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Victorian Liberal MPs will be free to cast a conscience vote in the Voice to Parliament referendum, putting the state party at odds with its federal counterpart.

Opposition Leader John Pesutto confirmed this morning that the Liberal party room hadvoted in favour of a "non-binding position" for MPs ahead of the referendum.

Prior to the vote, and after shadow cabinet had endorsed the position, Mr Pesutto said the stateparty would follow an established tradition of Liberal MPs being allowed conscience votes.

"This is a very important issue for our nation, and I certainly believe as leader of the opposition here in Victoria that it's important for the members of the opposition to have a non-binding position so they are free to approach that issue and determine it for themselves," Mr Pesutto said.

"There's a long way to go in this debate and I'm sure all of us will continue to have important discussions with our friends and colleagues and neighbours across the community to talk about such an important issue.

"I think this is a common-sense approach, it's fair, it recognises that people have different viewpoints on this, and all I can say is that, the parties we represent here today, we value the freedom of each member to determine for themselves which way they'll approach a national issue."

The Victorian Liberals' approach is in contrast to the federal opposition, which confirmed last month it would campaign for a "no" vote in the upcoming referendum.

Mr Pesutto said his vote would be influenced at least partly by the findings of afederal parliamentary committee examining the Voice proposal.

The committee is examining the legal ramifications of the proposed change to the constitution, rather than the broader issue of whether the Voice should be implemented.

"I will be making my position known but I want to obtain further information on that, and I expect that certainly after the select committee reports, I'll make my announcement shortly after that," he said.

"I do have some concerns about wording, which I hope the select committee can look through, but like I've said on other occasions, this is a debate of national importance and significance, and I certainly approach it in good faith, with an open mind."

Prior to Mr Pesutto's announcement, a number of Opposition MPs had publicly expressed their support for a non-binding vote in the referendum.

A number of state Liberal MPs including Jess Wilson, Evan Mulholland, James Newbury and Shadow Treasurer Brad Rowswell had previously called for a non-binding position.

Ms Wilson has indicated that she is leaning towards supporting the Voice.

Conversely, Liberal upper house MP Beverley McArthur has declared her opposition to the Voice, describing it as divisive and likening it to apartheid-era South Africa.

Another Liberal MP, Renee Heath, has also publicly opposed the Voice.

The Victorian Nationals are yet to formalise their position. The federal National Party is backing a "no" vote.

Meanwhile, former Liberal leader Matthew Guy has lashed the "faceless leakers" within his own party who he said contributed to the devastating loss in last year's state election.

Speaking on a podcast with radio show host Neil Mitchell, Mr Guy said people within the administration of the party were intent on building their own "brand" through leaking to journalists.

"What you see are these people who offer themselves predominantly to newspapers but also to ABC who are regular haters of the Liberal Party who will just gossip, and that gossip is usually talking the Liberal Party down," he said.

"So people on our side who talk us down, who talk our parliamentary partydown, talkthe brand down, talk us down at every opportunity.

"When you've got senior people in the party undermining you, during the campaign, undermining the campaign, undermining the state director, undermining what we're trying to do. I would ring some of the journalists running these stories and they'd say 'mate, the source is very senior, how can I not?'"

Mr Guy also strongly criticised state party president Greg Mirabella, describing him as "woeful" and a "hindrance to the campaign".

He accused Mr Mirabella of wanting to be on TV and focusing too much on formulating policy, rather than bolstering the party's structure and supporting MPs.

Mr Guy also denied he had the support of Sky News during his leadership, describing the news channel's "after dark" programs as akin to the politics of One Nation and "incredibly damaging to the Liberal Party."

Link:
Victorian Liberal MPs to have free vote in Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum - ABC News

Published April 30, 2023 8:20 p.m. ET

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Former Bank of Canada (and Bank of England)governorMark Carney was on CTV Question Period on Sunday andVassyKapelos was at the top of her game.

