"The Liberals shall rise again," says Conrad Black

[a_majoor]

The Prime Minister nails it:

http://hatrockscave.blogspot.ca/2012/09/harper-ndp-brings-bad-ideas-where.html

Harper: "NDP brings bad ideas.. where Liberals bring none"
Full story here.

In the 90's, back in my U of A political club days during the annual Model Parliament, I noticed how easy it was for us on the Reform/Canadian Alliance opposition bench to debate the Liberal gov't (who were the gov't in power during that time).  They lacked any real passion other than happy they were in power.  But more significantly, they lacked ideas.  They even admitted it to me in the evening parties that their party was not about original ideas, it was about taking them from the left or right and being pragmatic to the n-th degree.  It was classic linear ideology 101.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Liberals were the most successful political party in the the democratic world.  They were masters of balancing the politically astute ideas from the left and right, whether good or bad, whether it solved anything or not, and sold them to the public as sound policy all for one primary purpose... power.  NDP came up with universal health care, Liberals enacted it.  Chretien tells everyone he's getting rid of the GST, but keeps it, although it was good Conservative policy.  Oh sure, the Liberals had their Red Book of 1993, but really, it was more for show that they did have ideas.

The Liberal party of the last 10 years or so has had a massive policy vacuum, even if that policy means stealing them from the left or right, they don't appear to agree with either side.  The only real original idea came from former Liberal leader Stephane Dion with the carbon tax.  Sure it was supposedly original, but Canadians rejected it as a bad idea and elected the Conservatives again instead.

The Liberals continue to swoon for a dauphin leader to pull them out of the vacuum with some grand ideas, when their ideas should be coming from their membership or at least enhanced ideas from the left or right,  it is seemingly so that Liberal support across Canada (and other western nations) appears in a hole.  It will take much more than young Trudeau to save them.  At least his father had ideas, although very bad ones.

With the NDP seemingly moving to the centre and the Conservatives having moved to the centre a while back, the Liberals got pushed out... especially on ideas.  And so Prime Minister Harper is bang-on:  “The one difference between the NDP and the Liberal Party is at least the NDP brings bad ideas to this debate, whereas the Liberals bring none.”

and the article here:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/liberals-go-on-the-attack-after-harper-says-they-stand-for-nothing/article4554914/?cmpid=rss1&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Liberals go on the attack after Harper says they stand for nothing

GLORIA GALLOWAY

OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Sep. 19 2012, 5:14 PM EDT

Last updated Wednesday, Sep. 19 2012, 9:08 PM EDT

The federal Liberals may enjoy watching Conservatives accuse New Democrats of favouring a carbon tax but the third party in the Commons has not been immune this week to government attack messaging – specifically accusations that it stands for nothing.

On Monday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper brushed off Liberal questions in the House of Commons by saying: “The one difference between the NDP and the Liberal Party is at least the NDP brings bad ideas to this debate, whereas the Liberals bring none.”

And on Tuesday, he said: “The NDP, while I disagree with its policies, has put a few of those things - carbon tax, protectionism - on the table. The Liberal Party says, ‘look at us, we’re not either of them.’ That is not a policy. People expect to have some idea why the Liberal party still exists down there.”

It is a criticism that seems to have struck a nerve.

Ralph Goodale, the Deputy Liberal Leader, told reporters on Wednesday after his party’s morning caucus meeting that Conservative policies are leading to greater inequality and “Mr. Harper’s answer is glib, complacent, political shots that are cold comfort to Canadians who really need to know that the government is on their side.”

Behind the scenes, Liberal strategists said their MPs should respond to Mr. Harper’s accusations by comparing him to Mitt Romney, the U.S. Republican presidential candidate who was caught saying 47 per cent of all Americans “believe they are victims” entitled to help from the government. Liberal politicians were urged to say, in reply to the Prime Minister, that Mr. Harper is similarly interested in targetting only certain voters “but the fact that more than 60 per cent of Canadians would never vote for the Conservatives doesn’t mean those doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

In fact, Mr. Harper was not in the Commons during the daily Question Period on Wednesday so he could not continue his line of attack. And the Liberals could not return the volley.

