The Liberal Party of Canada is hosting a conference in the Montreal this weekend which it has dubbed Canada at 150. Some random notes, quotes, and recent tweets after getting a technical briefing this morning from officials who work in the Office of the Leader of the Official Opposition. The officials said they could be quoted but could not be identified.
- The Montreal conference should be seen as the latest of a series of “historic conferences” the Liberal party organized in Port Hope, Ont. in 1933, in Kingston, Ont. in 1960 and in Aylmer, Que. in 1991. Each of these conferences were held by Liberals after an electoral defeat and each preceded an electoral win. “It’s an article of Liberal faith that each of these conference preceded the election of a Liberal government. I don’t know if we’re going to get a four-peat but we’ll do our best,” said one of the officials at the briefing.
- “But more fundamentally, these conferences were important articulation points for the Liberal Party to renew itself intellectually, renew itself in terms of ideas, renew itself generationally to a certain extent and to be seen to be and actually be dealing with a new set of issues and challenges that had arisen since the last time they had been in office,” said one of the officials.
- The Montreal conference, like the one in Aylmer, will be broadcast on the Cable Public Affairs Channel but, unlike the Aylmer conference, Can150 will be streamed over the Internet. Viewers of the Webcast will have a chance to ask questions online and their input will be a key part of the proceedings. The Liberals say that, as of Tuesday, more than 2,000 people had already registered to participate in the Webcast. “This enables Montreal to have a far greater reach than the Aylmer conference did at the time.”
- “We’re not going to end up at the end of the weekend in Montreal with a platform tied up in a ribbon and presented by the Leader. The process, as it was in Aylmer, is one step along the way.”
- The Liberals will use the discussion that comes out Can150 to inform five regional policy development conferences the party will hold in May and June. These will be more traditional party events where members of the party will come up with the platform the Liberals will use in the next election. The regional conferences will be held in Moncton, Quebec City, Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver. Dates and locations are still to be announced.
- There will be 53 speakers at the Montreal event over three days. More than 250 delegates have been invited to attend. Some are big-L Liberals; many are “progressives”, says OLO. It is to be a non-partisan event. OLO said some people turned down invitations to speak or attend for fears that their attendance might be viewed in a negative light by the Conservative government in Ottawa and that was “a political risk they did not want to take.” Indeed, just a few minutes ago, the first of what will likely be several attacks by the Liberals' political opponents just landed in my inbox. The graphic has the tag line: “Lecturing to those important enough to get on the Liberal guest list.”