When Carney figure skated around her direct question as to whether Justin Trudeau should lead the Liberals against Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre in the next election, she asked it again.

Granted, figure skating doesnt come easily to Carney who is, after all, a former goalie. Still, hissecond non-answer toVassysrepeated question was, indeed, the answer. Carney is refusing to say whether Trudeau is the best person to have that knock-down, drag out fight with the dark blueprince, Poilievre.

In a previous life,I was a minister in a Liberal cabinet in Quebec City. Given my much more enjoyable current role as analyst and commentator, lots of former colleagues who gravitate around the Natural Governing Party love to share gossip and inside tales.

One recurring theme from lifelong federal Liberals is that Trudeau is being told, in the most deferential tones, that given his accomplishments on daycare, dental care andhealth care, he should consider this third term his legacy mandate.

In other words, maybe its time he started looking at which richly paid boards of directors hed like to get named to, when he steps down.

Carney has an edge on any other potential candidate to eventually replace Trudeau. His key role at one of theworldslargest investment firms provides him with an exceptional understanding of the transition that is necessary to steer the planet clear of the calamity that is climate change. He gets it and has the ear of the most important players around the business world on sustainable development issues.

Trudeau, of course, has proven time and again that hes his own man. He wont be shoved. Indeed, if theres one thing Ive learned about him its that he has a tendency to go all in when he sees that everyones reached a conclusion differentfrom his own. If he decides hes staying, no one will make him budge.

At the same time, even though he sees the battle against Poilievre as irresistible, hesstartingto show signs that hes had the biscuit. In question period, Poilievre has been dominant. Issues like Chinese electoral interference and the related Trudeau Foundation scandal wont go away.

Trudeau has a checkered track record on actually running the government, which is supposed to be a big part of the job of aprime minister. While deserving top marks for the handling of the pandemic, Trudeau has otherwise shown a near total disregard for public administration.

Liberals can spin all they want about an increase in government programs, theres absolutely no way to justify or rationalize a 31 per cent increase in the size of the federal bureaucracy in the first seven years of Trudeaus reign.

Thats where someone like Carney comes in. He has the managerial depth of experience so sorely lacking in Trudeau and hisentourage. Bill Morneau was right in his blistering assessment: the Prime MinistersOfficeand the Privy Council are more about managing Trudeaus image than managing the government of aG7country.

There are good reasons to believe that Trudeau is looking at thisfallas a potential window for calling an election. Hed still be able to hold it under the current electoral map. The new one adds a number of seats that are bound to go Conservative.

If Trudeau makes his call just prior to the return of Parliament in September, he gets to campaign all summer on the governments dime and, from June until election day, there will not be a single question period wherePoilievrecan shine. Ministers would be free to travel and make announcements for months without any of it being counted as an electoral expense.

As weve all learned watching the Trudeau Foundation train wreck, the Liberals are experts at navigating the gray zones of political financing. Take $125 million of public money and use old time Liberals to hand it out to deserving (and thankful) future leaders at the top of their class.

Its similar to Canada 2020, not a political expense, just helpful for the red team.

Of course theres an abundance of possible contenders in the current cabinet, the outstanding Chrystia Freeland top among them. Minister Franois-Philippe Champagne has lots of talent and ambitions to match, but hed be up against a long-standing liberal tradition of alternating between anglophone and francophone leaders.

Its worth bearing in mind that of the five political parties represented in the House of Commons, the only one to have never had a woman as leader is the Liberal Party. Thats something many in the party would be seeking to change if and when Trudeau does decide to step down. That, in turn, makes it a tougher hill to climb for both Champagne and Carney.

That desire to finally have a woman leader might provide the incentive for another exceptionally skilled politician, DefenceMinisterAnita Anand, to reach for the brass ring.

In the meantime, the upcoming Liberal convention will be anything but the usual snooze fest. Expect Trudeau to deliver a barn burner where every word has been weighed in the full knowledge that every phrase will be parsed.

