{"id":1173,"date":"2006-11-20T14:34:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-20T19:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1173"},"modified":"2006-11-20T14:34:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-20T19:34:00","slug":"one-on-one-with-gk-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1173","title":{"rendered":"One on One with GK – part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Previous Interviews<\/u><\/strong>
Michael Ignatieff<\/a>
Ken Dryden<\/a>
Scott Brison<\/a>
Carolyn Bennett<\/a>
Maurizio Bevilacqua<\/a>
Stephane Dion<\/a>
Martha Hall Findlay<\/a><\/p>\n

My path crossed with Gerard\u2019s on mid-term election night when he was in Edmonton and he was kind enough to answer a few of my questions for a blog interview. I think I ended up doing this at about 2 am his time on a day he was coming off four hours sleep, but he still managed to spit out very coherent and complete answers to my questions. I\u2019ll post the first half of the interview on the Liberal Party in Alberta and Party renewal today and post the second half tomorrow. I\u2019ll let the answers speak for themselves because any other \u201cthoughts\u201d I add are just going to sound like cheerleading.<\/p>\n

1. With the Income Trust flip-flop, there\u2019s a lot in the news about politicians breaking their promises. So I\u2019m going to ask you to make a solemn vow to Canadians. Given Bob Rae\u2019s visit to the Rick Mercer report and Scott Brison\u2019s calendar pose, can you promise Canadians that, if elected Liberal Leader, they will not have to see you naked at all?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

[laugh] “Iron clad guarantee. I like to be original and whatever you see, it won\u2019t be that.”<\/p>\n

2. As an Alberta Liberal, I\u2019m curious about your involvement with the party when you were living here. Were you active with the Liberals then?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

“I was involved in both the provincial party and the federal party. I got involved around 1979 with the U of A Liberals. I also campaigned in the provincial elections \u2013 one year in Edmonton Centre I helped a proff at U of A, Brian McCulture run; we had about three canvassers. My father ran in 1984 and I helped him when he ran in Churchill in northern Manitoba.<\/p>\n

I was involved also in the mayoralty campaigns of Lawrence Decore [ed note: who went on to become Alberta Liberal Party Leader<\/em>]. It was nice to work on his campaigns because we got to win<\/em> those. In 1986 the Liberals tried to get me to run but I was 26 and I was pretty implicated with the food bank. But I did help out on Bettie Hewes campaign in Edmonton Gold Bar and, without trying to, the food bank became a big political issue. A headline in the Journal one day was that the foodbank use showed that the Getty government was out of touch. Getty lost 16 seats that election and the Liberals only picked up four of them but it was still a breakthrough for the party at that time.<\/p>\n

I also attended federal conventions and in 1984 I was a delegate for the leadership convention for Don Johnson. We surprised the Chretien and Turner people by winning the Red Deer provincial youth meeting.”<\/p>\n

3. On that vein, what do you think the Liberal Party needs to do in order to have a breakthrough in the West and, in particular, in Alberta?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

“I think it\u2019s a touchstone for whether we\u2019re serious about success. We have to become a truly national party and that means what we have to do is lift the stigma of being a federal Liberal in Alberta. To do that, we need a federal Liberal Party which is equally imbedded in all regions of the country. And that\u2019s still a bit of a stretch for the party.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to take a political shift to acknowledge what\u2019s already happened economically. It\u2019s what needs to happen for the functionality of the country. We cannot function when political parties have regional disparities which exacerbate our ability to find consensus and forge a common direction for the country.<\/p>\n