But Dominic LeBlanc, the Liberal foreign affairs critic, still adhered to the path recommended by the strategist. “The Prime Minister once said that providing for the poor is not a federal responsibility,” Mr. Leblanc said in his opening question. “He does not think it is his job to help those people. The Prime Minister was clearly having a Mitt Romney moment.”

The Liberals, who have endured a prolonged period of upheaval within their party, are about to launch into a protracted contest to elect a fourth leader in sixth years. That does not include interim Leader Bob Rae whose absence from the Commons this week, the first days of the fall sitting, has not gone unnoticed.

Policy is not easy to develop without strong guidance from the top and eager foot soldiers on the ground who are keen to feed ideas to the centre. At this juncture, the Liberals must be more concerned about the large numbers of moribund riding associations and their chances of attracting strong and charismatic candidates to the leadership race than putting together a platform for an election that is still three years away.

The party website offers much criticism of the Harper government but not many solid proposals that can be used to attract voters.

Still, Mr. Goodale says criticism that Liberals are not offering new proposals is unfair.

Just this week, he told reporters, a Liberal colleague said in the Commons that tax credits should be made refundable so they can benefit lower income people. Liberals, said Mr. Goodale, have said Conservative increases to payroll taxes should be put on hold, have offered ideas about making post-secondary education more affordable, have suggested specific job creation measures for young people in places where the unemployment rate is 15 per cent, and have proposed better public-financing arrangements for co-operative housing.

“We focussed on very specific measures aimed at this issue of inequality in our economy,” said Mr. Goodale, “and we will continue to do that to make it clear that there is an agenda that this government could follow completely within the confines of the rules of fiscal responsibility.”

 

[Edward Campbell]

I'm putting this article, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, here because, while it covers a lot of ground, some of its key points regard the Liberal Party of Canada:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/mulroney-unplugged-a-former-pms-thoughts-on-quebec-trudeau-and-the-legacy-of-free-trade/article4587805/

Mulroney unplugged: A former PM’s thoughts on Quebec, Trudeau and the legacy of free trade

SANDRA MARTIN
The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Oct. 03 2012

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney came to Toronto on Tuesday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the free trade agreement he negotiated with the United States in 1987. Before his speech, he met with The Globe and Mail’s editorial board. Speaking quietly at first, Mr. Mulroney grew more voluble and emphatic when he talked about his political rivals and his legacy. Otherwise, he was convivial, occasionally self-deprecating. By the end of the hour, he was telling stories like in the old days.

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney meets with The Globe’s editorial board on Wednesday.
(FRED LUM/THE GLOBE AND MAIL)

JUSTIN TRUDEAU

People who underestimate him do so at their peril. The apple doesn’t fall very fall from the tree. He has some of the grit of his dad, and he’s obviously got some of the qualities required to win election.

You can be the greatest guy or woman in the world, but if you can’t win an election, you aren’t going to do very much for your party and you aren’t going to get the right [to run the country] because history is written by the victors.

FREE TRADE

If you go back and look at the debates that I had with [Liberal prime minster John Turner during the 1988 election], not a single, solitary thing that he said has turned out to be true. Nothing that he forecast, not one [thing], not a sliver of one turned out to be accurate.

We have become wealthier as a country, and because we have become wealthier, we have become stronger economically, and because we are stronger economically, we are more solid as a nation. Strong central governments only exist with strong balance sheets behind them.

The attitudinal change is no less important than the economic change. Canadians are now outward-looking, positive and happy warriors around the world, competing with everybody and winning.

THE LIBERAL PARTY

They face an intellectual challenge, a policy challenge, a structural challenge and they are up against two very tough, experienced, able politicians who aren’t going to let them get away with anything.

If I were a Liberal strategist, I’d say, ‘What the hell happened?’

There’s all kinds of blaming to do. The first was the decision to proceed with the National Energy Program, which wiped the Liberals out in western Canada. They have never come back.

