Partisans Anonymous

Hi. My name is Kieran, and I'm a recovering Liberal.

{insert monotone choral response here} Hi Kieran.

I have been politically sober for three months now, and I'm taking it a day at a time.

Before I quit cold turkey in December, I had been an addicted Liberal for nearly ten years. I was a good Liberal. I was a loyal Liberal. I was a hard-working Liberal. Every election I would spend days at a time away from my family, taking the fight to the streets like a good Liberal soldier. I went to all the Liberal schmoozes around Ottawa. I joined all the Liberal Facebook groups.

I believed in the Liberal Party.
No, I didn't just believe...
I Believed.

I knew the Liberal Party was... flexible... in its policy - swaying back and forth from left to right, and occasionally completely reversing policy direction in an instant. I Believed this was ok - that it represented a pragmatic approach that shifted appropriately to reflect an ever changing world.

I knew the Liberal Party had its flaws. It was ruled by a small clique of backroom wheeler-dealers who scuttled like cockroaches from one leader's inner circle to the next, never loosening their grip on power. The party was disconnected from its own grassroots. It was even more disconnected from the needs and interests of rural Canadians, and the backrooms boys didn't seem to care. But I Believed the Party could change. I Believed it could be better, a truly democratic and representative party. Over the years I worked for that belief, joining renewal task forces and grassroots groups pushing for change. But somehow we never made progress.

I sank lower and lower until I finally hit rock bottom. Or rather, rock bottom hit me. And the rock's name was Michael Ignatieff. In one stunning, horrible moment Iggy seized control of my party without the vote of one single grassroots party member. A move breathtaking in its political audacity, and utter disregard for party democracy. But was was far worse was seeing the rest of the party not only accept the coup, but welcome it with open arms. It was then I realized how far we all had fallen. I realized the critics had been right all along: the only thing Liberals really stand for is getting elected. I knew had to give it up. And just a week ago, watching my former partisan colleagues smile vacantly while their leader prostituted them to the oil sands, I realized I got out only just in time.

But what, then, was I to do? A progressive moderate centrist with a love of politics, bereft of a home. Where was I to go? To the Conservatives, who have dragged Canadian politics to new lows of viciousness and hypocrisy? Not likely. To the NDP? They who claim to represent environmental values but reject the most forward-thinking environmental policy in decades simply because it was proposed by an opposing party... who wouldn't know fiscal discipline if it jumped up and bit them on the backside... whose leader flip flops and leaps at every latest passing policy fad like some ambulance-chasing lawyer? Again, not likely.

So I came at last to the Greens. Many times had I seen them from the opposite side of election campaigns. They were the only opponents I and my fellow Liberals every truly respected, because of their unfailing decency and fair play in campaigns. And lo, a party that not only espoused progressive social and environmental values, but good economic discipline as well!

And here I am. Hoping this will be the place where I can finally do some good for my country. Hoping this won't prove to be just another poisonous political addiction.