The Liberals: Controlled flight into terrain

By Paul Wells - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 8:03 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Blair Gable

“A party needs seven years to come back from an election defeat,” Martin Cauchon told me, index finger jutting forward to push his point at me. “I lived through 1984-91. I saw it. Things are really starting to happen now. This party is coming back.”

Cauchon, you will recall, was the federal minister of justice under Jean Chrétien. His seven-year thing will sound like a misprint, because in 1991 the Liberals were still two years away from winning power back, but it made some sense. It took most of 1991 for Jean Chrétien to stop being a really bad opposition leader and get his sea legs back. After that, his party was on a pretty steady road to victory. And since Cauchon was transparently trying to come up with some reason why today’s Liberal party should be any different from the ones that lost 37, 32, 18 and 43 seats in the elections of 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2011, this was relatively harmless as number games go. Seven years from 2006 is…oooh. 2013! Just in time for victory!

Of course the whole thing is horse poo. I lived through 1979-1980. I saw the Liberals come back from defeat in nine months. I lived through 1980-1984. I saw the Progressive Conservatives come back in four years. I did not live through 1935-1957, but there are books and they tell me the Conservatives took three times seven years to come back from defeat. It takes an arbitrary number of years for a party to come back from defeat, unless it can’t. The best thing that can be said for Cauchon’s thesis is that it helps illustrate how anyone can believe in astrology.

But then, a party that refuses to believe Canadians aren’t buying what it’s selling will cast about for mystical explanations for events. Bob Rae consoled Michael Ignatieff on Friday night by telling him that elections are “a crap shoot.” This sounded to some in the press stands like contempt for democracy, but I think it’s closer to incomprehension of it. Damnedest thing. People vote and then, I don’t know. Something. Here’s a list of the people in Canada who, by virtue of their biographies, would be likeliest to view elections as a crap shoot:

1. Joe Clark.

2. Bob Rae. Continue…

Bob Rae is back

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 6:28 PM - 0 Comments

And now a word from the National Citizens Coalition.

The question of the weekend

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 4:37 PM - 0 Comments

Liberals are spending much of the day discussing the concept of “evidence-based policy”—this curious and revolutionary and courageous notion that the government’s actions and promises should acknowledge demonstrable reality. Munir Sheikh, the former chief statistician, addressed the convention this morning. Delegates have spent the rest of the day in sessions dedicated to discussing this novel approach in the context of various policy areas.

One of these sessions was to deal with the environment, which thus seemed like something of a test: could the Liberal party have a discussion about evidence-based environmental policy that didn’t deal with the preferred prescription of the vast majority of expert analysts?

The answer is: almost. But with a few minutes to spare in the hour a young man from the riding of Mount Royal stood and put the Liberal soul up for discussion. Continue…

A show of hands

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 1:16 PM - 0 Comments

Presuming that a method of counting votes can be found, Liberal delegates will spend some of this afternoon evening voting on proposed amendments to the party’s constitution. Jeff Jedras seems to have the definitive guide.

Tomorrow morning delegates will convene to vote on various policy proposals. Once again, Jeff is the one to read.

What David McGuinty is thinking

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 12:41 PM - 0 Comments

The Liberal MP for Ottawa South wandered into the media room a moment ago and was shortly thereafter surrounded by reporters. He confirmed that he is considering a run for the party leadership.

I’m not ruling out the leadership. I’m giving this serious consideration. I have an obligation to do this. If I’m going to stay in public life, I’ve got to figure out what’s the best way to serve. And that’s what I’m considering.

He was also asked about Bob Rae’s interim status and whatever leadership ambitions Mr. Rae might have.

I have every faith in the good faith of Bob Rae. Bob’s a great guy. He’s very talented, he’s very experienced. He’s a huge net asset for the Liberal Party of Canada. And for that matter, he’s a huge net asset for Canada. A person of that quality and calibre to be in public life today? It’s hard to get good people into public life and keep them there. So Bob will govern himself accordingly. I’m sure he will always do what’s right by him and what’s right by the party and what’s right by Canadians.

Mr. McGuinty joins Mark Holland and Marc Garneau as those who have publicly confirmed that they are considering a leadership run.

The Commons: ‘I didn’t get there’

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 10:19 PM - 0 Comments

After a nice story about Michael Ignatieff’s willingness to listen, the man’s disembodied voice filled the room as a montage of still images hovered on screen—little moments when it must’ve seemed he was bound for a better fate.

