Regina Leader Post, Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Letter to the Editor
Losing touch with base?
by Sean McConnachie
The Liberal Party of Canada has, in recent months,
been acting with a peculiar temperament.
The Liberal Party has always been a strong advocate
of democracy and the benefits that it can bestow on
society. It has done this historically, both at home and
in other countries, assisting the establishment of
UN-sanctioned elections in places like the Congo.
Nevertheless, this democratic sentiment in the big red
machine seems to be dwindling like a candle in a
snowstorm.
With the personal selection of Joan Beatty by
Stèphane Dion in the riding of
Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River, the Liberal party
has further diminished its legitimacy on the issue of
democracy. This has seemed to have become commonplace in
this party as this adds to an extended list of
infringements on the principles of safeguarding and
improving democracy in Canada.
The Liberal Party has taken away the power of its own
general membership in an attempt to model the party to
the liking of the leader, not the people of the party.
In his attempts to improve his image as a strong and
knowledgeable leader, Dion has only fostered more
dissent and disenfranchisement amongst the very people
who elected him: the common Liberal Party members.
From stagnating Senate reform to subverting
grassroots democracy, the Liberal Party is so hell bent
on changing its own image that it is willing to destroy
one of the party's founding and most fundamental
principles: grassroots democracy. And it seems that
every high-profile Liberal is willing to help the
degradation along. Our own Ralph Goodale, someone who
was elected as a Liberal candidate in his beginnings,
was there in La Ronge to tell the Liberal membership in
the riding that its votes don't matter.
Does the contemporary Liberal Party really care about
its own people? I'm not so sure any more.
Sean McConnachie
Regina
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