CHANGING TOGETHER!

Change has become the major buzzword in politics across North America the past year. But change must be more than a word. Contrary to what some have implied in this election, we have achieved great goals in linguistic equity and equality. Do we have perfection, no. But perfection is often the enemy of the good as Jeremy Bentham wrote more than a century and a half ago at the start of the revolution of industrial liberalism. This party, in our time, in this nation, has empowered and enriched not only our Francophone communities but all cultural communities regardless of origin. Our party, our policies, gave all Canadians the respect and position that make the full flowering of individual possibility a reality. And that loyalty to individual possibility, not parochial pettiness, is what the Liberal party and liberalism itself are all about. We did it and we as Liberals should be proud of it.

After twenty-five years of service to this party as a grassroots volunteer from riding to regional levels, I came to understand what our members wanted and needed. I lived, particularly through my presidency of the Westmount-Ville Marie Association, our shared hopes and frustrations. My experience as Co-chair of the Change Commission confirmed that the concerns I lived in Quebec as a regional president and member of the LPCQ Board of Directors were not merely regional in their particularity but were shared from coast to coast. And that was certainly affirmed during my term as your Vice-President francophone.

I brought these concerns into the text I co-authored in the Change Commission report . Our mandate also gave me the insight to see where and how to effect real change within our party's apparatus. I was privileged to have been given a unique vantage point into national decision-making. And I put that experience to work for all of you at the national board. I made my seat, your seat. What I learned most of all in the past two and a half years is that change is more than a theory in a book or the tweaking of a website. Change is about making every Liberal count! Every Liberal involved, not just in the party but in their communities. And that is what will continue to make Liberals, and liberalism, relevant and vital despite the passing fancy of an "orange wave." We'll be back, because your individual voices have been heard and we are making the necessary changes together.

These are the principles I have advocated for in my term in office and this is what I have remained loyal to in this current campaign. And it is the centerpiece of what I intend to continue doing on the national board. Advancing change together!

My purpose and promise to you can be summarized into three broad areas of policy. They are as follows:

CHANGING TOGETHER OUR WAY OF RESPONSE...

• during my term I instituted a continuing conversation between my office and you the members which has included direct access to me through my website;
• my response to your concerns has been prompt and seamless;
• as a result of the Change Commission's work the Liberalist was improved and upgraded in order to meet the needs of our EDAs and members;
• we have upgraded information flow, not just technology, to all ridings ensuring bilingualism in all communications ;
• again, despite divisive and questionable claims by some in this campaign, the availability of data and documents members need in French have been improved;
• as promised, as a result of the implementation of the recommendations of the Change Commission the party's website is not just a promotional domain but a forum for all members' concerns;

now we need to…

• streamline administrative responsibilities at the LPC offices in order to remove burdens from the PTAs allowing them to concentrate on their essential responsibilities of groundwork organization and membership growth that are the keys to our renewal and revival without the stagnation caused by duplication and overlap;
• centralize party IT and communications responsibilities – currently shared with the Leader's office – into the administrative apparatus of the LPC so that there is greater ease of dialogue between the party and the membership;
• publish a quarterly national board newsletter as an essential component of this change in order to inform EDAs and all party members of the progress of table officers' and national board members' individual mandates;

Our way of response will continue to be personal and we will advance change together!

CHANGING TOGETHER OUR ROAD TO RENEWAL…

• we have, since the start of my first mandate, placed an increased focus on ridings; it is a great part of changing the top down culture of our party but we are far from done and need to continue expanding that focus;
• we have begun to renew the role of all members in riding associations partly by encouraging them to implement the Westmount-Ville-Marie model where the riding board has committees that reflect the structures of the national
commissions – to the extent appropriate for each riding – and encourage more members to take responsibility for working on one of these committees;
• we still need to improve riding associations' awareness of the many easily accessible online tools from the national office that would allow them to achieve a better dynamic with their members through newsletter templates, website
templates, "town halls in a box" for fundraising and/or policy development and revised Liberal University training models;

to that end we need to...

• continue to deploy field staff and co-ordinators to assist EDAs in the rebuilding process because the latters' strength is our foundational organizing priority, particular in francophone ridings that have so long been a bedrock of our party's success;
• implement the use of the riding "scorecard" system – which system was initiated and drafted by members - to facilitate ridings in setting objectives and making those objectives efficiently and effectively achievable particularly in membership, fundraising, town halls and outreach activities;

Our road to renewal starts at the grassroots and with mutual respect we will advance change together!

CHANGING TOGETHER TOWARD STRENGTHENED RESOLVE…

• our resolve must now be manifested toward all our members, and indeed to all Canadians, and not just good intentions and words on paper.
• we need to establish a position on the National Policy and Platform Committee that – in consultation with francophone leaders – is mandated to deal with priorities relevant to all francophone communities from coast to coast;
• this advocacy for priority agendas has been a constant theme I have stressed during my mandate, and by creating a position on the NPPC the outcome will be much more enduring;

but we also need more from our members while we do more for them…

• members at the riding level must be encouraged to involve social action groups and cultural communities to engage with us by engaging with them;
• we as Liberals need to show communities that liberalism is not just partisanship but is a pledge to engage with the underprivileged and unempowered and toward that end we need to give EDAs the tools to establish community
outreach committees in order to create a new symbiotic relationship within each riding between members and non-members alike;
• just as we need to reach outward from ourselves, so too we must insure that within our Liberal family we strengthen PTAs, particularly the blended Atlantic PTAs, by providing them with sufficient resources to properly inform and engage the francophone populations in their communities;

therefore, I pledge to work for the success of the initiatives we have proposed as a national board …

• to empower each and every EDA with the tools necessary to undertake a comprehensive and nationally-supported voter registration drive to engage our citizens in the goals and outreach I have outlined above;
• and to consult with all EDAs on appropriate fundraising targets so that we can have realistic Laurier and Victory Club fundraising goals that are determined from the ground up not the top down that will also include budgets that will allow for the sustainability and rebuilding – where necessary - of our EDAs;

Our strengthened resolve must be about more than just aspects of policy and process. It must be about liberalism! Participatory democracy is practiced not just preached, and particularly between elections. That is why this convention, in order to be historic, must adopt the proposals on open nominations and greater voting independence for MPs. These reforms would be among the most dramatic contributions by our party to the liberalization of Canadian democracy. We must walk the talk! It is only through a revived dedication to liberalism's first principles of individual social activism that we will truly advance change together!