Obviously some places like southern Alberta are the acid test for whether we\u2019re really going to make progress. That\u2019s obviously one of the more challenging parts of the country but I do think we can see gains in the short to medium term in Northern Alberta and other parts of the West. How we do that is by becoming a different party. We keep the same values but we work hard to acknowledge that we have to start building a consensus here. That\u2019s why I\u2019m emphasizing policies which resonate well with Alberta; The enterprise Liberalism I\u2019ve been talking about, a results oriented approach to government – I think this is one of the reasons I have support in BC and Alberta.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m hoping to make that part of the mandate I get from the party. We need to have Western ideas and policy as a base, not just as an add on. We need to invest some of our political capital here if we\u2019re going to get some return.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got a chance not just for the so called breakthrough but also for overall acceptance. I\u2019m not looking to just double our seats from the historical one to two. I\u2019m looking for general acceptance from Albertans. And I want to provoke Albertans and ask them why they don\u2019t have any choice \u2013 they should have choice. Why aren\u2019t they significant enough like other provinces that have influence in more than one major party. I understand that we have to set the table and we have to show the respect for Albertans that sometimes seems to be lacking. I say that not defensively at all \u2013 I don\u2019t believe there\u2019s anything inherently about the Liberal Party that can\u2019t do this but it does require an attitude shift. We then make some concrete actions about how we compose ourselves, where the leader spends his time, what we do in terms of policy and how we spend our time on the ground \u2013 I think that\u2019s how we get back. There\u2019s no other way to lift the yolk \u2013 it\u2019s like carrying a 180 pound person on your back when you go door to door; It\u2019s been a generation now and it\u2019s time for the country\u2019s sake to have that lifted.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also good for Liberals. We can\u2019t spot the Conservatives 100 seats every time we go into an election. The dynamics of the country have changed and we need to change to.”<\/p>\n

4. You\u2019ve talked a lot about the need for party renewal. What specifically does party renewal mean to you?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

“I think it\u2019s pretty broad based. The party\u2019s doing an initiative that a lot of people like but I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s about renewal. Renewal is about doing structural change to make the party an open party. And that means we have an accountability that starts with the leader. I don\u2019t wish to see a leader with artificial constraints but there needs to be an arrangement which says from time to time the membership and MPs will be able to react, put a veto, have an oversight on what the leader does. I\u2019m going to be putting forward some of those specifics in the next short while.<\/p>\n

We have to ask ourselves a question: Are we a club or are we a political organization open to all Canadians? To qualify for the later we simply have to take down some of the old outlook. Some of it is rooted in the fact that it\u2019s too easy for a leader\u2019s office in Ottawa to run all aspects of the party. Even with the best of intentions , they don\u2019t have to go through the consultations and consensus building that\u2019s necessary to engage all regions of the country and a diversity of views. If the leader and the leader\u2019s office don\u2019t make some of those action steps, I can\u2019t see how we\u2019re going to galvanize our own members, never mind the people who we want to see step through the door.<\/p>\n

I see the party being a party that uses it\u2019s members all the time, not just for elections. The information technology permits it and the running of government requires it. In government, we need policy and ideas from the grass roots. In opposition, we need to take on the Tories in every riding they have and we need to galvanize the grass roots to do that. If more people feel they\u2019re engaged, they\u2019re more likely to donate the time and money we need to be a credible political force. The fundamental difference is having Liberals who are engaged.<\/p>\n

I think we need to take an ethical stand on how things are done in the future. We\u2019re going to need an agreement in the future on how certain things are done. I\u2019m looking forward to the public getting a sense that the Liberal Party is setting the standard for how politics get done. We can\u2019t be a club \u2013 we need to be an open process, or people won\u2019t stay in the party. It\u2019s what people expect.<\/p>\n

Also, we need to get to the goal of 50% women, I will appoint 50% women to Cabinet within a few elections so I need people to send me a good supply.”<\/p>\n

———————————————————-
As an Aside…<\/em><\/strong> Former Ignatieff organizer and Scarborough Guildwood Riding President John Laforet has endorsed Kennedy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Previous InterviewsMichael IgnatieffKen DrydenScott BrisonCarolyn BennettMaurizio BevilacquaStephane DionMartha Hall Findlay My path crossed with Gerard\u2019s on mid-term election night when he was in Edmonton and he was kind enough to answer a few of my questions for a blog interview. I think I ended up doing this at about 2 am his time on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}