Carney says hes going there to listen. Im betting that hes going to hear a lot of positive things. I had the good fortune to invite him to give a keynote speech and to address a smaller graduate class at lUniversit de Montral on economic and environmental issues. Hes a brilliant,engaging character, who still speaks fluent French despite his years away.

His current job is to think about the future of the planet. Im guessing hes also taking some time to think about his ownfuture.

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Tom Mulcair: Why Carney could replace Trudeau - CTV News

When Prime MinisterJustin Trudeau takes the stage and addresses Liberals at their biennial convention next week, he will have been leader of the party for a decade and prime minister for seven and a half years.

So it seems fair to assume that his days of representing political change are long past. "Real change" was the right slogan for 2015, but it's 2023 now.

But if Trudeau is at all inclined to revisit the reformistspirit that marked his early years as Liberal leader, party members have some ideas.

So far, Trudeau's record as a political reformer has been both loudly underwhelming and quietly consequential.

His signature commitment to electoral reform he famously vowed that the 2015 election would be the last federal vote conducted under the first-past-the-post system collapsed in a heap after a convoluted consultation. The promise of a new era of government transparency amounted to only minor changes. And an attempt at comprehensive parliamentary reform was largely abandoned after an opposition filibuster.

But Trudeau haspulled off the most significant reform in the history of the Senate his push to make the Senate an independent institution will be difficult to reverse. The new National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians may also stand the test of time, especially if it proves useful in resolving the current imbroglio over foreign interference. And the federally appointed judiciary is on the verge of achieving gender parity for the first time ever.

It stands to reason that the most dramaticchanges of a prime minister's tenure are most likelyto happenin the earlydays when the government is fresh and new and most eager to mark a break from its predecessor, before the burdens of governing crowd out all other concerns.

At this stage, the Trudeau government's chances of re-election also seem to depend most on the basic business of governing implementing policy, fulfilling the numerous commitments already made, addressing the most immediate needs of Canadians, and building out a record to run on.

But of the 36 policy resolutions set to be debated by Liberals in Ottawa next week, the most interesting are four proposals forpolitical and democratic reform a citizen's assembly on electoral reform, mandatory voting, a "truth-in-political-advertising" lawand a lowervoting age.

All such proposals come with a significant caveat:theparty leader and the government are not required to heed the resolutions passedat party conventions. Ultimately, it's the senior Liberal leadership that writes the party's election platforms and the government's budgets.

But support at a convention can also anticipatea change in party policy. TheLiberals endorsed the legalization of marijuana at a convention in 2012, more than a year and a half before Trudeau adopted the position.

The first of those four reform proposals would require Trudeau to revisit the scene of his failed promise on electoral reform. However awkward it might be, doing so might give him a chance to atone for his original sin.

But if Trudeau still has misgivings about proportional representation(he restated his opposition as recently as September 2021),it's not clear why he would want to hand off the decision to an independent assembly that might very well choose such a system.

The case for making voting mandatory as it is in Australia rests on the beliefthat voter turnout isn't as high as it should be. In that respect, it works;turnout in the most recent Australian election was 90 per cent. Butthere remains the question of whether making voting mandatory would actually improve citizen engagement or the relative quality of Canadian democracy beyond simplyincreasing the absolute number of people voting.

When thespecial committee on electoral reform considered mandatory voting in 2016, it also noted a "general discomfort" with the notion of "penalizing people for not participating in the electoral process."

A "truth-in-advertising" law for political ads holds a certain immediate appeal. Most people like the truth. And many people think politicians don't always tell the simple truth. But writing a suitable law would be easier said than done and it'shard to guess at how effective it would even be politicians generally don't lie so much as they as are selective about facts and context.

