Category: Politics/Liberals

Liberals lining up for Liberals

I’ll be heading to Montreal to report on the Liberal leadership debate that will take place there tomorrow afternooon. In advance of that event, some of the leading candidates are lining up more supporters. Bob Rae this morning announced that former Martin cabinet minister and — perhaps more importantly — Toronto MP John Godfrey will  support his candidacy. Stephane Dion, also today, says he has the backing of some Chretien-era cabinet ministers — Ontario’s Lyle Vanclief, New Brunswick’s Doug Young, and Newfoundland’s Fred Mifflin. He also has  the backing of former Ontario MP Russ Powers.

 

Ignatieff statement on 'war crime' comment

Michael Ignatieff, who wishes to be the next leader of the Liberal Party, issued this statement yesterday afternoon in response to the controversy over remarks he made Sunday on the Radio-Canada television show Tout le Monde en Parle:

For Lebanese and Jewish Canadians, the recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was traumatic, as we watched innocent civilians on all sides being killed in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
I have lived in Israel, taught in Israel, and have been a lifelong friend of Israel. If my friendship on occasion involves criticism, it is because this is the truest form of friendship.
Israelis live under the constant threat posed by Hezbollah, and its backers Iran and Syria, who continue to wrongly deny Israel’s right to exist. The denial of Israel’s right to exist is unconscionable and must stop. This summer, Hezbollah tried to lure Israel into a regional conflict to cause Israel to lose its remaining international support. It did not succeed.
As I’ve previously stated, I strongly supported Israel’s right to respond to Hezbollah’s provocation and to send the terrorist militia a very clear message that kidnapping soldiers and firing rockets on Israel will never be tolerated. Canada cannot be equivocal on this issue. In a conflict between a terrorist militia and a democratic state, Canada must always side with the democratic state. Israel has an unequivocal right to defend itself against unprovoked attacks and the international community must support that right.
There are injustices in every war where civilians are brought into the centre of the conflict, and the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was no different. I believe that Qana was a terrible human tragedy where innocent civilians died in a conflict that saw unjustified tragedies on all sides. For this reason, I have always been a vocal supporter for a peaceful solution to tensions in the Middle East. There are no further military solutions in this region.
The only long term solution is a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, with an independent Lebanon, in which Israel can live peacefully without threat of attack from its neighbours, who must recognize Israel’s right to exist.
I deeply regret the decision that Susan Kadis has made today, and I continue to consider her a close friend and respected colleague.

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Senate: We won't pay Lavigne's bills

My colleague Graham Richardson last night reported that Senator Raymond Lavigne, under fire for allegedly misusing public funds, wanted taxpayers to pick up the legal tab he’s ringing up to clear his name.

Some Senators were watching last night, apparently, and today this press release came forth from the Red Chamber:

“The Senate wishes to confirm that the Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration last week refused to underwrite the legal expenses of Senator Raymond Lavigne.”

Day 1 – Iggy, then Dion

Political junkie alert: The Liberal Party of Canada has a very cool real-time delegate selection results ticker. With the first of three days of voting over, Michael Ignatieff is, as advertised, leading the way with 239 delegates who will vote for him on the first ballot of December's leadership convention. That represents 27.6 per cent of the delegates who have already been elected. In the second slot is Stéphane Dion with 160 delegates, or 18.5 per cent. If there's a surprise in these early results — and it's very important to read the fine print at that Liberal ticker to note the “unofficialness” of this early tally — it's that, compared to early predictions, Dion is doing so well and Gerard Kennedy is doing so poorly.

Volpe fined but gets to stay in the race

Minutes ago, the Liberal Party of Canada announced that it had levied a fine of $20,000 against the Joe Volpe leadership campaign.

The campaign was fined after the party’s own investigation concluded that it had indeed improperly signed up party members in Quebec. The party notes that it found no evidence that Volpe had any direct knowledge himself that this was happening but, nonetheless, the campaign is guilty of failing to properly supervise its volunteers.

Volpe has 30 days to cut a cheque to the party or he’s out of the race. He also may appeal the decision.

Here’s the release from the Libs:

Date: September 29, 2006
PRESS RELEASE

Ottawa – The Liberal Party of Canada today issued the following on behalf of a Compliance Panel (“the panel”) appointed under Regulation 13.3 of the Party’s Regulations Concerning Expenses of Contestants for the Leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada (“the Expense Regulations”).

