Liberal Inc.

There have been many discussions over the past weeks regarding the proposed constitution and it’s potential impact on the party. While the party leadership and those opposed rarely agree on any of the issues, there is one point that can’t be disputed. The Liberal Party of Canada plans to create a massive corporate entity, an entity which will be paid for by the members, donors and EDA’s across Canada.

This corporate entity will have to exist in order to provide the financial and technical services which are currently offered by volunteers. Currently, hundreds of volunteers perform hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours caring for and overseeing the financial records of EDA’s. During the year end when records must be compiled and presented to auditors, these under-appreciated volunteers turn their positions into full time jobs as they ensure with quite dedication that the records are all in order and ensure our EDA’s don’t find themselves deregistered.

When the LPC assumes control and responsibility for this function, we will no longer have the hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours being performed. In their place will be a small army of financial staff working in “corporate” offices of Liberal Inc. An entity which will have to be created in order to manage this huge financial task. Then there is the data management requirements.

The party is suggesting numbers of registered Liberals as high as 7,000,000. The President of the LPC Anna Gainey, quoted this number during a National Town Hall phone call. The party has massive problems currently with Liberalist, the data base which the party licenses from an American Corporation. This database is notoriously inaccurate. Attempts by this author to contact the presidents of the EDA’s across the country resulted in almost half being wrong, with incorrect data, wrong emails, wrong individuals or just no information at all. If the current data system cannot maintain the records of the 338 leaders of EDA’s, how will it ever manage to maintain the records of 7,ooo,ooo “registered Liberals” the answer is it can’t. Not without significant investment in a completely new database system. Now who will pay for this system? Will it be back to picking the pockets of the EDA’s? Or will it be the Canadian tax payer?

Will the party as is suggested in Building a Modern Liberal Party have Elections Canada maintain a national “Registered Voters List”? Many times during this issue I have heard the party leadership claim that the EDA’s are protected because of protections of the Elections Act. Do they really think we are so stupid to not know that as the Government they can change the Elections Act any time they want? If they create a national list, where, like in the United States, voters are all identified with their party, they may be able to pass this cost off to the Canadian Taxpayer. We will have to hope the cost for this plan won’t show up  at the ballot box.

This may leave us with a massive Financial division and a large IT division, both within Liberal Inc. when the bills start arriving to EDA’s let’s hope the donors are left to settle the account.

Author: admin@l-m-m.ca

My first campaign was in 1972 in Scarborough East for Martin O'Connell. We weren't successful that time, however, 2 years later we were and Martin went off to join Trudeau the Elder in Ottawa, ultimately as a Cabinet Minister. I have played various roles in the party since then with one over riding consideration. I have always considered myself a Liberal. At times I found my loyalty tested by behaviour within the party, other times my pride swelled. However, this power grab by a few unelected individuals at the top of the power cannot go unchallenged.

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