but on Day 1, the campaign manager has to put a budget and a campaign plan together, and no one wants to chance a deficit. The result is not the best planned and executed campaign, in many cases.

Thus, a fundamental problem we must face is how to raise enough money between elections to build up sufficiently large bank accounts in the constituencies so that adequately funded campaigns can be run, or to nominate many months prior to an expected election. We have to start doing campaign fund raising immediately after the last campaign, and to hope to raise, say at least $10,000 per year, so that the day the writ is issued campaign planning can move forward with the knowledge that all the money needed is there, after the federal subsidy is taken into account.

But it is easier for candidates to attract funding than riding associations.

Nominations...

From the 1970s through the early 1990s, with the lessening of "informal" mechanisms for affecting candidate choice, successive Campaign Committees began increasingly to seek "formal" processes to encourage and discourage certain candidates:

* ridings were forbidden to nominate until they were told they could by the campaign committee,
* the Party demanded the right to thoroughly vet putative candidates,
* the Party increasingly took control of membership lists and procedures
* the central campaign committee took control of the dates set for nominations, and ran the nomination meetings.

While, beginning in the 1970s, leaders had the authority to choose, reject, or "designate" candidates, it was a power rarely used. (In fact, it was used first by Robert Stanfield, the Conservative leader, in 1974, to take away the Conservative nomination from a New Brunswick candidate vigorously opposed to official bilingualism. The fellow then ran as an independent and won. The PC candidate ran third.) Indeed, I cannot recall a single case of formal "designation" in BC before 1997. On the other hand, there was the odd case where the Leader instructed the Campaign Committee as to whom he would prefer as a candidate in certain ridings, and the Campaign Committee did interfere, as in Vancouver Centre in 1984.

Beginning a decade ago, the Leader and the campaign committees began to interfere more and more with the nomination process, designating candidates and parachuting in candidates that ridings did not, in fact, want, and would not work for. (An example was Warren Kinsella in North Vancouver in 1997). Paradoxically, sitting MPs were immune from being challenged for their nominations, as a result of the Leader's blanket fiat, in 1997 and 2000. Presumably, the offer of such protection increases the MP's loyalty to the Leader, but it prevented better, brighter people from displacing under-performing MPs.

By 2004, the nomination process was in a state of great confusion. A new Leader indicated he wanted the very best candidates, and the BC Campaign Committee set about an aggressive recruiting campaign, one which in essence required implicitly that the Campaign Committee could guarantee a chosen person a nomination in a "safe" seat. As well, however, for many months polls suggested that BC voters were very favourably disposed to the Liberal Party, and projected that a very large number of previously marginal ridings would be won in BC in an election expected in early 2004. This led to a number of aggressive candidates selling large numbers of Liberal Party memberships in an effort to secure nominations. Such contests occurred in about 20 ridings. In some others, the Campaign Committee persuaded putative candidates to step aside in favour of "recruited" candidates and, in two instances in BC, the Leader designated candidates. In all this, what is important is a sound, active, "regular" party cadre prepared to accept the outcome and do the hard work once the dust of the nomination battles had settled.

None of this would have been remarkable (i.e.­as noted above, such things had been taking place for decades) except for the fact in this election, some of those passed over went to the media and managed to make what happened a cause celebre. Some of what took place was characterized in the media as either "unfair" or "undemocratic". Rather, the adverse publicity resulted from not making formal and legitimate what had been informally accepted in earlier years. Despite the adverse publicity, it is clear that "chosen" candidates did better in the election than those passed over would have.

The objective should be that the Liberal Party is going to put forward the very best candidates it can. Clearly, to do this, the Liberal Party must develop agreed upon procedures for the nominating of candidates outside the normal who-shows-up-with-the-most-voting-members method.

A task force should be struck to try to create some ground rules and procedures if future conflict and confusion is to be avoided. This might well be the way to address, among other things, how to recruit/attract more women as candidates.

