From the Liberal Party website:
The federal Liberal caucus emerged from its summer retreat reinvigorated, re-energized and ready to take on Stephen Harper's Conservatives this coming session of Parliament, Liberal Opposition Leader Bill Graham and National Caucus Chair Raymond Bonin said today.
"This was an excellent meeting of caucus this week - productive, meaningful and invigorating," said Mr. Graham. "It gave us the opportunity to have a spirited exchange of ideas as we get ready to reconvene in Parliament and as we prepare to welcome a new leader in December."
Spirited exchange? When you have people on the same side engaging in a "spirited exchange", I'm pretty sure it means yelling. Maybe even a thrown chair.
The obvious source for fighting is between the Liberal leadership candidates and their supporters. Things have been getting testy recently:
The Liberal party will withhold membership lists -- considered the lifeline of political campaigns -- from any leadership campaign found to have used the lists to distribute mass e-mails that attacked leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff. The e-mails, which include attacks on both Mr. Ignatieff's, right, personal life and political views, will be the subject of an internal party investigation that is expected to be launched after Mr. Ignatieff's campaign files a formal complaint today.
But then the frazzled leadership candidates are having problems earning the respect of the MPs, which could have sent frustration levels through the roof:
There were signs of disorganization throughout the retreat.
Leadership contenders were given only a few hours notice that they'd be given a few minutes each to speak at a party rally Wednesday night.
The rally turned out to be a cocktail reception and by the time the candidates were introduced, the well-lubricated crowd was so boisterous that contenders had to shout to be heard above the din.
Martha Hall Findlay issued a piercing whistle to try to bring the crowd to order. She was ignored, as were all the other candidates.
On the other hand, most people have been ignoring the Liberal leadership campaign anyway, so you'd think the leadership candidates would be used to it. Still, the leadership candidates are pretty mad at the party itself. Maybe it wasn't the leadership rivals versus the MPs, but the leadership rivals versus the party executive:
The party has been taking three weeks or more to process donations, a delay that most cash-starved [leadership] camps find incomprehensible.
Money is a problem for the whole party, though, not just for the leadership candidates. I bet that was rubbing everyone's nerves raw:
The Liberal party is in no condition to win a general election unless it launches a radical overhaul of its struggling fundraising activities and outdated organizational structure, according to a hard-hitting new internal report.
The report pointed out that in the first quarter of this year, the Liberals raised just $1.3-million from 6,500 contributors, while the Conservatives raised $5.6-million from 37,000 donors. "We have fallen victim to never asking our supporters for money," the report says.
The report suggests that the party needs to go to individuals more than it has been doing in the past. But to do that efficiently, the report is recommending that membership lists be centralized at the national level. This is pitting the local riding associations against the national executive, and that could have led to the fireworks, especially with some of the strong language used:
However, the recommendations are likely to face opposition at local level.
Styli Pappas, a 25-year Liberal organizer from Ontario, said the proposals amounted to a power grab.
"The reason they want to hold the membership base in Ottawa is that they will tap into it for fundraising purposes.
"There is no other reason. When they do that, they will be depleting the pockets of those in the ridings."
He said there is no need to reform the grassroots of the party. "The need for reform is at the level of those who make the rules and regulations.
"That is where the pollution is in the party."
He criticized the report for ignoring more serious problems such as the rigging of nominations, the appointment of candidates and the protection of incumbent MPs.
One Liberal MP, who preferred to remain anonymous, agreed that the proposals would centralize power in the party. "It disenfranchises local people," he said.
Whatever the Liberal Party does, things are likely to get worse before they get better thanks to the Conservatives:
This was tolerable during the 1990s because the party was reliant on large donations from corporate donors. But Jean Chretien's party financing reform -- Bill C-24 -- removed that funding source.
"We have not yet made the structural change or fully effected the cultural change to a member-focused donation base," the report says.
The funding problem will be compounded by Stephen Harper's proposed Bill C-2, which will ban all corporate and union donations and put a limit of $1,000 on individual contributions.
"This is a blatant attack, aimed squarely at our party's political jugular," the committee said.
Any Liberal making nice with the hated Conservatives would fan the flames of discontent:
Earlier this month, Liberal MP Wajid Khan gave up his duties as the Liberals' associate defence critic and said he wouldn't attend Liberal caucus meetings after he accepted an appointment as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's special adviser on the Middle East and South Asia.
Many Liberals regarded the appointment as an effort by the Tories to exploit divisions in Liberal ranks and to help rebuild Conservative bridges to the Muslim community, burned by Harper's unequivocal support for Israel's bombardment of Lebanon.
Khan, a former fighter pilot in the Pakistan air force, said he would remain as a Liberal.
Of course, Khan wasn't even at the retreat. Still, if someone said something nice about him, who knows what could have happened? But then maybe the fighting happened as a result of the hammer coming down on backbenchers who were getting used to the liberating chaos in the party:
The federal Liberal caucus will return to the House of Commons this fall with an improved sense of discipline, Interim leader Bill Graham said yesterday.
Mr. Graham's pledge, at the end of a national caucus retreat, comes amid the controversy of the party's deputy foreign affairs critic resigning after suggesting Hezbollah should be taken off Canada's list of terrorist organizations.
Opposition house leader Ralph Goodale also said discipline was on the agenda among MPs and senators at the retreat.
All of the above?
Maybe some disgruntled backbencher will let us know what happened.