The soft-focus retrospective continued as the voice intoned about the vastness of the land and the vastness of the party. A few dozen young people then bounded on stage. These, explained a young man and a young woman at the lectern, were some of those inspired to join the Liberal cause because of Mr. Ignatieff. He was duly described in fawning term. Indeed, the politician they were here to honour sounded like a fine one: passionate, caring, courageous, substantive, generous. A good listener. A visionary. A man blessed of a devoted wife. It was announced that a scholarship would be created in his name.

Shortly thereafter the man was welcomed to step forward and explain himself. Here the Liberal party has gathered to discuss the extent to which it can be described as “dying.” And so here it would hear from the man who (at least nominally) put it in this place. Continue…

Primary problems

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 4:41 PM - 0 Comments

Former Liberal MP Maria Minna is circulating a letter outlining her concerns with the workings and ramifications of moving to a primary system to elect a party leader. She has nine points, but I’ll excerpt number eight here, which seems relevant both for the philosophical concern and the specific complaints.

The primary system would give the Liberal leader and his/her office more power over Caucus and the Party. As a recent Member of Parliament with almost 18 years of experience, I can say with first-hand knowledge, that, most of the time caucus is not considered or listened to by the leader and especially his office. There is very little accountability to caucus members. Especially during our years in opposition, we could have avoided a great deal of pain and losses if the leadership and their offices had listened and taken into consideration the expertise and advice of caucus members. Therefore, I am convinced that a Leader who is so broadly elected will feel even less accountable towards caucus let alone any accountability to the party at large.

By the numbers

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 3:54 PM - 0 Comments

Liberal party president Alf Apps has delivered his report to the party membership. The key portion would seem to concern fundraising.

Notwithstanding the improved financial position in which the Party finds itself today, its ability to compete politically between elections at the national level continues to be crippled by the fact that its basic fundraising capability is dwarfed by those of its principal opponent. As figure 2 shows, the Conservatives raised a total of $80 million in donations over the period from January 1, 2008 to September 30, 2011 and are projected to raise more than $24 million this year alone. Our Party raised only $32 million nationally over the same period, or about 40% of the amount they raised, and approximately $9.4 million for the 2011 year. Our donor base has been growing steadily over that period but, at only about 40,000 donors today, is estimated to be about on-third the size of our opponent’s. More troubling, the gap is continuing to widen. Perhaps most troubling, fewer than 30% of Party members today are also Party donors. While progress is being made on this front, it has been far too slow. The Party is still a long way from achieving an organizational culture where ‘membership’ translates into ‘donorship’.

In the context of the ‘permanent campaign’ environment which has persisted since well before the 2006 election to the present day, the Party simply has not had adequate resources to fund a modern and technologically-enabled political outreach infrastructure to communicate effectively with Canadians and activate their support.

Raefest 2012

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:06 PM - 0 Comments

Bob Rae addressed the Liberal caucus on Wednesday and scrummed with reporters afterwards. On Thursday, he spoke to the party’s council of presidents.

According to the itinerary released by his office, he’ll shortly deliver the official opening speech to the conference, then he’ll speak with reporters at 1pm, then he’ll be back on stage tonight around 8pm to deliver remarks in tribute to Michael Ignatieff.

On Saturday, he will apparently rest.

Sunday, he’ll be back on stage to deliver closing remarks to the convention and then there will be a news conference.

That’s five speeches and three meetings with reporters in five days.

Standing against ageism

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments

Let’s begin our Liberal convention coverage with this bit from the Globe’s preview.

How does choosing a 63-year-old former NDP premier of Ontario signal renewal for the Liberal Party? The very question “suggests there’s a terrible ageism at play,” believes Aidan Johnson, the 32-year-old policy chair for Ms. Copps’s campaign. “To suggest someone isn’t capable of renewing the party because of their age is profoundly bigoted.”

Bob Rae will be a few months past his 67th birthday in October 2015. Were the Liberals to win an election around that time with him as leader, he would become the fourth oldest prime minister to take office, bested only by three 70-somethings: John Abbott, Mackenzie Bowell and Charles Tupper.

In addition to our rented Liberal friends, the whole Maclean’s team will be on the convention floor this weekend: myself, John Geddes, Paul Wells and Peter C. Newman (who offers this assessment of Mr. Rae’s situation). Frequent blogging and tweeting (#MacLib) will ensue.