The second was the decision to repatriate unilaterally the Constitution in 1981 over the objections of the federalists and the separatists in the Quebec National Assembly. The day that that decision was taken, the Liberals had 74/75 seats in the House of Commons, and they have gone down in a steady unbroken line from 74 out of 75 seats in Quebec to seven seats in the last election.

If you want to ignore the 800-pound gorilla in the room, go ahead, but those are the two gorillas that the Liberal Party has to deal with before you can clear the decks and start making a comeback

THE NATIONAL ENERGY PROGRAM

The NEP, it can be argued, looted the Alberta treasury of $100-billion. Why? To artificially subsidize consumers in Ontario and Quebec. Why? For political reasons, to sustain the votes here. This was unfair, this was wrong.

THE UNITED NATIONS

John Baird is an activist foreign affairs minister, and I think in many areas he is doing a very good job. He speaks the truth, he speaks out, and you don’t have to agree with him all the time to know that he stands for something.

My own view is that Canada benefited enormously from the existence of the United Nations and it enhanced our capacity to promulgate our views and defend our principles and ideals around the world. Try to imagine the world without it.

We don’t have the strength to impose our will or get our way bilaterally at all times. We need the instruments of international harmony. I know that when Canada was defeated for a seat on the security council [in 2010], it understandably irritated a lot of people.

ISRAEL

The fact that the General Assembly of the United Nations takes these looney tunes positions against Israel all the time, which I completely repudiate, makes them look needlessly foolish, by this kind of juvenile delinquency. Understandably, the Harper government and Mr. Baird react very strongly to this. All that said, Israel is still a member. Why? Because they have to be there. And if you are going to be there, you should try to make it as strong and perfect as you can.

HIS ADVICE ABOUT QUEBEC

[Prime Minister Stephen] Harper would be wise to keep his head down on this and see how it evolves. They know there is going to be an election in very short order. This minority government is not going to last forever.

PAULINE MAROIS

She is a good person. She is a sensible person and she is smart, but she is going to have to stand back and ask where do these [economic policies and tax cuts] leave the whole province?

HIS ECONOMIC LEGACY

[Former Liberal prime minister Jean] Chrétien [his successor as PM] played a key role because he could have gone back to where he was [as finance minister for Pierre Trudeau] or he could have accepted the general parameters and outlines of what we had initiated. He chose to follow that, so he established the principle of continuity, which was then followed by [Paul] Martin and Mr. Harper.

So for 30 years, Canada was unique in the industrialized world in avoiding the quixotic lurches from left to right and up and down in economic policy. Four prime ministers followed essentially the same economic polices. That played a significant role in the economic success that Mr. Harper was able to expand upon when the world came to Toronto for the G8 and G20.

HIMSELF AFTER POLITICS

As time goes by, the old mind isn’t as sharp as I used to think it was.”

You have visions when you are elected, you have a views when you are a taxpayer.

I have argued, very often in these pages, that the Liberal Party of Canada has a long standing and very deep division that opened in the 1960s when Pierre Trudeau repudiated the policy positions that had, albeit loosely, united Laurier, King, St Laurent and Pearson. John Turner, in his turn, repudiated Trudeau while Chretien, although one of Trudeau's loyalists, carried on with what, as Mulroney correctly asserts, was a Conservative view of Canada's economy: Chretien was a classic Liberal retail politician, he "campaigned left" (scrap free trade, scrap the GST, no helicopters) and "governed right" (we still have free trade and the GST, etc, but we still don't have new helicopers). But what Mulroney says seems, to me, to speak more to the Liberal backroom brain trust: Turner's 1988 campaign themes were, indeed, proven to have been completely wrong, but they appealed to two constituencies: big labour and the big cities. The Liberals were, traditionally, the BIG party, friends of Big banks, Big labour, Big business and Big cities, but they always had serious competition: the new NDP was a creature of Big labour and made inroads into the Big cities while the Conservatives always had some support from Big business (although small business is the natural Conservative base - but the ambition of all small business owners is to get Big) and the Big banks. By opposing free trade at all costs the Liberal strategists sacrificed the Big banks and Big business but did not secure either of the Big cities or Big labour. It was a serious blunder.

