Weed activists will help put Rae in as Liberal leader

Red flags went off in my head as soon as I saw the number of 25-and-unders being reported as Liberal convention attendees:

“With about 1,000 delegates here at the Liberal biennial convention being under the age of 25, a youth movement is certainly evident.” (see here)

This is normally a feel-good story as everyone likes the idea of young people getting involved in politics but one of the dangers of reducing the fees so dramatically, is it opens the door for special interest groups to manipulate party policies.

As a party official, I watched Belinda Stronach’s youth delegates at the Conservative 2005 convention in Montreal nearly take control of the executive administration and leave some policy time-bombs which would have handcuffed Stephen Harper to the point of impotency and potentially blown up the newly formed party.

So when the Liberal Party passed their pro-weed resolution with a 77% majority and I saw who was celebrating (see earlier post), then watched as Bob Rae flip-flopped on his support for dope (see here), it confirmed in my mind who will be a major force behind Rae becoming the permanent leader all set up by their new voting rules (see here).

 

Did CBC, CTV, Global not see dopers toking up outside Liberal convention?

I find it very suspect that the only news organization that I’ve seen report on marijuana activists including the co-founder of the Marijuana Party sparking up a spliff to celebrate the Liberals passing a pro-weed platform, was the Hill Times:

When a controversial resolution to legalize marijuana was passed with 77 per cent support on Sunday morning at the Liberal biennial convention, two Liberal delegates told The Hill Times they were going outside the Ottawa Convention Centre to celebrate by smoking “a doobie.”

They were joined by John Shavluk, a Liberal party member from British Columbia, and an original co-founder of the Marijuana Party, who took a toke off the joint as it was passed around. (see here)

It’s not like this resolution wasn’t massively covered, so how did all these media outlets seemingly miss filming this ‘celebration’? Could it be that they intentionally looked the other way or was this story spiked?

The visual of people smoking dope does not go over very well with grandma and grandpa voters watching the Sunday news.

Also: Photo above is of John Shavluk who ended up running as an independent in 2008 when the Green Party refused to sign his nomination papers after his quote of  “Jewish World Bank” came out. Adrian MacNair has a nice run-down including the lawsuit against Elizabeth May filed by Shavluk here.