OTTAWA–Women from around the world will take centre stage as the Broadbent Institute’s inaugural Progress Summit kicks off its first full day in Ottawa.

Following a speech by Broadbent Institute chair Ed Broadbent laying out the paths to build a progressive Canada, three keynote speakers will take the floor through the day, beginning with Mariana Mazzucato of the University of Sussex talking about the economics of innovation. Mazzucato, author of The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, will be followed by Axelle Lemaire, a Canadian-born French National Assemblywoman.

The summit’s main keynote takes place at 4:30 p.m. Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard will discuss the future of progressive politics. Following her keynote address, the Broadbent Institute and Equal Voice will host a special event to celebrate Australia’s first female Prime Minister.

In the evening, Canadian musician Sarah Harmer, along with Toronto’s Blurred Vision and Sally Folk of Montreal, will take the stage to entertain summit participants. 

WHAT: Progress Summit

Jenny Uechi / Vancouver Observer

Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was in Ottawa this weekend for the Broadbent Institute Progress Summit. Speaking to Raylene Lang-Dion from Equal Voice, a multi-partisan organization dedicated to electing more women in Canada, Gillard gave some advice for women aiming to enter politics: 

"You've got to be resilient," she said. "Politics in today's world is somewhere that you're criticized [through] social media, and people will see the most awful things written about them and really stress and worry about that. You've got to find some of the tricks to say, 'I'm going to keep all that at arm's length. 'I can 't let twitter tell me what to think about myself.'"

She said mistakes big and small can happen, but that women in politics need to remember the larger picture.

"Don't worry about the small things, focus on the big things, the big purpose that got you into politics in the first place...Always be clear about your purpose. You won't survive in politics unless you know why you're there…be strong in yourself. Shape your own image of yourself, and don't let others, whether it be pages of the newspapers, or TV cameras or something else, shape your image."

Tim Naumetz / Hill Times

A former top campaign organizer for U.S. President Barack Obama, now working on a political action committee backing Hilary Clinton should she seek the presidency in 2016, gave closed-door briefings and workshops to union organizers, activists and NDP volunteers Thursday as part of a Broadbent Institute  “progress summit” for political action.

The workshops and strategy sessions by Mitch Stewart, a series of briefings that also featured members of the institute’s newly appointed field of high-profile “leadership fellows” also involved in the sessions, took place the day before the official start of the summit that headlines former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard as a somewhat controversial keynote speaker.

Elected as Australia’s Labour Party prime minister in 2010, Ms. Gillard included opposition to legalizing same-sex marriage among her main policy positions.

The two-day summit hosted by the Broadbent Institute—a left wing or progressive version of the Calgary-based Manning Centre, a right-wing training ground and networking institute founded by former Reform Party leader Preston Manning—features activists, authors, professors and social democrat politicians with panels and individual presentations covering a range of social and economic themes, including green politics, indigenous peoples’ rights social networking advocacy campaigns and defence of trade union rights.

Some of Parliament Hill’s top journalists, including author Susan Delacourt ofThe Toronto Star, Canadian Press bureau chief Heather Scoffield, and Maclean’s magazine columnist and author Paul Wells, are moderating several of the panels.

Mr. Stewart, founding partner at 270 Strategies, a longtime political activist, and Battleground States director for the Obama campaign in the 2012 presidential general election, was unable to speak in detail about his remarks and presentations behind the closed doors of “summit leadership training,” but explained them in general terms during an interview with The Hill Times.

A recent national Liberal policy convention in Montreal also featured closed-door campaign training sessions for party activists, but a presentation on online campaigning from another former Obama organizer was open to journalists.

“We talked about the lessons that we learned on the Obama campaign of running an effective campaign, running an effective organization, talking about setting goals, what are the strategies that can help you achieve those goals, and then what are the tactics that can help your strategy achieve those goals, giving some real-world examples and then workshopping a little bit with some Canadian specific examples,” Mr. Stewart said, without elaborating on the Canadian content.

“We’ll talk a lot this afternoon about relationship building, telling the story itself, narrative building, we’ll talk a lot about goal setting, and kind of melding the relationship-building aspects of the campaign with the cold, hard data and analytics of a campaign and how you employ the organization to help you achieve goals that the data and analytics inform,” he said.