My guess is that Justin Trudeau, or his team, anyway, has learned a lesson: the NEP was, indeed, wrong as both a policy and as a political position.

Quebec is an interesting problem. Most pundits say, and I tend to agree, that the Liberal road back to contention and power begins in Quebec; but the Liberals have no hope, none at all in my or even your (much longer) lifetimes, of going back to the 74/75 position in Quebec ~ not unless it sacrifices Ontario which, electorally, matters so much more.

The Liberals should be able to regain most of the Montreal area seats they lost in Quebec (they won 7 seats in, 2011, down from 14 in 2008, 13 in 2006, 21 in 2004 and 36 in 2000) without tacking too far left, they are then (with, say, 30+ Quebec seats and 65+ in the rest of Canada) ready to tackle and even defeat the Conservatives in 2019. But, their gains in Quebec will come at the expense of the NDP and as a result of nationalist and socialist vote splitting between a revitalized Quebec Party (maybe the BQ, maybe a new one) and the NDP. If they tack too far left they will look like pale imitations of the NDP and the vote split will favout the new Quebec (nationalist) Party.

 

[Edward Campbell]

More on the Liberals in this column which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from MacLeans:

http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/10/19/a-centrist-party-that-has-lost-its-centre/

A centrist party that has lost its centre
Paul Wells on Dalton McGuinty stepping down and the Liberal party’s climb ahead

by Paul Wells on Friday, October 19, 2012

Dalton McGuinty remains such a gifted political performer that when Ontario’s premier announced his retirement from politics, throat catching, eyes misting, it was easy to forget the context.

The context is that two recent polls put his Ontario Liberal party in third place, about 15 points behind the opposition NDP and Conservatives. McGuinty’s energy minister, Chris Bentley, stands accused by opposition MPPs of being in contempt of the legislature over an apparent failure to disclose all of the reasoning behind the cancellation of two gas-fired energy plants. There was talk of adding McGuinty and the government house leader to the list of Liberals facing contempt motions.

McGuinty won three elections in a row, but with less of a pop every time. To say the least, he had no guarantee of winning the next. It is a familiar trajectory for Liberals in Canada these days. The question is whether it can be reversed.

Let us get the good news for Canada’s assorted Liberal parties out of the way quickly. Today, parties carrying the Liberal name continue to govern in Canada’s largest and third-largest provinces by population, Ontario and British Columbia, as well as the smallest, Prince Edward Island.

Okay, we’re done with the good news. Liberals in Ontario and B.C. could hardly have a more tenuous hold on power. Both have been down in the polls so long that it looks like up to them. B.C. Premier Christy Clark speculates now and then about jettisoning her party’s name, which is a bit confusing anyway because the B.C. Liberals are a centre-right coalition that little resembles the federal party.

Liberals do form the official opposition in Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. But given the steady drumbeat of salacious revelations from a commission of inquiry about the financing of Jean Charest’s former government in Quebec, it is unlikely the Liberals would do as well today as they did in September’s election.

Liberal parties are in third place in Alberta, Manitoba and the Yukon, the only territory where members of the legislature have party affiliations. In Saskatchewan in the last election the provincial Liberals didn’t even win one vote in 100.

In federal politics, the Liberals have lost seats and vote share in each of the last four elections. If they lose much more support they will start to owe votes to the other parties.

The federal Liberals’ problems began long before the current slump, Carleton University journalism prof Paul Adams argues in his new book Power Trap. “Arguably the Liberal party has been in decline since the 1950s,” he writes, “and there has been no ‘natural governing party’ since.” The federal Liberals have had no real presence in the Prairie West in a half-century. They have not won a majority of Quebec seats since 1980. Since 2004, when a united Conservative party put an end to the vote-splitting that produced a decade-long near-monopoly of Liberal seats in Ontario, the Liberals have lost another bucket of Ontario seats each time they went to bat.

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives reliably depict the Liberals as high-taxing statists who cannot imagine leaving a dollar in your pocket when they could spend it on daycare or a fancy census instead. Intriguingly, Adams argues nearly the opposite: that the Liberals’ long-standing “progressive impulses” were “quietly muted in a largely collaborative project” between Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin during the almost nine years Martin served in Chrétien’s cabinet.

