Charles Sousa wants all of Ontario working: Take a look at his GTA and rural policies

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With today being the "Day of Debates" (an all candidates luncheon at the Canadian Club and a special taping of The Agenda with Steve Paikin) here is some light reading material for you on Charles Sousa's bold new ideas to get rural Ontario and the GTA both working to create jobs and improve the quality of life for residents.

Here is the Sousa Plan to Create Jobs in Small Town and Rural Ontario

1. Acting upon local input into decision-making and building municipal partnerships;

1. Strongly supporting industries like auto, primary & secondary manufacturing and food processing;

1. Providing industry with the right tools to create jobs by promoting innovation and attracting investment; and

1. Supporting small businesses by making access to the Southwestern and Eastern Ontario Development Funds easier, simpler and permanent.

“As a party and as a government, we need to do a better job of listening to local voices,” said Sousa. “People need to know that we take their concerns seriously and are ready to act on them. That’s why listening is the starting point of my plan.”

Sousa, who is running to be Ontario’s Jobs Premier, has put the main focus of his plan for small town and rural Ontario on creating jobs.

Like all Ontario families, people in Southwestern and Eastern Ontario want the government to be focussed on creating jobs in their communities. That’s why Sousa is committed to maintaining strong support for the auto and manufacturing industries and is committed to working with business to create jobs.

His plan to improve access to the Southwestern and Eastern Ontario Development Funds for small businesses will help entrepreneurs to grow their companies and create jobs.

“Making it easier for small businesses to access the funds they need to succeed is the right thing to do,” said Sousa.

To date, the Eastern Ontario Development Fund has created $595M in private sector investment and helped create or retain 13,200 jobs. Sousa plans on building off of this success by making the funds more accessible to rural and small town businesses.

“The funds have worked well for big employers, but Main Street should be benefiting as well. That’s why I’ll make it permanent, bring clarity to the program and make it much easier to access.”

And here is Charles' newly released, hot off the presses plan To Take Action Now To Deal With GTA Challenges

1. Make Metrolinx responsible for the TTC

Gridlock –both literally and politically – is a huge problem for Toronto. By making Metrolinx responsible for the TTC, we can start building transit now, so we’re not having the same conversations ten years from now. “We’re two years behind schedule because of political gridlock,” Sousa said.

2. Site a new university campus in Milton

Milton is the fastest growing city in Canada and we need to take action now to keep up. A new campus in Milton will help our students prepare to succeed and boost the local economy. “We have the funding.  We need to act,” Sousa said.

3. Take immediate action to reform the Condo Act

Ontario has been looking at reforming the condo act for years, and private members’ bills on the issues have previously passed second reading in the legislature.

Within 90 days of becoming Premier, Sousa would introduce legislation to reform the Condo Act. “We have had a lot of input.  We need to act,” Sousa said

4. Make immigration work better for Ontario

By increasing the number of provincial nominees, and pushing the federal government to deliver their fair share, we can take full advantage of the skills that new immigrants have, and make sure that the GTA remains a magnet for economic immigrants around the world. “We need immigration to work for Ontario,” Sousa said.

“We all know that the GTA is a world-class region that is facing significant challenges over the next decade,” said Sousa. “We need comprehensive solutions to address these challenges, and we need to start moving now.”

Sousa is running to be Ontario’s Jobs Premier and has already proposed several concrete steps we can take to create jobs now.

Charles Sousa brings out bold new ideas for Ontario Liberal renewal

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Today Charles Sousa continued to roll out bold new policies to re-engage our membership, support our unheld ridings, and empower our riding associations.

In particular, I'm a big fan of Charles committing to make it easier for youth to join the party online, helping unheld ridings keep more of their money, and supporting more free votes and private members bills.

Take a closer look at: http://www.votesousa.ca/renewal

Renewal and activity in the commissions a great sign for Liberal rebuilding

Blogging has been light of late, although I've been keeping very active in Liberal events, obviously. In particular, in the last couple of weeks I've been to events involving the Young Liberals, the Aboriginal Peoples' Commission, and the Women's Commission here in Ottawa, and they all speak to the fact that our commissions are playing a crucial role in the renewal of the Liberal Party and the Liberal brand.

