Thursday, December 12, 2013

New column day

Here, on how Michael Chong's Reform Act privileges members of Parliament over party members and supporters - and how there's far more reason for concern about a lack of genuine grassroots input as matters stand now than about the influence of MPs.

For further reading...
- I'll point to Andrew Coyne passim as the main cheerleader for the Reform Act. I refer in the column to some of the points made by Alice Funke and Don Lenihan. And Aaron Wherry surveys a few more responses - including Jeff Jedras' proposal for a standardized primary system (which would seem to set up exactly the neutrally-administered party membership lists needed to support a membership-based review mechanism).
- And on the question of how our federal parties handle leadership reviews by membership, the NDP, Conservative and Liberal constitutions are available in PDF form. And while the former provides for a leadership review vote "(a)t every convention that is not a leadership convention" (section 3(a)(v)), the latter two each rule out any leadership reviews except after a general election (sections 10.7 and 71(1), respectively).

[Edit: added link.]

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