Building for the Next Generation of the Ontario Liberal Party

Yasir Naqvi releases his plan to transform the Ontario Liberal Party

Ottawa, ON — September 28, 2023

Today Yasir Naqvi released his plan to transform the Ontario Liberal Party, grow our tent and ensure we are ready to fight and win in 2026.

“If we are going to win against Doug Ford, we must first transform the Ontario Liberal Party. That means re-focussing on supporting ridings, truly listening to the membership on policy ideas and making sure everyone’s voice is heard – not just those in the 416 or the 613,” said Yasir Naqvi. “The most important lesson I took from my time as Party President is that we only win when we have strong, engaged, and empowered volunteers in all parts of the province. As your leader, I will do the hard work to transform our party by building strong riding associations across all 124 ridings.”

Yasir has a comprehensive plan to truly transform our party, based on his long experience as an OLP member, volunteer, riding association executive, candidate, MPP and party president, this includes:

Strengthen the Grassroots

Local volunteers and riding associations are the backbone of our party, and without them, we can’t win the next election. While in government we became too dependent on the expertise and support of held ridings and part-time volunteers who also held day jobs in and around government.

As party president from 2009-2013, Yasir’s focus was on visiting and working with unheld riding associations to build up their capacity and connection to the party, helping Ontario Liberals to a majority victory in 2014.

Yasir firmly believes that our party and Leader need to be meeting you where you are, and hearing from you to ensure our politics and work reflect the views across Ontario. To do this he will:

  • Create a full-time, paid field organization team, with a specific mandate to create and maintain permanent and evergreen riding resources, training sessions and implement an onboarding process for PLA presidents to ensure they are successful.
  • Visit all 124 ridings at least once in his first year and implement Nate’s idea to meet with every riding association president annually.
  • Hold quarterly town halls around the province that are open to all members and meet with Northerners in the North every quarter.
  • Set a date for the first policy convention within 90 days, and prior to this convention, host standalone Northern and Rural policy summits to inform a dedicated Northern and Rural Election Platform in 2026.
  • Continue to attend the OYL Summer Fling and seek their policy submissions to inform our plan.

Fair & Open Nominations

Yasir’s steadfast belief in fair and open nominations stems from his own experience of not being the “preferred candidate”. Through open nominations, like the one Yasir fought and won in 2007, OLP has seen ridings flourish with increased membership and fundraising capabilities. To run and win, Ontario Liberals need to see themselves in the party and the candidates who run.

To ensure this happens, Yasir will:

  • Open nominations and publish Nomination Rules by June 4, 2024.
  • Limit candidate appointments to a maximum of 2 in any region, make all appointments or designation of ridings for appointments no later than January 1, 2026.
  • Recruit and give spotlight to a full slate of governing-ready candidates who are peers - not subordinates.
  • Prescribe transparent mechanisms and requirements for women only nominations to ensure at least half of candidates are women in each region.
  • Create a support program for candidates from equity-deserving groups, identify ridings facing recruitment challenges and only greenlight candidates who can demonstrate the ability to build a team of volunteers and raise money to run a campaign.

Modern & Principled Fundraising

With the end of the per-vote subsidy looming at the end of 2024, our party is in trouble and we need to fundamentally rethink how we raise money to rebuild our party infrastructure. Yasir believes we need to develop a sustainable fundraising program focused on small dollar donations from members and the general public (not special interests). To do this he will:

  • Utilize modern political fundraising tools and tactics that have demonstrated success including running sophisticated digital fundraising campaigns, and investing in strengthening in-house data analytics and audience segmentation capabilities.
  • Dedicate resources in the party office towards fundraising, both centrally and at a riding level.
  • Work with the party membership to develop OLP’s first fundraising policy to ensure every dollar is raised ethically and transparently.
  • Create new rules to ban paid political staff from serving on the Executive Council of the Ontario Liberal Party.

