Dear Editor,
I have been a loyal, federal Liberal supporter and active party member for many years, and am very disappointed in the lack of respect being shown to active party members and the organizational direction the Liberal Party is currently taking in this current campaign.
I had great hopes for a rebuilding of the party, but find that’s not happening.
I have nothing against leader Justin Trudeau. But his name will not be on the ballot I cast on Oct. 19, nor on anyone in Richmond’s ballot, let alone the ballots in the rest of the country, for that matter, except for the riding where Trudeau is running.
However, the Liberal campaign gurus are only focusing on Trudeau and running a “Team Justin” campaign. They are forgetting about the Liberal Party and the local candidates.
I’m a grassroots liberal and prefer to support the Liberal Party in my community. If I volunteer, I will do so for my local candidate and donate funds depending on who the local candidate is, not to support "Team Trudeau” where I don’t have any idea how either my time or money is going to support Richmond.
There have been, for the better part of the past year, two potential candidates seeking the nomination in the new riding of Steveston Richmond-East. But even with the riding executive making numerous requests for a candidate selection meeting none was called until Aug. 11. This was done without the common courtesy of discussion and notification to the Steveston Richmond-East riding executive, even though the executive had made numerous requests for such a meeting to be called since last fall.
I am on the Steveston Richmond-East riding executive, not as a supporter of any one potential candidate, but as a loyal Liberal member.
That said, one of the potential candidates, who was encouraged by the Liberal Campaign Team organizers in B.C. and in Ottawa, and who did sign up members, recruit volunteers, build a campaign team, and become familiar with Richmond voters and their issues, was unceremoniously denied the opportunity to participate openly and democratically as a candidate for the nomination at this hastily called candidate selection meeting — without any reason given.
Encouraging someone to seek a nomination and then denying them the opportunity to put their name forward at a candidate selection meeting is not an open candidate selection process as Trudeau and his campaign team promised.
This also denies a majority of the riding members the opportunity to go to the candidate selection ballot box and vote for the candidate they became a Liberal member to support.
This is a disappointing turn of events for native born Canadians like myself, but even more upsetting for new Canadians who are becoming involved with the political process in our country. Referring to what has happened in the Steveston-Richmond-East riding, a Liberal who is a new Canadian commented to me that, “I came from an autocratic country, and today I learned so-called ‘democracy’ the hard way.”
Louise Young
Richmond
