Traditionally, the large banner at the top of a page acts as link back to the home page of a website. Click anywhere on Angry in the Great White North at the top of this page, and back to the home page you go.
The NDP gets it right. Click on the NDP logo at the top of any page and you're whisked home. The Green Party website also follows the accepted practise.
The Conservatives miss that link. The banner is just a picture. If you want get back to the home page, you have to position your mouse over the "Home" entry of the menu and click. It's a bit of target practise that's really not required if you follow the conventions. The Bloc Quebecois site is the same.
The Liberals do something altogether different. The banner is a link, but it goes to the bio page of the leader. Click on the big Liberal Party logo, and you read about Stephane Dion. Before him, I remember Bill Graham's bio page being displayed. From a user's point of view, this is confusing. The first reaction is to assume you've clicked on a bio link by accident (it was my first reaction), and then to go click on the banner in order to go home and start again. Of course, that just takes you back to the bio page, which either initiates a second round of confused clicking, or the dawn of understanding, followed by grumbling at this weird navigation choice.
It is also an odd choice in terms of the message being delivered. It suggests that the Liberal Party, more than any other federal party, is defined by the leader. It also suggests that the designers of the website have decided that visitors are really eager to read Stephane Dion's bio, so much so that it makes sense for the bio to be the starting location for navigating the Liberal Party website, instead of the home page itself, with the news and upcoming events and other stuff getting in the way of learning about the leader.
You want to know about the Liberal Party? Then read the bio of Stephane Dion. Multiple times if you can. Forget about all that other stuff. L’etat, c’est moi.
On the other hand, it allows the Liberals to brag about just how often people are loading Stephane Dion's bio page. Obviously he's a popular guy, right?
