Liberal Roundtable Part II

From left to right: Kathleen Wynne, Carolyn Bennett, Frank Valeriote, Liz Sandals, and Karen Redman.
Photo By Anna Muselius

Here’s part two of my roundtable with Frank Valeriote, Liz Sandals, Karen Redman and Carolyn Bennett. In this half we get into Federal/Provincial relations, problem solving and more on the by-election

Now I turned to Sandals and asked her if the relations between the province and the Feds is really as frosty as it appears. I mention Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s comments about Ontario being the last place anyone would want to invest in.

“What I find is that people really resented that,” Sandals says, adding that Ontario is the economic engine of the country historically, so why would you go out and deliberately attempt to undermine the confidence in the economy of the country’s largest province? “The feedback we’ve gotten at the constituency office has been really quite angry about some of the comments he’s said.”

Sandals also says that her government has spent the last five years cleaning-up from Flaherty’s style as finance minister in Ontario and repairing the structural deficit they inherited. She also said that she fears that something similar will happen to the Federal treasury before Flaherty is done. “There’s a sense that traditionally that Conservative governments are good managers and it’s just not borne out by the evidence, certainly not here in Ontario.”

“I think ideologically they want the cupboard to be bare so that they have to cut programs because they don’t want to support programs,” adds Valeriote who referred to the cut to PromArt, the program that funds Canadian artists to go overseas. The announcement to cease funding PromArt was made that morning.

Sandals believes that the Federal Tories are looking for someone to blame the downturn in the economy on, and in their mind there’s no one better than Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Redman calls it retail politics. She says that the Feds are looking for niches to exploit: artists, women’s groups, activists, and then disenfranchise them. She also accuses the Harper government of employing the politics of personality, the way they’ll use a personal barb at the person that asked a question, rather than answering the question.

“I think that’s one of the reasons that all Canadians look at politicians right now, they listen to Question Period and they’re disheartened,” says Redman. “That’s not what they expect from the seat of democracy. This is very sad time for Canada and this [upcoming general] election will determine what kind of country we’ll be for decades.”

“We all try and figure out what we have to do for our community,” adds Bennett. She says that the solutions to the country’s problems have to be dealt with from the bottom-up, and refers to her collaborative work with her provincial counterpart, Michael Bryant, as an example of working together to get things done.

“I think that the future is going to be citizen-centred federalism,” says Bennett. “The citizen is represented by three or four levels of government, knows that those representatives are going to represent the interests of their families and their communities and do the best they can as opposed to running around and blaming someone else for why it can’t be done.”

“Ultimately what the citizen wants is you to solve problems,” explains Sandals. “With so many of the issues; a piece of the puzzle is municipal, a piece of the puzzle is provincial, and a piece of the puzzle is federal. And if you’re going to solve the problem you need the people in all levels working together.”

Sandals added that she and Valeriote used to co-chair the joint committee of the two school boards in Guelph; Valeriote for the Catholic and Sandals for the public. The Guelph MPP says that she looks forward to rebuilding that partnership should Valeriote win the by-election.

In the meantime, Redman will remain the steward of the Royal City until someone is elected to take her place. I asked her about her role as the substitute MP. “The Guelph office is open for business as usual.” she says.

“Brenda Chamberlain was a great representative of this community since 1993 and she has a great staff there and they’ll continue to serve the constituency of Guelph until September 8th when the people will express their wish as to how we go forward. So the office is open as usual, the staff is there to answer questions concerning any Federal issues, I’m there to sort of oversee it and they shouldn’t see any difference in how they’re serviced in the community.”

I asked Valeriote about what he was looking at heading into the last month of the campaign, and if he’s feeling the grind on the trail, he didn’t show it. “I’ve been doing this for two years and I’m remaining focused on September 8th,” he says enthused. “We’re focusing on getting out, meeting people, discussing the issues and sharing with them what we think the solutions are.

“I’m telling people that I want their ideas,” Valeriote continues. “I had a wonderful conversation yesterday who had some great ideas for improving healthcare. She’s a librarian here at the University and I asked her if I could plagiarize her ideas and she gave me permission. I mean that’s the beauty of running a campaign, it gives the opportunity to coalesce everything you’ve been studying, everything you’ve been working towards, it brings it all together. I’m actually excited about this next month.”

As for the youth delegates at the conference, I asked the panel about what they were hearing as to what the important issues are. Redman says that the Green Shift has been huge with the young people, adding that the environment has historically been a topic that they have cared a great deal about.

“This Green Shift has engaged people as well,” adds Valeriote. “Once people understand it, they appreciate the effect and they embrace the whole idea of the Shift. That’s been my experience at the door.”

Bennett says the she’s appreciated the fact that a discussion of women’s issues happened in a plenary session as opposed to a workshop for a change. “It’s usually the add-on in the room you can’t find,” adds Sandals jokingly.

There’s been a great spirit here, says Bennett, as the 250 some young people are all looking and talking about the future. “We will have to decide between a Dion government that listens and uses all the talents in the caucus and in his cabinet, listening to citizens bottom-up, or whether it’s a Harper administration.”