The Liberals’ 1993 Red Book included promises to renegotiate NAFTA, to boost immigration levels and to create 50,000 daycare spaces. None was implemented. To Adams (whose book argues, probably in vain, for a Liberal-NDP merger), the result was that the Liberals blew their credibility as defenders of activist government.

“As you stare at the wreckage of what was arguably the most successful party in the history of the democratic world, there are various explanations for its utter demagnetization in 2011,” Adams writes. “Some of them were very long-term. But one of them, surely, must have been its wilful refusal to differentiate its policies from those of the Conservatives.”

Well, which is it? Are the Liberals incurable tax-and-spenders or are they a pale copy of the Conservatives? In the jurisdictions where Liberal disease is most advanced—Saskatchewan and Manitoba for many years, and increasingly now at the federal level—it’s both. The great danger for a centrist party is that it will forget how to argue persuasively for a centre.

None of these trends is necessarily irreversible. Canadian political history rarely moves in straight lines for long. But the decline of Liberal parties across most of the West, Liberal-branded crises in all of the three largest provinces and the federal party’s enduring slump all suggest a robust trend.

When they get in a tight spot, Liberals like to present themselves as the only moderate solution in a field of radicals. Justin Trudeau did it again when he announced his leadership candidacy. It is a spiel that reflects Liberals’ enduring wish for an imaginary fight that would be easy to win instead of the one they’re in. In fact, Liberals’ problems would vanish if the other parties would oblige them by behaving as ideologues. Conservative and social-democratic parties have sharply moderated their messages. There is no longer anything the NDP wants to nationalize, and the party likes to brag that it has delivered more balanced budgets where it has formed governments than Liberals have. Meanwhile, Stephen Harper repeatedly votes against his own backbenchers when they propose measures that would reopen the abortion debate. If Harper and Tom Mulcair were wild-eyed freaks, there would be acres of room for a centrist party. They aren’t, so there isn’t.

In fact, if the country’s assorted Liberal parties are in the mood for advice from the “department of easier said than done,” they should waste no more time seeking to present themselves as the middle ground between extremes. Instead they should find some extreme worth defending. What social end is so important that it’s worth taxing to achieve? What fights are worth fighting?

The decline of Liberal parties in Canada produces a kind of optical illusion. The centre isn’t disappearing, it is becoming crowded. Nothing about the Liberal name ensures the endurance of Liberal parties. Loyalty will not save them. Wit and heart will, or nothing will.

This is the issue: "[the] Liberals’ enduring wish for an imaginary fight that would be easy to win instead of the one they’re in. In fact, Liberals’ problems would vanish if the other parties would oblige them by behaving as ideologues. Conservative and social-democratic parties have sharply moderated their messages. There is no longer anything the NDP wants to nationalize, and the party likes to brag that it has delivered more balanced budgets where it has formed governments than Liberals have. Meanwhile, Stephen Harper repeatedly votes against his own backbenchers when they propose measures that would reopen the abortion debate. If Harper and Tom Mulcair were wild-eyed freaks, there would be acres of room for a centrist party. They aren’t, so there isn’t."

The centre, as Paul Wells says, is already overcrowded, but my guess is that Conservatives will lose an election before the Liberals find a way to win one. The Conservatives will lose when, inevitably, they become too arrogant, too used to the idea that they have a right to govern; my wild guess is that happens circa 2020. By then the Liberals must have found a way to differentiate themselves from the NDP - one way to do that might be to push the NDP farther and farther towards the Quebec nationalist side, setting them up for fights with both the Liberals and a resurgent Quebec Party.* The risk is that it lets the Conservatives have a too easy run a few more Quebec seats.


-----------
* Might be the BQ, might be something new


Edit: two embarrassing typos (1920 becomes 2020 and father becomes farther)  :-[ thanks to a member for pointing it out by PM rather than showing my errors to the whole world. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

We should not be surprised that Liberal attack dog Warren Kinsella agrees that the Liberals will be back; he tells us why (hint: it's leadership conventions) in this column which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Toronto Sun:

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/10/19/predictions-of-liberal-doom-are-dead-wrong

Predictions of Liberal doom are dead wrong

BY WARREN KINSELLA, QMI AGENCY

FIRST POSTED: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2012

Can Canadian Liberalism survive? Is the party over?