I attended a great Young Liberal organized event in Ottawa, the Ottawa Centre/Ottawa-Vanier Young Liberal Bonanza. It was great to hear from Mauril Belanger and Yasir Naqvi how important Young Liberals are to the Liberal Party, particularly Yasir Naqvi talking about how the single biggest commitment the Ontario Liberal Party made in the last election was the 30% off tuition grant, and how this idea came straight from Young Liberals. Another remarkable thing was to see so many new faces I hadn't met before, showing that youth are interested in playing a proactive role in politics and are attracted to the Liberal message.

International Womens' Day saw two events, a breakfast organized by the Women's Commission, and the launch event of Beyond the Numbers, a great idea put forward by the YLC and VP Maddie Webb in particular to increase the role of young women in the YLC and the Liberal Party as a whole. The breakfast was very well attended, with MP's and guest speakers from around the country coming in, such as new Commission president Mary Pyenburg. Bob Rae spoke passionately about the need for the Liberal Party to not only go after the Conservatives backwards approach on women's issues, but to always look at the Liberal Party itself and see what more we can do to advance women's rights and make our party even better. The Beyond the Numbers event had dozens of Young Liberals get together, including many from out of town, to network, talk about young women in the party, and be inspired by a touching speech from Kirsty Duncan about her journey into politics.

Last but not least, I helped support our Aboriginal Peoples' Commission by going to the "10-for-10" fundraiser, part of a campaign to create an endowment fund for aboriginal candidates ($10,000 for 10 candidates, as a starting goal) in the next election. Sen. Lillian Dyck, Bob Rae, Carolyn Bennett, and Jeff Copenace all talked about the role of the Liberal Party as promoting understanding between all the peoples of Canada, educating non-aboriginals about aboriginal history, and the important task of recruiting strong aboriginal candidates to run in both rural and urban ridings in the next election.

All in all, a series of great events that leave me inspired and optimistic about the role our party commissions can play in the party renewal process. Now to paint Toronto-Danforth red for Grant Gordon!

Why I am supporting Alexandra Mendès for Liberal Party president

The Liberal Party faces a difficult, but not impossible task in rebuilding and reconnecting with Canadians. Electing a new President and exec board is and important step in this process. We as a party have a few options in deciding how we want to move forward. We could try putting out big names from our past who have a controversial history. We could try to win people over with flashy platitudes and talking points.

Or, we could support someone for President of the party who has experience in different levels of the party and Canadian life. Someone who is deeply in touch and experienced in reaching out to our multicultural population. Someone who has a wealth of experience in both the private sector and public life. Someone who has a clear and firm understanding of what the role of President means, values teamwork, has management experience, and has worked in the grassroots.

As a candidate, Alexandra Mendes has all of this and more.

Listening in on a number of debates and townhalls, I have always been impressed by the caliber and quality of the answers Alexandra has provided to the difficult challenges of how to best rebuild our party. Alexandra is committed to working with riding associations and rebuilding them, re-focusing the priorities of PTA's on local, riding level engagement. Re-empowering our riding associations is critical to rebuild the party, particularly in Quebec and The West. As a supporter of organizations like Equal Voice, I am pleased that the cause of gender equality within the party organization, and in candidate recruitment is an important issue for Alexandra, and one she will work towards as President.

Alexandra has a critical understanding of what the role of President is and isn't. We need an organizer, a manager, a facilitator, not someone who will be writing talking points and doing interviews, taking attention away from our leader and caucus.

With her approach to engagement and reform, Alexandra is the best choice for President, and I would encourage my fellow Liberals to read more about her campaign and get engaged:

http://www.alexamendes.ca/en/home

http://twitter.com/#!/AlexandraBrLP

http://twitter.com/#!/teamequipealexa

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Alexandra-Mend%C3%A8s/44955761430

"Reform Partyization" and re-thinking "Progressive"

I have been somewhat reluctant to blog about American politics during the last few months, because I believe as a Liberal blogger, my main concern should be the state of Canadian politics, and the Liberal Party. However, with the script seemingly written for tomorrow's election, I believe some interesting Canada-US parallels can be drawn.

