I want to congratulate the new Libertarian Party of Canada leader, Dennis Young of Calgary, Alberta, on his win at the convention in Edmonton. I’ve included some links below that give details on the results of the leadership battle between us.

Congratulations also to the new Deputy Leader, Savannah Linklater, and the new Board of Directors, which includes a lot of new volunteers. Thank you to the other convention organizers and volunteers who did such a great job.

The convention was very eventful and we had help from a professional parliamentarian, Dan Lynch, who presided on Sunday. I was pleased that all the guest speakers I heard had a libertarian message to deliver. It appears that attitudes have shifted due to Ron Paul’s influence, so there tends to be a clearer consensus now on critical policies such as the war and civil liberties. I think the party is gearing up for an activist media approach and that’s another area of consensus too where there is broad agreement about strategy. Marc Emery made his influence felt at the convention. I believe Afghanistan, the drug war and free speech will be issues in the sights of the new leader, who is a veteran of the Bosnian conflict. All of these are critical issues for the Canadian freedom movement.

There was intense discussion about party direction on Saturday night and on Sunday afternoon between the two main leadership contestants, myself and Dennis. None of it really had to do with policies at all as we’re both fairly “radical” to be honest with you. The proposals I introduced to amend the Statement of Principles did not succeed although they had some support. The constitution has locked them in place and requires a 7/8 vote of delegates to change. I guess I should discuss that separately.

Otherwise, I think people felt the convention was productive and they enjoyed it. It was definitely a full event. I think it became very emotional for different reasons. It really felt more real to hang out with people you actually agree with on so much and meet them in person. I think the leadership debates, Q&A’s, and business sessions became fairly intense as delegates definitely took an interest in what was discussed. And I like to think they got their money’s worth from the event. I wish I did have a transcript of the whole event, but I believe the LPC is planning to release footage of the guest speakers in any case.

I’ll be helping with transition but I decided to leave managing the party to new people because it just got to be too much. The workload needs to be spread among a group of people and I think the new group is very capable of helping the Libertarian Party of Canada make progress in becoming an effective activist organization.

-Alan Mercer

Event coverage:

• Dennis Young new LP leader (http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2008/05/dennis-young-ne.html)
• Dennis Young wins Libertarian Party leadership race
• Conservative biofuel plan is losing popularity
• Updates to wikipedia article

May 25th, 2008