 

Policy Backgrounder: Building for the Next Generation of the Ontario Liberal Party

The Ontario Liberal Party has been in decline since before the 2018 election - we have lost touch with our members, with our community organizers and what it means to truly be an inclusive “big tent party.” 

We need to reverse this trend if we are going to transform our party and ensure we are ready to fight and win in 2026. 

Ontario Liberals win when we have strong, engaged, and empowered volunteers, candidates and riding associations, and the new leader has to do the work to build that party infrastructure across all 124 ridings . 

This means re-focussing on supporting ridings on the ground, truly listening to the membership on policy ideas and making sure that everyone’s voice is heard – not just those in the 416 or the 613. 

It also means doing the hard work across the province to strengthen or rebuild all 124 riding associations, to recruit, engage, and empower a new generation of volunteers, and to build a new class of candidates - a team that looks like Ontarians today - that will take on Doug Ford’s team of disengaged and disconnected MPPs in 2026. 

To truly transform our party, we need a leader who’s not afraid of hard work, and who will come to you where you are to hear your ideas about how to rebuild. 

Yasir has a comprehensive plan to truly transform our party, based on his long experience as an OLP member, volunteer, riding association executive, candidate, MPP and party president.

Strengthen the Grassroots 

Local volunteers and riding associations are the backbone of our party, and without them, we can’t win the next election. While in government we became too dependent on the expertise and support of held ridings and part-time volunteers who also held day jobs in and around government. 

As party president from 2009-2013, Yasir’s focus was on visiting and working with unheld riding associations to build up their capacity and connection to the party, helping Ontario Liberals to a majority victory in 2014. 

Yasir firmly believes that our party and Leader need to be meeting you where you are, and hearing from you to ensure our politics and work reflect the views across Ontario. To do this he will focus on making himself accessible, supporting ridings, meet the constitutional requirement for annual policy conventions, and create a dedicated Rural and Northern Platform for the 2026 election. 

  • Leader Accessibility: There is no substitute for meeting Liberals where they are and ensuring their voice is heard by the leader regularly and directly. That’s why Yasir will: 
    • Commit to visiting every riding in the province at least once in the first year after the leadership convention.
    • Expand on Nate Erskine-Smith’s motion at the last OLP convention that requires the leader to meet with every riding association president annually, through regional meetings by having those meetings in each region, so the leader is engaging the Party’s most active volunteers where they are.
    • Holding quarterly townhalls - in person around the province, with a virtual option - that are open to all members to ask questions and raise concerns.
    • Continue to attend the OYL Summer Fling and ask for their policy submissions to inform our plan. 
  • Riding Support: Volunteers and riding associations are the backbone of our movement and have been under-resourced for far too long. To create a strong, resilient volunteer base that will help us win the next election, Yasir will: 
    • Create a full-time, paid field organization team that is focused on training, strengthening, and empowering riding associations across the province.
    • Create a permanent, online riding toolkit that will always be available (not just during elections).
    • Institute monthly virtual training sessions open to all members to support key on the ground activities 
    • Create an onboarding process for new PLA presidents to ensure they have the information and tools they need to be successful.
  • Policy Conventions: Losing touch with party members and cutting them out of the policy process is one of the key reasons we lost our way in the lead-up to the 2018 election. Party members, candidates, and caucus are central to the policy development process – they’re our most reliable connection to people across the province and they understand what is preoccupying people in their communities. To make sure we are in touch with Liberals and Ontarians across the province, Yasir will:
    • Uphold the requirement in the party constitution for an annual policy development conference. Within 90 days of becoming leader, Yasir will ask the Executive Council to set a date for the first policy conference to start the platform development process for the next election, and further ask that prior to that, we have dedicated conferences for Northern and Rural policy.
    • Engage with party members on an ongoing basis to inform policy positions and how we deliver on them, through policy conventions, travelling to meet Liberals where they are, and increased accessibility to PLA presidents and members in general. 
  • Rural and Northern Platform: We can’t have people in Toronto and Ottawa tell the rest of the province what they need, it has to work the other way around. To makes sure Northern and Rural voices are heard and properly represented, Yasir will: 
    • Host a standalone Northern and Rural policy summits to inform a dedicated Northern and Rural Election Platform in 2026.
    • Engage with the members of our party in those regions, making sure we are producing a document that reflects their input on what their communities need to thrive.
    • Build on the existing Rural and Northern Commission by giving it an explicit mandate to advocate for those communities and ensure their views are being heard throughout the policy development process, and a mandate to co-lead the creation of the Rural and Northern Platform. 