The Republican Party, and the conservative movement in the US in general, is going to undergo a period of "Reform Partyization". While I don't mean this in the sense that a 2nd conservative party will emerge in the US, an offshoot of the Republicans, I do believe that the right will enter into an ultimately unhealthy period of navel gazing, with the result being an overriding sense of "We lost because we abandoned our conservative principles!" rather then "wow, American conservatism needs to adapt to the times again." The liberal movement in the US had the same problems in the 70's and 80's, with uninspiring liberal Democrats getting smashed by Nixon, Reagen, and Bush (Carter gets a post-Watergate exception). Rather then try and recapture the centre, the Republicans, like the true-believing Reform Party of the 90's, will proudly remain outside the mainstream. This process will be helped as the Republican Party looks to be reduced to a socially conservative Southern and Prairie rump, with incumbent moderates in now-friendly Democratic areas like New Hampshire and Oregon (Maine's locally very popular and moderate Susan Collins will buck this trend, and Minnesota's Norm Coleman should hang on thanks to a strong third-party candidate, however) and Democrats making gains in at all levels of voting in newly purple states such as Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico, etc. The lack of moderates within the party will further push the party away from the centre and the new mentality of the swing states. The GOP will suffer internal struggles as the remaining moderates in the party are pushed out by the remaining true-believer conservatives, damaging attempts to re-build and re-new in the short term.

What Liberals can learn: As much as Liberals obviously will be rooting for Obama, the sad fact is that right now, we resemble the Republican Party in too many ways. Like this election will do to the Republicans, the last election reduced us largely to our strongholds of the Maritimes (although suffering slightly there) and urban and suburban areas in Ontario (again, even taking some losses) with a lone bright spot being a mini-revival in Quebec, including a psychologically important second seat off the island of Montreal. Additionally, Liberals do not need any more internal personality or policy splits, regardless of who emerges as the Leader. What we as Liberals must not allow is for us to go through a "Reformization", focusing only on concerns, issues, and polices that appeal to a base that is no longer large enough to win an election solely on its own. Lots of Liberals have talked about building on Howard Dean's 50-state strategy, and how Liberals must focus on every election, in every riding, to build a nation-wide base. What many of the people who would copy Dean's rhetoric and planning is why many internal Democrats opposed the plan. They feared that Dean was the product of the leftist activist part of the party, and that the 50-state strategy would attempt to shove New England liberalism down the throats of every congressional district in the country, which would only further hurt the party (Here we have shades of Democrats worried that Dean represented a "Reform Partyization" by dragging the party to the left). However, rather then simply export New England liberalism across the country, Dean tailored the Democrats as a national party that would listen to local concerns, and would run candidates reflective of local concerns and politics. If this meant running more moderate candidates in moderate areas, then so be it, a Democratic victory is a Democratic victory. Efforts to renew and rebuild the party around the lines of the 50-state strategy must realize this, that in order to win in places we have either traditionally lost, or win back areas which are traditionally ours, be must expand the Liberal values and big-tent to fit local concerns, rather then export GTA liberalism to places like rural and northern Ontario, where we got hammered this election. The bright spot of Quebec, and the skill of the Quebec team in the last election serves as an example of this, as they ran a campaign focused on local issues, and were able to take advantage of the Conservative drop in the province to establish ourselves back in many parts of the provinces as the federalist alternative (arguably more important then winning seats in Quebec in terms of long-term rebuilding of the national party is that we had more second place finishes to the Bloc then the Conservatives did across the province) particularly as I have read many blogs the past few days suggesting that the LPCQ is either being too nationalist, or is making too many policy demands, etc. While I do not want to diminish the concerns of these bloggers about the need for coherent national policy across all provinces, rather then be overly critical of hard-working Liberals, I suggest we examine the LPCQ campaign this election to see the things they did right, and learn from the lessons of localism.