It could be that it is specifically set out in the BC Part constitution that up to, say, 10% (or some other number) of candidates may be designated by the Leader. If that were clear, and set out plainly in the Constitution or Rules as a result of a democratic vote, I fail to see how anyone could complain.

However, an increasingly difficult matter for the Liberal Party to face is that of the "instant Liberal". That is, where those involved in intra­Party contests, such as for nominations, sign up large numbers of new "members". Many of these recruits, it is alleged, should not be accepted because they are under age, do not have Canadian citizenship, do not in fact pay for their own membership card, and have absolutely no interest in the ongoing affairs of the Liberal Party. From time to time, outright fraud has been alleged. Many of these contests have been very bitter, and some have been preceded by a "raid" by which, for instance, a putative candidate uses his new members to replace the riding executive with people of his own choosing, supposedly giving that person an advantage in the nomination process. We are not the only Party that has the problem.

To say that all this sort of shenanigans creates negative press, is disruptive of smooth Party operation, riding morale, fund­raising and the prospects of actually "building" a winning constituency organization, goes without saying.

In fact, despite the "excitement" of a hotly contested nomination race, favoured by some party managers, such activity and the other changes outlined above have the effect of actively discouraging any potential candidate from doing any actual rebuilding of a constituency organization. And, in any event, signing up a very large number of Party members is no guarantee of electoral success: one riding in BC in 2004 had over 17,000 paid­up members, but our candidate lost the subsequent election, 13,529 to 13,009! That's right - a full 4,000 "Liberals" did not show up on Election Day.

We are to the point that the "instant Liberal" phenomenon puts any realistic attempt to re­build the Party at the grass roots level in danger.

Let us say, for instance, someone thinks a year or two before an expected election­ that they have a reasonable chance of winning a very marginal riding, if they can assemble a sufficiently large, well managed, and adequately financed campaign, if they can spend the time to become known in the riding before hand reduce the advantage of the incumbent, and if they can become media savvy and fully briefed on the issues.

A prudent person knows it will take two years to put together the team, to get some of the money they need in the bank, and to become prepared. However, they also know that, by putting together the team and the funds, a "honey pot" is created for others who are less willing to put in the years of hard work, but who are able, and who are encouraged by existing Party rules, to mobilize a large number of "instant Liberals" just weeks before an election call, and inherit the money raised and, the latecomer hopes, the organization built.

The result of this sort of hostile takeover is huge unhappiness in the riding, and most of those who were brought by the hard­working ‘builder” will either not participate in the election campaign, or will work in other ridings. This problem could be solved with a mixture of policies. Some options:

Voters in party elections must be members for at least 6 months before they can vote. The Liberal Party welcomes people in, but surely it is not unreasonable to ask for a longer term commitment than 42 days.

Party memberships should cost $25. This would both reflect value, and make it more difficult to finance/organize "instant Liberal" campaigns.

Each membership payment would have to be made by the individual personal cheques of the new member. This does away with cash, volume-based memberships, and lessens the likelihood of signing up dogs, it being that few dogs either dead or alive­ have bank accounts.

Having recruited people, we must do a better job of communicating with them as individuals, in their own language, if necessary, and try to involve them in actual non election Party activities.

Going further, if a constituency organization executive (not one resulting from a recent takeover) wants to encourage an ambitious candidate for the nomination three years before an election, the central campaign committee (which should have an ongoing existence, not being dissolved after each election) should be able to, outside the Leader's designation clause, provide conditional approval, could set targets and rules for the putative candidate that, if met, would lead to a party nomination. That is, if there was constituency support, the Committee should be empowered to say, "OK, to be protected from an open nominating contest, you must raise $10,000 over the next year, sell 50 party memberships, attend the campaign training session etc., etc."

This would not only result in candidates well trained and known in their constituencies well before an election, but would give the Liberal Party something it now does not have between elections, and desperately needs, which is a presence on the ground in ridings not held. The "designated" candidate could and should counter the statements of incumbent opposition MPs who now get a "free ride" between elections, and be backed up by Liberal Party research.