Fair & Open Nominations 

Yasir’s steadfast belief in fair and open nominations stems from his own experience of not being the “preferred candidate”. The party ensured a fair

process, and by selling memberships and engaging grassroots Liberals, Yasir won that nomination in 2007. Afterwards, the party united behind him and he was able to win the riding in the general election. 

To run and win, Ontario Liberals need to see themselves in the party and the candidates who run. Yasir’s commitment is that everyone who wants to run for us should have the same experience that he did. To ensure this happens, Yasir will: 

  • Open nominations and publish Nomination Rules by June 4, 2024. ● Limit candidate appointments to a maximum of 2 in any region and make all appointments or designation of ridings for appointments no later than January 1, 2026 to eliminate surprises in the months leading up to the campaign. 
  • Recruit and give the spotlight to a full slate of governing-ready candidates who are peers - not subordinates - and will demonstrate to Ontarians that we are ready to govern. 
  • Prescribe transparent mechanisms and requirements for women only nominations to ensure at least half of candidates are women in each region.
    • This could be an automatic mechanism so that if any region is falling too far behind, the next three nominations will automatically be women-only (a gap of 4 when there are 10 or more nominations remaining, 3 when between 6 and 9 remaining, 2 when 5 or less remaining)
    • In all other cases, I’ll declare women-only ridings early, so that potential contestants are not caught off-guard after investing time and effort in a nomination 
  • Create a mentorship and support program for candidates from equity seeking groups and communities who would like to run in a nomination, to empower them to build their volunteer networks and fundraising capacity. 
    • In the first year after the leaderships, we will engage party members to design this program and set eligibility requirements.
  • Our failure in fielding a full slate of candidates early undermined our credibility as a government-in-waiting in the 2022 election. To avoid this in the next election, the campaign committee will be mandated to:
    • Identify a list of 25 ridings most likely to face challenges in candidate recruitment at the first campaign committee meeting and start recruiting potential candidates in those ridings early.
    • Appoint a member from the executive committee of the Rural & Northern Commission to be an ex-officio co-chair of the candidate recruitment committee.
    • Establish a task force, to be co-led by the campaign chair and the President of the Rural & Northern Commission, to support candidate recruitment efforts in those ridings.
    • Set organizational and fundraising requirements that must be met before a nomination contestant is greenlit - they will need to demonstrate that they have the capacity to build a team of volunteers and raise money to run a campaign before they can get on the ballot. 

Modern & Principled Fundraising 

With the end of the per-vote subsidy looming at the end of 2024, our party is going to have to fundamentally rethink how we raise money to rebuild our party infrastructure - both centrally and at the riding level. Yasir believes we need to develop a sustainable fundraising program focused on small dollar donations from members and the general public (not from special interests). To do this he will:

  • Utilize modern political fundraising tools and tactics that have demonstrated success including running sophisticated digital fundraising campaigns, and investing in strengthening in-house data analytics and audience segmentation capabilities. 
  • Dedicate resources in the party office towards fundraising, both centrally and at a riding level. 
  • Work with the party membership to develop OLP’s first fundraising policy to ensure every dollar raised is done so ethically and transparently. 
  • Create new rules to ban paid political staff from serving on the Executive Council of the Ontario Liberal Party.