The concept of "renewal" is not merely one of energizing and re-building local associations, it is one of having the right policies and ideas to get the Liberal Party firmly back in the middle of the Canadian spectrum, having a strong "progressive" centrist answer to the big questions of today. I put progressive in quotation marks because I believe as Liberals that we need to re-define our own use and meaning of the word. "Progressive" in the past few years has too easily become just another way to use the words "centre-left", and the inability of the Liberals to define progressivism, rather having progressivism define us, is a big problem. Progressive public policy and politics to me, is not simply a way of saying "leftist" without saying left-wing. To me, any policy that looks to moving society forward, advancing towards tomorrow with new ideas, is progressive. It should not be associated with any particular wing of political ideology. Under my definition, for example, I would not hesitate to ideas associated with the right-wing such as Thatcherism and the Common Sense Revolution. These ideas are progressive because they were rooted in looking towards the future and finding new solutions, rather then simply re-using old ideas for new times. In this regard, I would define both the NDP and Conservatives currently as unprogressive, as the NDP continues banging the same drum on economic policy (while admittedly being ahead of the curve on some social issues, such as gay marriage) it has for 70 years. Under Jack Layton, the parties bad habits of declaring itself the "holier then thou, above Liberal-Tory mudslinging, social heart" of Canadian politics while at the same time having no problem voting down Liberal minorities which promoted NDP friendly policies on child-care and aboriginal affairs and standing arm in arm with the Conservatives attacking forward-looking Liberal policies like the Green Shift. For the Conservatives, Harper's view of the role of public policy doesn't go beyond ways he can use it to re-create the Mulroney coalition and re-cycle old Liberal and PC ideas to an effort to be moderate (at least until he gets a majority), while offering little in the way of forward-style thinking that could be deemed "progressive" under my definitions. We must not be merely a "progressive party" in the old style mode, Canada already has 3 of those more then eager to steal our votes, be must be a new-school party of the progressive centre, offering new ideas and policies, with an ear for local concerns and politics. Renewal must take place from this main plank of new progressive centrism, and be unafraid to examine ideas and policies we have previously rejected as being not "progressive" enough. To restate what I said earlier, if the Liberal Party has any hope to rebuild and renew in a real way, we must take bold steps to define our progressivism, rather then let progressivism define us.

What the Party (and Liblogs) do and don't need.

My last idea-centric blog post got some positive attention, and maybe got some people thinking of ways we can "re-discover" liberalism and build up again. However, a quick look at Liblogs today shows that we are in danger of falling into bad habits, slandering each other, thinking plots are behind every corner, and acting overly defensive. I don't want to bog myself down in the same things I have just criticized, but I do feel the need to say that as someone who volunteered for Adam Miron for the past several months, I know he is as dedicated and committed to the Liberal Party as anyone who you will ever find, and who has done/did an excellent job both pre and during the election in ensuring that the Young Liberals, and particularly our online vector, were prepared, ready, and active during the writ period.

Now, on to more substantive ideas for renewal and invigoration of the party:

-Don't ghettoize women's issues. I am very proud of the Liberal Party that in the last election we ran the most female candidates of any party, exceeding the quota of 1/3rd that Mr. Dion had set out, and we elected strong female candidates like Bonnie Crombie. However, overall, this election was a failure in terms of reaching out to female voters. As Harper noted (correctly, sadly) during the election, "We no longer have a female problem, the Liberals have a male problem." The Conservatives elected a number of new female candidates, have lots of women in cabinet, and made gains with women despite only running 20% female candidates, attacking women's funding, etc, while the Liberals made great efforts to promote and present female candidates and women's issues, including the Pink Book. These results I think bust a few myths about winning the female vote. One of them was that the centre and centre/left can take the women's vote for granted. I think after we rolled out things like the Pink Book, going over the quota, the gender equity etc, we assumed we would maintain our advantage with female voters. During the election, other then a couple of times when we "highlighted" female candidates, we never really focused on women's issues, and never gave female voters a strong message to vote Liberal other then "Hey, we are running lots of women and have a 2 year old policy document! Vote for us!" Tied into this approach was our attacks on the Conservatives for attacking Status of Women and closing regional offices. Rather then tie it into an overarching theme as to how Conservative ideology damages the advancement of women as individuals, which in turn damages our society and our economy, we tried to turn into into the "scandal of the day" approach, like we did with ever issue we thought we could nail the Conservatives on, which in hindsight broadly failed. The Conservatives, while offering a weak platform, that while not going into specifics, was broad and generally pushed themes like security, while attacking the Liberals as dangerous. While this attempt may not have directly focused on women (although the kitchen ad released near the end of the election was definitely targeted at them) but the gains the Conservatives made over the last weekend of the campaign reflected overall growth across demographic lines. I think this speaks to the need for broad platforming and messaging, particularly as we re-build from the centre. We need to learn how to send a message to Canadians that cuts across demographic lines, rather then tailoring policies or issuing demographic specific documents that speaks to Canadians as individuals. Obviously women do bring different skills and perspectives to the table, and they need to play a big role in crafting party policy, but we cannot ghettoize the important policy inputs and perspectives they have. The exact same thing goes for multicultural groups as well, another important groups of individuals we can no longer take for granted.