IN THE MATTER OF A COMPLAINT PURSUANT TO THE REGULATIONS GOVERNING EXPENSES OF CONTESTANTS FOR THE LEADERSHIP OF THE LIBERAL PARTY OF CANADA (“EXPENSE REGULATIONS”) MADE AGAINST THE HONOURABLE JOSEPH VOLPE, LEADERSHP CONTESTANT, FOR ALLEGED VIOLATIONS OF REGULATIONS 5 c), 12.1 AND 12.2.

The panel, adjudicating a complaint investigated by a Complaints Officer appointed pursuant to Regulation 14 of the Expense Regulations, held a hearing on September 28, 2006 in the City of Montréal.

The panel directs that its forthcoming written decision be made public at the time of its availability in English and French.

The panel finds that Joseph Volpe and his campaign team violated Regulations 5 c) and 12.1 of the Expense Regulations by providing membership forms to leaders of cultural community organizations in Québec to obtain memberships for Volpe supporters without adequately instructing those leaders not to pay for the memberships of others and without providing adequate supervision of their volunteer efforts.
The panel finds that the distribution of such membership forms and the selling and solicitation of memberships resulted in an environment where Volpe volunteers improperly paid for the memberships of others.
Joseph Volpe and his campaign team accepted responsibility for the inappropriate activity, yet the panel found no evidence to suggest that Mr. Volpe or his senior campaign workers had actual knowledge of the wrongful purchase of memberships.

Pursuant to Regulations 16 b) and 16 c), the panel issues a public reprimand to the Leadership Campaign of Joseph Volpe and assesses a fine in the amount of twenty thousand dollars ($20,000.00), payable within 30 days of September 29, 2006. In default of full payment within the specified time, Mr. Volpe will be deemed to be disqualified as a leadership contestant.

The panel strongly recommends that the Regional Returning Officer for the Province of Québec put measures in place in, among others, the electoral district of Papineau, to ensure the eligibility of those who present themselves to vote.

The panel notes that the evidence in this matter does not constitute grounds for disqualification. Such a sanction would deprive Party members of the opportunity to consider Mr. Volpe’s candidacy, and should be applied only in limited circumstances where a candidate has knowingly or wilfully violated, or has shown reckless disregard, for the Expense Regulations.
Pursuant to Regulation 13.4, the panel’s decisions may be appealed to the Party’s Permanent Appeals Committee.

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The Liberal's Super Weekend approaches

It's a big weekend if you're a Liberal — (a big weekend for us Ottawa journalists, too, for tomorrow is the annual Canadian Press golf tournament and the weather forecast looks promising. But I digress …) for this is the weekend that, at riding associations across the country, card-carrying members of the Liberal Party of Canada will vote for delegates who will attend the December 2 leadership convention to be held in Montreal.
Each riding association gets to send 14 people to Montreal.
Those 14 delegates selected this weekend will be “locked in” for the first ballot at that convention. In other words, party members will be voting for a delegate who promises to vote for a particular candidate on the first ballot.
It appears almost certain that no candidate will win on the first ballot and so there will be a second ballot. How do delegates elected this weekend have to vote on the second ballot? Any way they want. That's what makes this weekend so interesting for political junkies. Who will people vote for on the second ballot, when every delegate is a free agent?
My colleague Roger Smith, who covers the Liberal caucus, gets to report on all the weekend races.
In the meantime, Greg Morrow, who runs the blog DemocraticSpace, has put together a handy little riding-by-riding scorecard of delegate selection for those who want to play along. When I checked in this morning, the first-ballot tally looked like this:
Ignatieff – 25.3 per cent
Dion – 19.8 per cent
Kennedy – 16.2 per cent
Rae – 14.9 per cent
… the rest each had less than 6 per cent.
(DemocraticSpace has a big asterisk to note that his numbers omit some regions for the Ignatieff, Dion, and Dryden.)
One of our favourite Liberal bloggers, CalgaryGrit, has some nice links and predictions in a Super Weekend preview post but — be warned — he's a Kennedy supporter 🙂 . Meanwhile, Ignatieff supporter Cerberus has set up Liberal Leadership Central at his blog with more great links, predictions, and commentary.
Have fun, everyone!