The times are clearly dire, for Canadian Grits. One need only to survey newspaper opinion pages to know this is so.

“(There has been) a new round of media and public speculation about the imminent collapse of Canadian Liberalism,” wrote one respected analyst in the National Post. “The Liberal party (is) dying … the future (will) reveal Canadian national politics as a two-party struggle between the Conservatives and the NDP,” the Post declares in another column.

A Montreal Gazette opinion writer is similarly gloomy. The Liberal Party of Canada is buffeted by “alternate attacks of political depression and paranoia,” he intones. The Liberal brand is “under siege,” it is suggested. The future is in doubt.

“(Liberals are) likely to undergo further factional fighting as prospective contenders try to build support for their future leadership runs,” declares a Maclean’s cover story. Liberals are “essentially rudderless,” yet another Post columnist writes. “(The Grits) failed to modernize and reposition the Liberal party.”

The columnist quotes a former national director of the Liberals: “The Liberals didn’t know where they were going, and still don’t.” And so on, and so on. Everywhere you look, it seems, the story is the same.

The assessments of Liberal fortunes are similarly dire. With the federal Liberals in third place and seeking new leadership — and with the Ontario and Quebec Liberal parties effectively leaderless, and facing the prospect of being out of power for a long time to come, perhaps indefinitely — the Liberal party brand seems to be “dying,” as the Post columnist wrote.

Not quite.

The first round of quotes, above, were taken from Canadian newspapers from the year 1985, shortly after the federal party’s drubbing in the September 1984 federal election. The other quotes come later, in and around 1989 and 1990, when the party again lost to the Conservative machine of Brian Mulroney. The names, and tenses, have been altered to protect the mistaken.

In the years that shortly followed, the Conservative party was reduced to two seats, and the Liberal Party of Canada commenced an extraordinary hat trick of majorities. In Ontario and Quebec, too, Jean Charest and Dalton McGuinty would go on to lead their respective parties to decades-long runs in power.

Liberals are used to this. My former boss, Jean Chretien, laughs at the suggestion that the Liberal party brand is toast. “I wallpaper my house with these damn obituaries,” he said this week, drawing attention to a series of polls from around 2001, when the nascent sponsorship affair was — if you believe the columnists back then, too — killing the Liberal brand.

But despite getting it wrong in the mid-’80s, the late ’80s, and a decade ago, the crepe-hangers are back at it. The Liberals are gallows-bound, they insist. They were wrong before, and they are wrong now. In a country as big and as diverse as this one, one-size-fits-all political ideology — as favoured by the Conservatives and the NDP — doesn’t work. Canada, and Canadians, swing left and right, as the circumstances warrant. Only one party has the ability to do both without repudiating its essence.

Here’s a prediction: The historic concurrence of three leadership races — for the three largest Liberal parties, federally and in Quebec and Ontario — will do what leadership races always do: They will create a surge in support. In Quebec and Ontario, where minority governments exist, that swell in popularity will lead to elections shortly thereafter. Liberals will have excellent chances at winning those elections.

Federally, the election is further away. But the prospects are the same: The Liberal brand — now declared to be dead — will rebound dramatically.

And if you don’t believe me, read some old newspaper clippings. In yesterday’s headlines are today’s.

While I agree that three leadership races will produce 'bounces' for the Liberal brand and while I hope he is right that the Liberals will recover (because I think Stephen Harper is wrong to want a dramatic, UK style, Left <> Right split because you must, too often, end up with destructive left wing governments), I believe that the Liberals must find a new purpose. It is not good enough to be against Stephen Harper (or even Thomas Mulcair); Stephen Harper projects a vision, an inarticulate, maybe even a 'hidden agenda'™ sort of vison, but a vision, all the same; so does Mulcair (even as we suspect that his vision will differ from his party's policies); they, Harper and Mulcair, stand FOR something. Can anyone tell me what the Liberals are FOR?

