James Bowie has challenged six bloggers (yours truly included) to declare what they are doing to help the Liberal Party of Canada. The challenge originated from a post by Jason Cherniak that caused a bit of a stir over the past week or so in the Canadian liberalish blogosphere (you can check out how Jim Curran, Quito Maggi, and A BCer in Toronto responded to Bowie’s challenge).
As you have probably gathered from the title of this post, I’m not doing anything for the Liberal Party of Canada. Indeed, I haven’t had much involvement with the Federal Liberals since I spent the 2004 federal election volunteering with Anne McLellan‘s successful re-election campaign in Edmonton-Centre.
How come, Dave?
I woke up and came to the realization that I have some pretty big beefs with how the Liberal Party of Canada had governed Canada (whether it be on the environment, post-secondary education, international affairs, trade, and of course, Adscam, among others). So, I let my membership lapse in 2006, and since then Stephane Dion’s hand sitting maneuvers haven’t done much to entice me to re-join his party (not that I’m impressed with Stephen Harper, either).
Since then, I’ve been content to spend my energies over the past couple years working with the Alberta Liberals and the Council of Alberta University Students on the provincial level, and on improving public transit in Edmonton.
In 2006, I lent Jack Layton my vote and voted for NDP candidate Linda Duncan in Edmonton-Strathcona, but in 2008 I’m not sure who I’d vote for. Even though none of the federal parties are really doing it for me, I’m happy to take the Joe Clark approach and support individual candidates on the federal scene by wishing Elizabeth May, Jim Wachowich, Irwin Cotler, Nathan Cullen, and Oliva Chow good luck in their election campaigns.