Liberal leadership predictions

Three amateur pundits — and I use amateur in its best sense (think Olympian) — have applied common sense with a little bit of their own gut instinct to come up with some predictions of first-ballot voting results when the Liberals gather in Montreal in December. Each prediction would be remarkable on its own but what I find fascinating is that Calgary Grit (he’s for Kennedy) and Jason Cherniak  (he’s for Dion) and Gregory Morrow arrived at an identical order of finish and nearly identical percentages of the ballot.

All have Hedy Fry finishing last and each man’s top four are Ignatieff, Kennedy, Rae, and Dion. Both have Ignatieff winning about 25 per cent on the first ballot. Click over to each post for the full ranking, numbers, methodology and, of course, commentary.

Nik's numbers: August 25

If an election were held today — the result might be just about the same as it was on January 24. But, as pollster Nik Nanos notes, the Conservatives might not have 10 MPs from Quebec. Maybe they’d pick up one or two more each in Atlantic Canada, in Ontario, and in Manitoba and B.C.?

The key to a Conservative majorty, everyone says, is more seats in Quebec. So how’s that going? Well, according to the latest poll from Nanos’ company SES Research, Conservative support has dropped nine points in la belle province since his firm was last in the field three months ago. (35 per cent on May 9 vs 26 per cent at August 23).

The leaderless Liberals actually gained in Quebec compared to May and are up to 22 per cent. The BQ had the biggest bounceback, jumping up five points to 42 per cent. “The softening of support in Quebec this quarter should be worrisome for the Tories,” Nanos writes.

The big story in Ontario: The Conservatives are spinning their wheels (36 per cent three months ago – 37 per cent now) but the Liberals — remember: They have no leader — have jumped eight points (34 per cent then to 42 per cent now). The NDP — remember: they have a leader -has slipped in Ontario (24 then, 18 now) and nationally (18 now, 19 then).

Important note: Because of a smaller sample size at the regional level there is a larger margin of error.

The latest national numbers from SES are:

  • Conservatives 36% (-2)

  • Liberals 30% (+2)

  • NDP 18% (-1)

  • Bloc Quebecois 11% (+2)

  • Green 5% (-1)

  • Undecided 12% (+4)

The pollster says this result is accurate to within 3.3 percentage points 19 times out of 20. The survey was conducted between August 18 and August 23.

For the record: Bill Graham, then Borys Wrzesnewskyj on Hezbollah

The Liberal Party press office released this statement late today:

Date: August 21, 2006
For Release: Immediate
Statement by the Honourable Bill Graham, Leader of the Opposition, on Hezbollah
On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada, I wish to reiterate our position with respect to the listing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization and should be treated as such under all applicable Canadian laws.
Hezbollah is committed to the overthrow of the state of Israel and has demonstrated in both words and actions that it is committed to a policy of violent anti-Semitism. The Government of Canada must condemn such groups as strongly as possible. The Liberal Party of Canada is committed to a policy that stresses peace and stability in the region. Hezbollah works deliberately to undermine the security of Israel and to destabilize the emerging democracy in Lebanon. That is why it was the Liberal Party of Canada that originally listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization under Canadian law and why we still strongly support keeping Hezbollah on that list. Any suggestion to the contrary does not reflect the official position of our party.
The Liberal Party of Canada believes that the Government of Canada must work with all parties of goodwill in the region to try to bring about a lasting peace that ensures the security and well-being of the state of Israel and which will allow for the growth of a truly democratic government in Lebanon.

and here's Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj reaction to a news article carried by Canwest News:

August 21, 2006
Statement from Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj
“CanWest News today reported that I support taking Hezbollah off Canada’s list of banned terrorist organizations. This is emphatically wrong. On the contrary, Hezbollah is a terrorist organization and I stated that it must remain on Canada’s list because it has committed war crimes by sending rockets into civilian areas.
“What I did say, however, is that the legislation surrounding our banned list of terrorist organizations must be evaluated to ensure our role as mediator is not compromised. Currently, the legislation forbids Canada from having any discussions with those on the list, and I believe this is not the way to achieve peace.
“Canada must be a partner in any efforts by the international community to bring peace and stability to the region, and we can not play that role if we are shackled by this legislation which forbids us from even speaking to those groups on our list. Discussion, negotiation and diplomacy are paramount to a lasting peace.”