Changing the voting age is by no means an obvious political winner. In 2016, the Angus Reid Institute found that just 25 per cent of survey respondents supported lowering the voting age to 16;even among those between the ages of 18 and 34, support was only 34 per cent.Mandatory voting, meanwhile, was supported by 52 per cent. And Trudeau himself voted against an NDP MP's bill last fall that would have lowered the voting age.

But Trudeau has long associated himself with the causes of young people. He chaired a task force on engaging young Canadians as part of a Liberal Party renewal process in 2006, then promoted the idea of a national youth service program after he got elected in 2008. When he became prime minister in 2015, he made himself minister of youth and appointed an official youth council to advise him (members of the council can be as young as 16).

When speaking before an audience of young people, Trudeau invariably tells them that they should think of themselves not just as "leaders of tomorrow" but as leaders of today. And undoubtedlyit's young people who have the most to gain or lose from the dominantpublic policy issue of the moment and one of the Trudeau government's most loudly stated policy priorities:climate change.

While Trudeau and the cabinet voted against thebillto lower the voting age in the fall,20 Liberal MPs voted in favour (they were joined by every NDP and Bloc Quebecois MP). The resolution prepared for the upcoming Liberal convention also offers a compromise. Noting that previous calls to lower the voting age to 16 have failed, the resolution sponsored by the Alberta wing of the party suggests moving the voting age to 17.

Maybe that extra year makes a difference to Liberals. It would at least give them cover to move now after rejecting the NDP bill last fall.

The courts might eventually force Parliament's hand a legal challenge filed in 2021 will test the Supreme Court's suggestion in 2019 that any limit on the right to vote needsto have a "compelling justification." That challenge and moves to lower the voting age in countries like Scotland and New Zealand at least make the case that lowering the voting age in Canada is an idea worthserious consideration something more than the usual scoffing about"kids these days."

Then again, Liberals might simply decide that rejecting this motion would be too ironic. After all, their party constitution allows registered Liberals as young as 14 to vote at conventions.

Read more here:
If Trudeau is still interested in 'real change,' Liberal supporters have ... - CBC.ca

The Liberal government is announcing funding for women's rights abroad an apparent bid to contrast the Liberals' position on reproductive rights with that of conservatives in Canada and the United States.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to reaffirm the Canadian government's commitment to supporting reproductive freedom in New York City today, where he is attending a star-studded summit.

Ahead of that event, International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan told reporters in Ottawa this morning that the government will spend $195 million over five years and $43 million every year after that to help women's rights organizations that are focused on gender equality.

He said the funding is needed because abortion access can be "swiftly" restricted across the world, including in the United States.

The money will fall under the government's Women's Voice and Leadership Program, first launched in 2017. The government says it has worked with about 1,500 organizations through the program so far.

The announcement comes at a time when the Liberals appear to be cutting their overall development spending, which had been boosted to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

This year's federal budget shows spending will be down about 15 per cent in the coming fiscal year.

Sajjan used the announcement to contrast the Liberals' and Conservatives' positions on women's rights.

"When it comes to women's rights, our government is unapologetically pro-choice," Sajjan told reporters at a morning press conference on Parliament Hill.

"The Conservatives continue to look for ways to reopen the debate on abortion access, and unlike them we will never be silent on these issues."

Abortion rights have long been a political lightning rod in both countries, but the debate took on new heat in the U.S. last year when the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 abortion rights ruling known as Roe v. Wade.

Trudeau's trip to New York also includes a focus on trade in critical minerals.

He is scheduled to meet with a UN task force on sustainable development and speak to the influential Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

Experts on both sides of the border hope to hear more about how Ottawa plans to rapidly grow its critical minerals sector.

Former diplomat Louise Blais, now a senior adviser with the Business Council of Canada, says it's time to detail the plan for getting those 21st-century riches out of the ground.

Trudeau is hoping to capitalize on the momentum from what most observers say was a successful and productive visit last month from President Joe Biden.

