Liberal open-nomination policy brings much-needed change
March 27, 2014
When Justin Trudeau committed to hold open nominations in 338 ridings across the country, he made something crystal clear: our open nomination process is there to ensure that local Liberals, in every riding, get to choose who they want to represent them in the next election. It wasn’t for him as Leader to decide – it was for Liberals to decide.
Open nominations for Mr. Trudeau stems from his commitment to service and a vision for what a political movement should be. During the leadership race, he said it best: “We need to be a party of community leaders, devoted to community service.”
There are an unprecedented number of people applying to be a part of the Liberal Party of Canada’s team. We’ve seen our membership grow by over 50,000 in the last three months alone. We saw hundreds of women take the first step and consider politics through our #uknowthiswoman campaign. And we know this is only the beginning.
Mr. Trudeau ended the past practice of Leader appointments for nominations and a commitment was made that we would operate under new, positive rules of engagement that move us away from the nasty, excluding and divisive battles of our past. As open nominations take place across the country, it will mean that local Liberals decide who will be our candidates. It does not mean that party rules can be broken or that prospective candidates and their teams can behave in whatever manner they choose during nomination contests.
During the party’s Leadership race, Mr. Trudeau sought and received a mandate from the Liberal Party to change the way it operates. And no wonder: the old way of doing things had brought the party successively worse election results.
As a party, we will still “green light” potential candidates (as other political parties do and as the Liberal Party always has) and while local Liberals will decide entirely who their candidate will be, that does not mean that we, on the party’s campaign team, will turn a blind eye to unacceptable, damaging behavior on the part of potential candidates during the nomination process.
These new rules of engagement require a culture change in our Party. Change is never easy and will continue to take a lot of hard work. But we will not waver in our commitment or our hopefulness for this positive change. We can’t afford to. Our Leader expects this of us because he knows Canadians, especially young Canadians, are thirsting for this.
Katie Telford and Dan Gagnier
National Campaign Co-chairs
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This letter was published on the Toronto Star website. You can read it here.