-Don't abandon the environment. Many pundits are speculating that the party will move away from environmentalism in order to escape the shadow of Dion's defeat and the Green Shift. This is something we need to avoid. Certainly, we need to re-focus our message into one of individual based, market-driven Green Liberalism, rather then of a redistributionist environmental plan, but the environment and the economy of tomorrow are both pillars the Liberals must continue to tie together. The need to maintain active on this file is demonstrated by the recent moving of Jim Prentice into the Environmental portfolio by the Conservatives. Unlike the climate-change denialist Rona Ambrose, and the hyperpartisan John Baird, Prentice is not a man who is sent in to neutralize an issue, but to develop a moderate, pragmatic solution. If the Liberals back away from the issue, expect Prentice to deliver an actual Conservative plan for the environment, to fill any policy vaccum left by a Liberal retreat. We cannot allow the Conservatives to own any issue.

-Do fight the Conservatives on their own turf. A few months ago, I was talking to a high-profile Liberal who is identified as being on the left of the party, and I asked him/her about any potential danger our new Green Shift could be painted as a tax grab, and that by focusing on the environmental aspects of the plan, the tax cut aspects would be overshadowed, and they answered that we weren't going to really attempt to fight the Conservatives on the tax issue, that we wouldn't do things like match or go beyond tax cuts promised by the Conservatives. As it turned out, that the Conservatives did, in fact attack the Green Shift as a tax grab, and that the tax cutting elements of the plan were, in fact overshadowed, while the Conservatives won an economy focused election. With all due respect to this Liberal, who does bring many good and new ideas to the party, and who was talking about renewal before it was a fad, we must refuse to cede an inch of ground to the Conservatives on issues like tax cuts and the economy, even if these are traditionally seen as conservative friendly issues. If we do not define ourselves as a party which has, and will in the future, be able to deliver balanced budgets, and more money in individuals pockets, then we allow the Conservatives to paint us as just another centre-left party, indistinguishable from the NDP or Greens, and not the effective economic managers we are. In terms of using this to link economic and social policy, I quote Frank McKenna; "The best social program is a job."

What the Liberal Party should and shouldn't do

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081029.wcounite30/BNStory/specialComment/home

This article by a vet of the "unite the right" outlines some of the steps that would have to happen for the Liberals/Greens/NDP to unite as one progressive party. Near the end of the article, the author says the united right hopes that any calls to unite the left will not be as successful for the hypothetical party as the Conservatives have been so far. While Conservatives say that a united progressive party would be a serious threat, the reality is that a united centre-left party would be the key to making the Conservatives the new natural governing party of Canada.