 

[Good2Golf]

How sad for a party when their strength is described by one of their respected own as an event.  At least in that regard, the LPC has had a fair bit of practice.  That said, the danger is that the convention morphs inappropriately into yet another coronation...

 

[ModlrMike]

It is not good enough to be against Stephen Harper (or even Thomas Mulcair); Stephen Harper projects a vision, an inarticulate, maybe even a 'hidden agenda'™ sort of vison, but a vision, all the same; so does Mulcair (even as we suspect that his vision will differ from his party's policies); they, Harper and Mulcair, stand FOR something. Can anyone tell me what the Liberals are FOR?

Power at all cost. They will promise anything, say anything, do anything to return to Government. That they name themselves the "Natural Governing Party" should be evidence enough.

(I know that was a rhetorical question... but in this case it deserves an answer.)

 

[Edward Campbell]

The Ottawa Citizen reports on a debate between lifetime Liberal insider John Duffy and Canadian historian Michael Bliss in two companion pieces; both consider M. Trudeau's contribution:

John Duffy says that: The federal Liberals "are currently in first or close behind in every national poll ... [and] ... The demand for this new generation of leadership is immense. There are millions of Canadians — as there were Americans until recently — who have refrained from first-time voting longer into their lives than any before them. A consensus exists among pollsters and social scientists that if and when these people come into the electorate, it will shift radically away from the older, greyer, more conservative-complected political nation we know today. These are not just the young people on their interwebs; their ages now reach into the early 40s. Their numbers now outstrip those associated with the baby-boomer voting influx of the 1960s and ’70s ... Justin Trudeau is one of their candidates."

Michael Bliss, on the other hand, says that: "The Liberal party in Canada, like liberalism itself, has a great past, and very little future ... Political liberalism is in crisis because in much of the western world its job is done — over, finished. Classic liberalism was about advancing political liberty — the struggle against authoritarian rule, the expansion of parliamentary freedoms, expansion of the franchise, and, in the 20th century, expansion of the idea of inalienable human rights. The Canadian struggle involved our evolution from imperial rule through responsible self-government and then our gradual march towards independence, all the while trying to preserve and strengthen national unity. It was also the development of democracy and respect for individual autonomy as expressed in the expansion of human rights and the personal security guaranteed in the modern welfare state ... Will young, charismatic, pragmatic leadership, make a difference? Justin Trudeau might succeed in postponing for another decade the inevitable creation of the Liberal Democratic Party of Canada. His problem is much like that of recent descendants of the great retailers, Timothy Eaton. They tried in vain to save a once-impregnable Canadian institution, a mighty national brand, whose time was past ... The Liberal party is about to go the way of the Eaton’s stores."

I find both arguments a bit thin: John Duffy has hope and Canadians' fascination with celebrity/charisma on his side, but not much else. Prof Bliss suggests that the 'work" of liberalism is done; I disagree - in fact, in the last 50 years, under the pressure of deeply conservative* American liberals, liberalism has been pushed backwards in favour of less than real collective rights and particularism.

But: while I suspect that Prof Bliss is closer to the truth I believe that M. Trudeau has a very real prospect of a political supernova - the stellar explosion that occurs just before a star dies. In M. Trudeau's case that supernova could be one last Liberal government before the party disintegrates - think David Lloyd George and the British Liberal Party.

____
John Stuart Mill's famous quote ~ I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative ~ applies to the post Truman liberals in the USA.

 

[Good2Golf]

notwithstanding what appears likely to be JT's coronation, I think the best they can expect is to recover some of the seats lost to the Orange Crush in Quebec.  In that regard, Pauline Marois could help Justin Trudeau with some more pseudo-xenophobic behaviour that gives Quebecers pause for though as to what kind of statement they will make with their collective federal votes in 2015.  I still think the Liberals, if their collective ego will allow them, are best trying to consolidate and retake the official opposition in 2015, then make their move for the win in 2019-2020, as Mr. Campbell suggest, the CPC is likely to be stagnating and getting a bit full of itself.  That said, I think that one of the inherent weaknesses of the 'bold, new, young blood' that appears to characterize much of JTs support could be diagnosed with ADD/"I want it know" syndrome.  Time will tell, but Mr. Campbells supernova analogy is not a bad one if the Liberal voter base is superficial and tactical, vice profound and strategic.