What is, in my experience, at the heart of constituency based re­building is that some person who actually wants to be a candidate gets out and does some work. They recruit people who will help, they build a team, they raise money, and they learn the issues and institutions important in the community. Organization does not necessarily emerge from a late and bitter nomination battle, where the winner's success is based on numbers of people whose only involvement is ever to show up to cast a ballot at nomination time. We need more people who will work during and between campaigns.

However, over the past two decades, few have been interested in doing this kind of long term, grass roots rebuilding. Rather, most of those wanting to be elected focused on last minute membership sales and the capturing of riding associations that purportedly offered a good chance of returning a Liberal in the election. We must recognize that this is not the way to long term success.

Policy...

What does the Liberal Party in BC stand for that would provide a reason for an uncommitted BC voter to prefer it to other political parties at election time? The answer to that question is a frustrating one to answer, because most would suggest that there has been no particular reason to think federal Liberals cared about BC specifically. Indeed, the most frequent complaint one hears in BC is that any particular problem we have in BC would have much higher priority if it were in Ontario or Quebec. This has little to do with the facts, because BC has done quite well, over the years, but federal Liberal governments have been singularly inept in claiming any credit.

The first step in recent years in trying to establish a separate sense of mission for federal Liberals came with the issuing of the "BC Agenda" in the last federal election. It was the first time the national campaign committee had allowed the BC campaign to issue such a document although permission to do so has been sought in most elections since 1963. (One caveat: in 1963, the National Campaign issued 12 policy documents. In BC a 13th was issued on, of all things, native land claims.)

The BC Agenda document was not taken as seriously as it might have been, for several reasons:

* it was not the result of lengthy and spirited public debate within the Party
* it lacked newsworthy hard commitments
* the campaign itself left little room for local issues
* little attention was paid to local BC issues by either candidates or the national leader when he was in BC.

We must now take the next steps to put more flesh on a new federal Liberal Party determined to reduce BC alienation with a broader Agenda. I suggest we do this with a series of policy conferences, not aimed at a National Convention, but at redefining what BC Liberals want to stand for in Ottawa.

The idea of numerous policy conferences would be nothing new. BC was the first province to amend its constitution so that the policy chairman on the provincial executive was elected by the membership, rather than appointed by the executive, in 1968. Following that, for several years there was much policy discussion and development. Unfortunately, the Trudeau government was mesmerized by other priorities and eventually the effort petered out. Nonetheless, it has been done, it has worked, and it did have results. The problem was with execution after the fact.

It is a matter of some concern to me that the last several elections have been fought on issues that were not really federal issues: health care and education, for instance. There has been little discussion about a number of vital national issues such as defence, foreign affairs, trade, energy, immigration, aboriginal affairs, fisheries, agriculture, industrial and regional development and so on. I think there lies some danger in this, in that the federal government becomes increasingly perceived by Canadians as simply a collector of taxes which are passed on in inadequate amounts to the provinces, which they perceive as the level of government that actually delivers programs. In other words, in the eyes of some, the federal government is increasingly becoming remote and irrelevant.

However, if there is to be a renewed commitment to grass­roots policy development, this will have to come in concert with reformed rules for member participation, with voting on policy resolutions limited to members who have belonged for at least six months.

A grass roots process of policy discussion might be the way to re­invigorate both the Liberal Party and the national government, and should be carefully examined by the Liberal Party.

There are, of course, many other suggestions to be made on the future of the federal Liberal party in BC. But now is the time to discuss the future, to make decisions and to choose a course of action.

It is my thesis that basic reform is vital. Unless Liberals fundamentally change the way the Party elects its executives and nominates and trains its candidates, over the next few years, and honestly faces the changes that have been wrought over the past three decades to which it has not adequately adapted, we have scant hope of increasing our representation in the House of Commons.

I look forward to receiving comments on this paper.

Tex Enemark

November 29, 2004