There has been some renewed interest in party nominations after the accusations of shenanigans in Liberal MP Han Dong’s nomination, and unsurprisingly, we get a rather tepid piece asking if we need more safeguards. There are a few things that this ignores, part of which is the history. MPs actively wanted to keep Elections Canada out of policing nominations (though they now have a bigger role in policing the funding of said contests). This is one of the reasons why the decision was made to have party leaders sign off on nominations forms—to keep Elections Canada out of the process. (That later turned into a problem of leaders using this power to blackmail members into staying in line, which was not something contemplated at the time, and yes, I did study the Hansards of those debates as part of research for my book).
The other thing that the piece missed is how parties have been monkeying with nomination processes to get their favoured candidates installed. The Samara Centre for Democracy has a great report on this (though they were a little too credulous at the NDP’s claims they always run open nominations when they don’t), and my particular caution is that more “safeguards” for nominations may very well mean a greater ability for the party or the leader’s office to monkey around or put their thumbs on the scale. Already we are in a veritable crisis where open nominations are fast disappearing behind the curtain of protected nominations for incumbents and invoking “electoral urgency” rules unnecessarily that allow the leader to just directly appoint candidates. Parties used to be robust enough to fight this kind of interference, but they are losing that ability, particularly in the Liberals, who rewrote their party constitution to centralize even more power in the leader’s office and disempower the grassroots after Trudeau became prime minister.
Should there be more safeguards? Probably. But that means returning the power to the grassroots riding associations so that they can run proper, open and transparent contests, rather than what has been happening.
Ukraine Dispatch:
Ukrainian forces say that in spite of Russian claims, Bakhmut is not surrounded, and the fighting continues. In fact, the head of the Wagner Group mercenaries has said that their position is at risk if they can’t get more ammunition. The Ukrainains are, however, trying to evacuate the remaining civilian population, who are still there for many different reasons.
This particularly cynical form of terror requires a particularly principled response from the world. We need global sanctions against 🇷🇺 nuclear industry, we need the immediate return of full 🇺🇦 control over the ZNPP. Thankful to @iaeaorg for working together to restore security. pic.twitter.com/EFAZ7Tidw5
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 4, 2023
Kryvyi Rih, an important industrial Ukrainian city, native city of president Zelenskyi and his family. A residential building hit by the Russian missile in December. 6 people died including one kid. No military targets around.
📹by @ukraine_world, @yermolenko_v pic.twitter.com/lG0Yq2z0Kv
— UkraineWorld (@ukraine_world) March 5, 2023
Mariinka was once a quiet bedroom community of 10,000 residents and tree-lined streets just west of Donetsk. We’ll now have to refer to it in past tense because the Russian army has wiped it off the face of the earth. These images show an apocalyptic scene incompatible with life. pic.twitter.com/BYV35IoRn8
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 5, 2023