The Liberal brand is a centrist brand, and the party fails, at different levels of government, when it strays too far from the centre, or is unable to capture the centre. In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, for example, the provincial Liberals have struggled in recent years, due in large party to being shut out of the centre, thanks to a centrist NDP in both provinces (funny how NDP parties that actually get into power regularly have a bad habit of doing things like being responsible and being pragmatic, while the permanent opposition federal NDP blasts the Liberals for being "unprincipled") and particularly in Saskatchewan, where the Liberals have been shut out for 2 elections in a row as Brad Wall brought the Sask. Party into the middle. In Ontario, the provincial Liberals struggled for decades as the Red Tory machine that was the Ontario PC's dominated the centre, often times being more centrist then the rural based, prohibitionist Liberals, who have only found long-termish success under McGuinty by ensuring the centre does not slip from them. Federally, Liberals have failed when we have not been successful in upholding the centrist mantle, such as when Diefenbaker was able to break the decades long electoral hold of the Liberals by running on a Red Tory, spending platform, under Turner, who despite being a centrist leader was unable to shake off the leftist Trudeau shadow, the defeat of the similarly centrist Paul Martin who focused on social programs while in power in an attempt to target the NDP, and the last election, as we were unable to break past the image the Conservatives painted of Dion as a leftist. The Liberal base and coalition contains centre-right as well as centre-left parts, and a significant part of the base on the centre-right (myself included) would not hesitate to break away from a united left party to go to the Conservatives, and would be unable to win back swing areas like semi-rural and suburban ridings where the Conservatives have established themself, which would further cement efforts by them to build themselves as the new party of the centre. The Liberal brand, while definitely needing some re-building and re-imagining, still has strength, and this strength is in the centre.

Some have argued that the centre is dead, that Liberal values of pragmatism and gradualism cannot be sold in the era of 24 hour news cycles and spin, in which grand bombast and iron-fisted leadership are seen as positives. Others say that from a fundraising perspective, the Liberals need to drift to the left, in order to gain the support of leftist ideologues, as the centre is not a good position in which to draw donations. While both of these points of view do have some validity, the Liberals don't need to abandon the centre, we need to re-invent the centre in order to be a functional national party. An interesting article in the Globe and Mail the other day compared the policies and voter profile of every party inside and outside of Quebec, and the Liberals were the only party to have any real policy continuity nation-wide. This is a strong fact which which to re-build our centrist party. While the Conservative alliance between nationalist francophones, francophobic Reformers of the west, the Ontario mix of rural social conservatives and more pragmatic suburban centrists, and traditional Maritime conservatism has inherent instabilities that could prevent it from becoming the new natural party of government, and the NDP remains a protest party everywhere, the Liberal centrist coalition, when it is functional, is one of a national scope, but taking local and regional concerns into consideration.

Some new ideas and policies are needed to reinvigorate the Liberal brand as one of solid, reliable centrism, and here are some suggestions:

-Broad support for free trade agreements and real free trade, to capitalize on Canada's advantage as a trading nation, while making us a leader of the Western world in lobbying other developed nations to lower their own tariffs (including our own) to make free trade more effective and fair.
-New federalism. The Conservatives talk a lot about "open federalism", supposedly a landmark change in the way federal-provincial relations are done. In practice, however, it has done little but throw money at whatever province is politically convenient to throw money at, attack whatever province is politically convenient to attack, and overall make no actual changes to administrative frameworks. A Liberal policy of "co-operative" federalism is needed, with provinces and the federal government, on both a one on one and group basis, sitting down, and having landmark discussions like the one Martin had with the premiers over health care, and figuring out the most effective framework for service delivery to citizens. Other aspects of co-operative federalism would be the federal government encouraging provinces to remove barriers to inter-provincial trade and labour agreements, giving all provinces at least a voice in important federal appointments, and ensuring that broad agreement is existent between all provinces in the case of future potential constitutional changes.
-A re-discovery of the individual. Conservatives often claim that they have inherited the mantle of classical liberalism, that both big L and small l liberalism have been overly influenced by collectivist ideas, and that conservatism offers the only place for individualist voters. Often times, we have allowed these claims to go unchallenged, but it is time to stand up as Liberals and claim back the ideas of great liberal individualists like Adam Smith, and re-finding the balance with social liberalism great contributions. Concrete ways this could be done would be the addition of private property rights to the Charter, and making changes in tax law to encourage individual saving and responsibility
-On a related note, building up the ideas of Green Liberalism, and that the free market, with some appropriate government interventions, is the best tool to fight climate change. Measures individuals are taking to make themselves more environmentally aware, such as buying hybrid cars, retrofitting homes, etc, should be rewarded with increased tax credits. Additionally, corporate tax cuts could be tied into how environmentally friendly a business is.

These are just some basic ideas and proposals by a Young Liberal, but I hope the ideas of re-building our broad national base from the centre becomes an overriding theme of the upcoming leadership and renewal period.