Asked if Canadian political parties had reached the same level of sophistication as the Democrats and Republicans, in terms the kind of data-based voter contact campaigns and online networking that first propelled Mr. Obama into the White House and led to his re-election in 2012, Mr. Stewart replied: “I think they are exploring ways of trying to catch up. Your data and privacy acts are different here than they are in the United States. We have access to a lot more information than parties here do, to their voters. Not everything is transferable or replicable.

“In the United States, voter files are basically public information,” Mr. Stewart said. “If you’re a registered voter, everything you put down on your voter registration card, you could have access to, what your address is, anything you put down there,” Mr. Stewart said.

Importantly, electors in most of the states also register as either Democrat or Republican supporters. In Canada, that information can only be obtained through direct voter contact, either by door-to-door canvassing or telephone calling, and usually through election writ periods.

Although the Democratic Party maintains a vast database of state and federal electoral information centrally in Washington, D.C., it is securely guarded from unauthorized access from either inside or outside the party.

“We have a whole staff of people that manage, for sure, and most states have a person too,” Mr. Stewart said.

“The information on there, there is some proprietary information based on door knocks or phone calls, what candidates they support, but there are very tight limitations on what you can use a voter file for and what you can’t,” he said.

In a ruling over court challenges of the outcome in six federal election districts for the 2011 general election in Canada, based on allegations of fraudulent calls to voters who did not support the Conservative party, Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley said as part of his judgment that the voters’ home telephone numbers were likely drawn from the Conservative party’s main voter contact and information data base.

However, Judge Mosley ruled there was not enough evidence to rule that misleading calls in any of the six electoral districts affected the outcome of the vote.

A media relations expert providing consulting assistance to the Broadbent Institute, chaired by former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, said summit attendees are not exclusively members or supporters of the NDP.

“There’s a wide group of grassroots volunteers, some of whom will likely be volunteering on NDP or for other political parties,” said Caitlin Kealey of MediaStyle.

OTTAWA–Progressives from across Canada are gathering in Ottawa for the next three days to map out a fair, sustainable and prosperous Canadian economy.

“Convening a gathering of Canada’s most impressive thinkers and leaders for the Institute’s inaugural Progress Summit is a role I cherish,” said Ed Broadbent, chair of the Broadbent Institute.

“We are dedicated to finding the best way forward for a more equal Canada, and I am optimistic that coming out of this Summit we will have real policy answers for the challenges and opportunities facing our country.”

Throughout the weekend, participants will be learning from the best and the brightest from Canada and around the world, including keynote speaker Julia Gillard, the former Prime Minister of Australia.

“The best ideas come through vigorous discussion and debate,” said Rick Smith, the Broadbent Institute’s Executive Director. “The Summit won’t disappoint -- and will no doubt inform the nation’s policy debates and give new momentum to the Canadian progressive movement.”

The summit will focus on shared prosperity, building a green economy and democratic renewal. Leading organizers and experts in online engagement will share their expertise on how to craft winning campaigns.

There is also a focus on celebrating women in politics, with all four keynotes being prominent women. In addition, the Broadbent Institute and Equal Voice are hosting a reception on Saturday evening for Gillard. Australia’s first female Prime Minister will be named an Equal Voice Global Champion for women in politics.

The summit kicks off with a welcome reception Friday evening and wraps up on Sunday afternoon. On Saturday night, Canadian musicians Sarah Harmer, Blurred Vision and Sally Folk of Montreal are performing for participants.

For the full schedule: http://www.broadbentinstitute.ca/en/summit/schedule

Speakers include:

• Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia
• Mariana Mazzucato, author of The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths
• Anastasia Khoo, Marketing Director, Human Rights Campaign
• Axelle Lemaire, French National Assemblywoman for Northern Europe
• Don Drummond, Professor at Queen’s University and Canadian economist
• Alex Himelfarb, former Privy Council Clerk
• Nancy Neamtan, Executive Director, Chantier de l'économie sociale
• Mitch Stewart, 270 Strategies Founding Partner and Battleground States Director for the 2012 Obama for America campaign

For more information:

Caitlin Kealey
[email protected] or 613-818-7956