There's a story in Monday's Hill Times that would easily be dismissed as inside baseball if it wasn't actually a sign of a bigger problem in our understanding of how politics works. The gist of the piece is how Liberal MP Julie Dabrusin has some friction with her Toronto-Danforth riding association, and some of her riding executive are talking about resigning or not seeking new terms, and the reason seems to revolve around her parliamentary staff trying to interfere with the riding association's work in order to boost her chances for re-election. And yes, this is actually a problem.
For starters, there is supposed to be a separation between an MP's parliamentary role and their role as the party representative. As the MP, they represent all constituents in parliament, and their staff are supposed to support them in that role. The riding association, meanwhile, is the partisan arm that has an interest in keeping the riding belonging to whichever party they belong to. It should not, however, simply be a re-election machine for that particular MP. For an MP's parliamentary staff to be trying to direct a riding association in such a direction is improper interference and violates the independence of the riding association.
Part of that separation is demonstrated by the fact that generally, the MP is a non-voting member of the riding executive, because they certainly have an interest in what goes on, but it's not their personal campaign vehicle. Generally, there should be further separation in how events are planned. If it's an MP event like an open house or town hall event, then the riding association shouldn't be involved because it's an event for all constituents, not just those belonging to the party. Likewise, if it's a riding association event like a fundraiser, then the MP's staff should have no involvement because it's a strictly party event. Each has a different function to play that's easy to confuse if one isn't careful, or if the partisan calculation starts to blur the lines between party and parliamentarian. Just like it's a cardinal sin to mix party with government, we need to be aware that there is a separation and it must be respected if we want our politics to work the way it's supposed to.
Why this matters is because the riding association is the primary interface between individuals and our political system. Joining a party is the way in which everyone plays an active role, because it's how candidates get nominated, and how policies get decided from the grassroots level. The riding association is also the interlocutor between the people of the riding and the caucus, most especially if it's a riding association that doesn't have a sitting MP. It's why all of the plaintive wails about not having an MP from your chosen party leaves you "unrepresented" is a load of bunk so long as there's a riding association in place, it means that there's a conduit between the riding and the parliamentary caucus for concerns to be raised.
When there is a sitting MP, the independence of the riding association is all the more important because part of the function of a riding association in our system is to hold the MP to account for their actions when they are elected. Because riding associations are the way in which we nominate candidates for election, it's also how we remove them when they don't perform or if they no longer represent the values of the riding. Nomination fights that seek to take out incumbent MPs can be nasty business but they're also very necessary to ensure that the democratic will of the party members can be respected and to keep the incumbents honest in their dealings. That means that if the incumbent MP's staff is interfering with the riding association in order to try and make it a re-election machine, as Dabrusin's staff are allegedly doing, then it interferes with the riding association's ability to hold her to account as the MP, and accountability is at the heart of our system. This point cannot be understated.
The other reason why this particular story is concerning is because the Liberals have already dealt a blow to the role of riding associations with their party constitution changes last year. Usually, riding associations are supposed to generate policy which gets voted upon and gets forwarded to biennial policy conferences, where the assembled delegates vote on these policy resolutions that form the broader party's policy direction. The new Liberal constitution, however, severely curtails this process, calling it "inefficient," and has centralised much of the new policy formation out of the leader's office using Big Data as the justification for how they plan to consult and come up with policy. This, along with demolishing party memberships in favour of free "supporter" sign-ups, has severely weakened the role of riding associations, which is detrimental to the health of our democratic system. This makes the alleged intrusion by Dabrusin's staff all the more staff all the more alarming, because it's hitting the association when they've already been cut off at the knees.
Of course, much of this is about how politics is supposed to work, and it's not an exact science. The strength of riding associations is variable across parties and regions, and there have been enough examples of riding associations being essentially non-existent until an MP gets elected in a sweep, a particularly poignant example being the NDP in Quebec in 2011. But if we want politics to work properly in this country, then we need people to get involved, to join riding associations and to contribute to the system from the ground-up. Having the leader's office centralise authority, or the MP's office big-footing things only serves to disenfranchise the role of grassroots members, the very people that our process is supposed to be engaging. For the health of our democracy, we need to return that power to those grassroots.