He's also stopping in at Global Citizen NOW, an annual summit meeting of change-minded celebrities, activists and lawmakers.

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Liberals fund women's rights abroad as Trudeau prepares to talk ... - CBC News

After most Liberals had drifted away from their byelection victory party at a downtown Bathurst pub Monday night, the event took a surprising turn.

Defeated Green candidate Serge Brideau arrived with a small group of his campaign workers.

Brideau had stopped in earlier to congratulate Liberal leader Susan Holt on beating him in Bathurst East-Nepisiguit-St. Isidore.

For his second appearance, he brought his guitar. Soon he was performing Folsom Prison Bluesby Johnny Cash and songs by his own folk-rock band, Les Htesses d'Hilaire.

The remaining Liberals, including Holt's chief of staff Alaina Lockhart and former Bathurst MLA Brian Kenny, seemed alternately bemused and confused as their celebration started to look more like a Green hoedown.

Not a bad metaphor for Monday's byelection results, come to think of it.

As expected, the Liberals swept the three races, in Bathurst East-Nepisiguit-St. Isidore, Restigouche-Chaleur and Dieppe. All three had been Liberal before.

More importantly, Holt got into the legislature, allowing her to go toe-to-toe in debates with Premier Blaine Higgs, whom she hopes to defeat in next year's provincial election.

But the Greens nonetheless squeezed their way into the political frame or at least avoided being squeezed out.

Brideau got 35.4 per cent of the vote against Holt, almost tripling the Green share in the riding last time.

"I gained a lot and I'm back in 2024, for sure," he said.

In Restigouche-Chaleur, Green candidate Rachel Boudreau, a former mayor, got 31.6 per cent of the vote, placing second to winner Marco LeBlanc. Progressive Conservative Anne Bard-Lavigne trailed with 15.8 per cent.

And in Dieppe, where Liberal Richard Losier scooped up more than two-thirds of the vote, the Greens had 18.8 per cent, compared to a dismal 8.6 per cent for the third-place PCs.

The Tories didn't run a candidate against Holt.

"It's interesting to see that in New Brunswick, for francophones at this moment, the second party is not the Conservatives,it's the Greens," says Roger Ouellette, a political scientist at the University of Moncton.

The Green vote wasn't enough to win in three traditionally Liberal strongholds.

But if the party's support improves at the same rate in ridings that are less reliably Liberal, it could make it difficult for Holt to become premier in 2024.

Ouellette pointed out that the Greenshave also been competitive in the mostly anglophone southern part of the province.

"We will see in the next election if the Greens stay in touch with voters and are able to have good candidates like this time and obtain some votes," Ouellette said.

"Maybe it will split the vote and it will be an advantage for the Conservatives."

In that sense, Monday's results represent no change to the existing dynamic in New Brunswick politics.

A best-ever for the Greens still isn't a breakthrough. Wins are wins: Holt will be in the legislature and Brideau won't. There'll be no crashing that party.

Holt argued the approach that led to her victory can be applied province-wide.

"People have lost faith in politics and government. So giving them hope that it can change is hard work that we need to do everywhere, because I don't think any vote can be taken for granted," she said Monday night.

Capturing traditional Liberal ridings, however, is a lot easier than building party support in areas where the PCs remain strong.

Sure, the Tories remain equally dead on arrival in most francophone areassomething Higgs blamed on the Liberals, telling reporters his opponents benefit from language divisions.

"I feel that we see that politically in the province, where there's certainly a value for the Liberals to maintain a political divide along linguistic lines," he said.

Higgs said given the history of the ridings, "the probability is low" that his party would win them anytime soon.

But hehas shown in two straight elections that he doesn't need to do well in those places to win.

If Monday's results represent a political status quo, frozen in place the Liberals with a Green problem, and the Greens with a Liberal problem that's good news for the leader, and the party, already in power.

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Wins are wins for N.B. Liberals, but Greens celebrate too - CBC.ca