:2c:

Regards
G2G

 

[GAP]

I have heard very, very little on how well the QC NDP'ers are working out as MP's. That fact could put many/most of the NDP seats up for grabs. Mulclair has been an effective face for the party, but most of those seats were won because of Jack Layton, not Mulclair...

The Federal QC Liberals are as tied into the Provicial Liberals and all their corruption scandals, I think you will see a large BQ surge in the next election....

 

[ModlrMike]

If yesterday's "debate" is any indication of where the Liberals focus is, then number of times Quebec was mentioned vs the ROC: 49:0

Granted the "debate" was held in Montreal, but if you're working on the national stage, one would expect some mention of the rest of Canada. The Liberals return to government runs firmly through Quebec. They do not have the popular support, Trudeaumania notwithstanding to form a government from the ROC.

 

[jollyjacktar]

If yesterday's "debate" is any indication of where the Liberals focus is, then number of times Quebec was mentioned vs the ROC: 49:0

Granted the "debate" was held in Montreal, but if you're working on the national stage, one would expect some mention of the rest of Canada. The Liberals return to government runs firmly through Quebec. They do not have the popular support, Trudeaumania notwithstanding to form a government from the ROC.

I did see a sound bite of the two women tussling over the northern pipeline/Fort Mac issue. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

Army.ca member and Sun Media journalist David Akin points out that we may see a reversal of a Liberal "decade of darkness" today in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from his On The Hill blog:

http://blogs.canoe.ca/davidakin/politicsliberals/monday-could-be-a-day-the-liberals-havent-seen-for-a-decade/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Monday could be a day the Liberals haven’t seen for a decade

David Akin

May 12th, 2013

Tomorrow, voters in the riding of Labrador will go the polls. According to three polls of voters there, the Liberal candidate, Yvonne Jones appears to be the prohibitive favourite.

If she wins, it will be the first time the federal Liberal caucus will have grown as the result of an electoral event* in nearly a decade.

Here is the list of electoral events going back to the last electoral event which saw the number of seats held by the Liberals in the House of Commons increase:

    May 13, 2013 – By-election – Labrador – +1?
    Nov 26, 2012 – By-elections in Calgary-Centre, Durham, and Victoria. Change in number of Liberal seats in House of Commons: 0
    Mar 19, 2012 – By-election in Toronto-Danforth. Change in seats: 0
    May 2, 2011 – GENERAL ELECTION. Change in seats: -44
    Nov 29, 2010 – By-elections in Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette, Winnipeg North, and Vaughan: Change in seats: 0
    Nov 9, 2009 – By-elections in Cumberland–Colchester–Musquodoboit Valley, Montmagny-L’Islet-Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, New Westminster–Coquitlam, Hochelaga: Change in seats: 0
    Mar 17, 2008 – By-elections in Desnethé–Missinippi–Churchill River, Toronto Centre, Willowdale, Vancouver Quadra: Change in seats: -1
    Oct. 14, 2008 – GENERAL ELECTION. Change in seats: -26
    Sep 17, 2007 – By-elections in Saint-Hyacinthe–Bagot, Outremont, Roberval-Lac St Jean: Change in seats: -1
    Nov 27, 2006 – By-elections in London North Centre and Repentigny: Change in seats: 0
    Jan 23, 2006 – GENERAL ELECTION. Change in seats: -32
    May 24, 2005 – By-election in Labrador: Change in seats: 0
    Jun 28, 2004 – GENERAL ELECTION. Change in seats: -37
    June 16, 2003 – By-elections in Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, Témiscamingue: Change in seats: +2

* The caucus did grow by one MP while Bob Rae was interim leader when Lise St. Denis defected  from the NDP caucus to sit as a Liberal.

Edit: format

 

[GAP]

If I were a Liberal I would be shaking my head in despair at that track record.


But the Dauphin will change things......won't he? :