Primaries colour debate over Liberal reforms

Later this week, the national executive of the Liberal Party will issue a "white paper" report that's said to be full of ideas for fixing what's ailing the now-third party.

Among the proposals: opening up party nomination or even leadership selection processes to some kind of "primary" election system, to encourage voter participation from the general public, not just party members.

The idea, much-discussed among both grassroots members and the higher echelons (including interim leader Bob Rae and party presidential candidate Sheila Copps) is not so much new as it is new-to-Liberals.

Former Reform Party leader and innovative political thinker Preston Manning once penned a column advocating for more primary elections in Canadian politics. In a crystal-ball moment that likely wasn't aimed at the Liberals when it was written over two years ago, Manning noted that "often it takes a crisis of some sort to create opportunities for reform."

That's what happened in the main example his column cited, the now well-documented experiment of the previously down-and-out British Conservative Party, which when faced with the sudden resignation of a sitting MP in the riding of Totnes, picked its next candidate using a postal ballot distributed to 68,000 eligible voters from the general public.  

The local party came up with the short list of three contenders, and nearly one in four people who received ballots voted: the eventual winner represented the choice of far more voters than would normally be consulted had it been left to only party insiders to decide.

British Tories held more open primaries leading up to the 2010 general election. They now govern, but in a coalition agreement with Liberal Democrats, which has complicated moves towards adopting more primaries for future nominations.

The party intended to hold up to 200 primaries in targeted ridings before the next general election, but the emergence of a new British tea party movement modelled after the American small-government/lower-taxation campaign raised concerns that an open primary system could significantly change the dynamic in a party Prime Minister David Cameron has worked diligently at moving towards the political centre.

In the aftermath of Liberals' humbling electoral experience on May 2, strategist Rob Silver called for an open primary so Canada's Liberals could run a similar experiment when the next by-election is called. (That opportunity could be soon, thanks to the untimely passing of Jack Layton and his now-vacant seat in Toronto-Danforth.)

"Really, what do we have to lose?" Silver asked.

Surveying the action on Liberal blogs and Twitter so far, a few points stand out from the online debate leading up to the white paper's release:

• Accountability: Concerns from some, including at least one influential columnist, that open primaries make leaders less accountable to the caucus they lead and candidates less accountable to their riding's party organization. Is having a mandate from the public instead of the party a recipe for internal dysfunction? (Hasn't the party had enough of that lately?)

• Diminished memberships: Embracing primary elections en masse could question the point of holding a party's membership, if one no longer needs to join in order to engage in critical candidate selection or leadership decisions. In as much as membership sales are important for identifying a party's base, building accurate databases of supporters and fundraising, diminishing the need or value of a party's membership may be counter-productive for a party that needs to really, really focus on its fundraising and grassroots organizing leading up to the next election.

• Takeover fears: There is a palpable angst out there that primaries make it easier for (in particular) a smaller, more vulnerable party like the Liberals are these days to be hijacked by either special interests focused on fringe causes, or partisan muckrakers intent on sabotage (what one blogger called "raiding"). Those who want to maintain the Liberal Party as a big-tent, centrist organization will have to be prepared to outsmart and outorganize those who have other intentions for a primary's outcome. (Some kind of two-round primary system could mitigate against this, if well-executed.)

• "Outsider" versus "insider" tension: Primaries make it easier for new people to not just engage but also win. When you boil that right down, it's a threat to the party's old/entrenched members and candidates. One blogger called these new people "instant Liberals," defined as "people with little real commitment to the party having influence that cheapens the role of the devoted membership." While new blood is healthy for any organization that needs to grow, it could also seem threatening to the stalwarts who have hung in through some pretty serious battles in the party's recent history. There's also a flip side: open primaries discourage candidates who may be powerful party insiders but who are "carpet-baggers" in the sense of not having any connection with the voting public in a given riding. So while there may be more "instant Liberals," there may be fewer "instant residents" of ridings with conventiently-open nominations.

In his 2009 column, Manning openly wondered if any party would be willing to experiment with an open primary to attract more Canadians into the process and build interest in an upcoming campaign.

"In North America, it is the United States that has made greatest use of the primary system, which is why Canadian liberals and social democrats -- pathologically averse to adopting U.S. political practices -- are unlikely to embrace it," he wrote.

We'll see as the debate continues whether Manning is right about that.