Liberal Roundtable Part I

Last Saturday, I attended “Summer Fling” at the University of Guelph. It’s the annual gathering of Ontario’s Young Liberals, and by sheer fate it happened to be at the one place in Ontario that’s having a by-election campaign right now. Not that I’m alleging a conspiracy theory of course, I’m sure this event is planned long in advanced. It’s just funny to me how things work out.

The opportunity afforded was the chance to talk to several high profile Liberals. Bob Rae and Michael Ignatiaff were scheduled to speak, but several other provincial MPs and MPPs were in attendance. In an interesting feat of logistics I got to do a roundtable of sorts with four of them: Guelph MPP Liz Sandals, Kitchener-Centre MP Karen Redman, St. Paul’s MP Carolyn Bennett and, of course, Guelph Liberal MP candidate Frank Valeriote.

I started with Valeriote. The last time I talked to him after all was technically before the election began. (Day before, to be precise.) I asked him how the campaign had treated him thus far. “It’s obviously intensified,” he joked. “It’s the same strategy just more of it: we’re just trying to get out message out.”

As for OYL meeting, Valeriote said that he found it energizing and inspiring. “It encourages me to know that the youth in our country are so interested in their future, because that’s what this is about: planning and strategizing their own future.”

One of the topics of discussion at the ‘Fling was the role of women in politics. Now women’s issues are not a foreign concept to Valeriote, his community involvement has included his role as Founder of the Guelph Wellington County Committee Against Family Violence and he was a Board Member of Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis. Valeriote says that from his perspective, Guelph has never been underrepresented by women in politics

Liz Sandals is perhaps evidence of that. She knows first hand the challenges but also knows that they’re not universal. “I think it depends on the community,” she says. “I think Guelph is one of the few communities to get past gender. Being a woman running is no longer an issue and that’s the way you want it to be.”

Sandals also points out that the demographics of women and when they come into politics is different than men. For example, if you are a woman with a young family and far from the seat of government, than running for office will require a certain amount of sacrifice. As a result most women start close to home in their municipalities as trustees, councillors or activists. “I think in some ways if you have a base of community service then it makes things easier because the community already knows and trusts you and knows what you’re capable of,” Sandals adds

Carolyn Bennett agrees. “This basis in community shows a palpable motivation to make a difference; this isn’t someone going after a salary or a title, this somebody who is part of a community and knows a community can do better,” she says.

Bennett points out that community is a key factor, especially in a campaign like this; the issue in a by-election is who better understands the community. “The great men are the ones that fight for women’s issues and are prepared to take the needs of a community to the table regardless.”

But Bennett says that part of what keeps more women from getting involved in politics are that the games put them off. Many women just don’t want to be “dropped into the locker room,” she says. “There still are guys that are running for the games, the gotcha and the put-down stuff, like they’re running for the debating club rather than trying to make a difference in people’s lives.”

Karen Redman explains that she’s tired of exorbitant qualifiers; that a woman running for office seems to need a proverbial laundry list of credentials. “The most tiresome thing when you get into politics is when you hear, ‘we need a really good woman to run for riding x,’ when the reality is we need more good people and having more women in really changes the dynamic.”

The total number of women in the House comes to 21 per cent, while female Senators make up 35 per cent of the upper house. With this gender gap in mind, Redman adds that the important thing is not just find more women candidates, but to familiarize male members with the issues. “We have male colleagues that regularly attend women’s caucus meetings every Wednesday afternoon, and they get it. That’s why you’ve got a Ken Dryden that can speak with passion about the kind of childcare vision we need.”

Bennett sees the current political climate as especially important in regards to the impact on Canadian women. “I guess what I feel right now is that this is going to be a big election,” she explains. “Is it going to be about Stephen Harper’s top-down, paternalistic approach or will it be a bottom-up, team ready to govern, that values community and have great Members of Parliament with a leader that wants to know what’s important in their community.”

When once asked about what the most important issue facing Canadian women was, Bennett said that she couldn’t really bring it down to just one issue, or one government department for that matter. “Everything that women care about lies in three or four different government departments, and therefore different jurisdictions.”

Amongst these issues are poverty, violence against women and housing, the funding and administration of which happen to varying degrees at all levels of government. “They’re complex issues that require collaboration and co-operation across government departments and across jurisdictions.”

Valeriote says that he doesn’t see this as a problem as long as you come at a problem in the spirit of collaboration. It comes back to the ability to build bridges between people with differences, he says, and an ability to get past all that. “You’ll find generally, if you reach out, they’ll respond,” he adds.

Redman puts the question simply: “We’re within a year of going to a general election and the question is: ‘What kind of Canada do you want?’”

As for the Canada she wants, Bennett says that we need the people that care about issues and bring them together. At the same time, stopping Stephen Harper should be the most important thing for all of the activists on all the issues that will bring forth a more progressive Canada.

As a result, Bennett says, she’s seeing people of previous affiliations coming to the Liberal party and seeing it develop as a more progressive voice in relation to the Harper Conservatives. “This is such a critical time that we’re finding these extraordinary candidates that are prepared to come and run with us and Stephane Dion.”

To be continued on Friday