The Liberals and the muddled middle

By John Geddes - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 7:10 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Cole Garside

If any prominent Liberal might be expected to think of the party as a family affair, it would have to be Montreal MP Justin Trudeau. Heading into the federal party’s convention in Ottawa this week, though, the son of the iconic former prime minister, the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau, says Liberals must use this opportunity to start projecting a new, decidedly non-familial party image. “The sense is that the party has too long looked at itself as a family, or a club, or a very strict hierarchy,” Trudeau told Maclean’s. “We need to make a shift to being much more of a movement. It’s hard to join a family.”

Talk of wrenching the Liberal mindset from cliquish to welcoming, its processes from top-down to bottom-up, might sound like mere hopeful rhetoric from a party laid low in the election last May 2. But the 1,500 or so hard-core Liberals expected to attend the Jan. 13-15 biennial convention will be debating concrete ideas for changing the rules about who gets to shape their party’s direction. The key proposal would give designated supporters—Canadians who would have to sign on to Liberal principles, but not be required to buy memberships—the right to vote in the party’s leadership race, and maybe at nomination meetings for candidates at the riding level.

It remains to be seen if the paid-up Liberal members who make the effort to travel to Ottawa for the convention agree to empower far less committed supporters. The idea is being championed by the party’s national board. After last spring’s drubbing at the polls, hardly a Liberal official or MP left standing denies that the Conservatives and New Democrats do a better job of keeping their bases energized and engaged. Instead of calling for their party to just copy Tory and NDP approaches, however, senior Grits are arguing they must chart a different course from their more ideologically motivated adversaries.

Continue…

On the record

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 4:59 PM - 0 Comments

We’ve recruited a pair of Liberals to provide commentary through the party’s convention in Ottawa this weekend. And they’ve even allowed us to use their names and faces.

Meet the new Liberal party

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 1:22 PM - 0 Comments

The anonymous agonizing over the party’s leadership starts here.

“I’m still uncomfortable with what he schemed,” one Liberal, speaking on condition of anonymity, said … If Rae stayed on it would be divisive for the party, one senior Liberal told HuffPost. “It creates division, it creates a lack of trust, a credibility problem with this renewal, it creates cynicism, ‘there we go ahead, the same old, same old, backroom, stuff’… It’s not helpful,” he said … 

The Liberal Party has gotten itself into jams by spending too much time trying to screw each other over during leadership bids, another caucus member said. “(Rae’s) already lost the leadership twice … We shouldn’t try to use technical rules to block him,” the Liberal said … “If Bob decides the conditions are there and he’s has a clear shot at winning, he’ll still have to explain to party members his change of heart.” “Rae might dissuade marginal candidates, but he might also coalesce people who want someone else,” another Liberal said, adding, “Bob is a pretty controversial figure.”

‘I say better a Rae Day than a Harper lifetime’

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 5:24 PM - 0 Comments

So Bob Rae delivered an interesting speech this afternoon.

Reaction and coverage from the Globe, CBC and iPolitics. Here is my stray thought as I listened to the first third of his remarks. And here, for a more considered opinion, is our John Geddes’ take on the situation.

Party, leader and person

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 4:46 PM - 0 Comments

The NDP deems Lise St. Denis’ defection an insult to democracy and challenges her to a duel by-election. Ian Capstick, while taking no issue with the general notion of floor-crossing, takes issue with Ms. St. Denis’ explanation.

I can see how a newly unexpectedly elected NDP MP could have rapidly evolving points of view and even how they might want to jump ship. But that’s not what you said today. No, instead:  “Les électeurs ont voté pour Jack Layton. Jack Layton est mort.” 

If that’s truly what you believe, then you shouldn’t sit in the House as anything other than an NDP MP or an independent – to do otherwise is illogical and worse, deeply offensive.

The Commons: Lise St. Denis’ day

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 1:06 PM - 0 Comments

“This decision,” she explained at the outset, “has been made serenely.”

And so Lise St. Denis, dressed here in black and white, elected as a New Democrat some eight months ago, slipped from one party to the other. To her left sat Denis Coderre, beaming. To her right, Bob Rae listened intently. Both men had helped her with her chair when she arrived at the table. When she finished, the interim Liberal leader patted her on the back. She and they seemed reasonably happy with this little moment.

However serene the undertaking, however justifiable this business of euphemistically crossing the proverbial floor, it was not so easily explained. Continue…

Lise St. Denis to the Liberals

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 11:22 AM - 0 Comments

The MP for Saint-Maurice-Champlain is now a Liberal. Her written statement is as follows.

I have decided to join the Liberal Party of Canada. This decision has been made serenly. It is the result of a thoughtful process started a few weeks ago. Since my arrival in the House of Commons, I have carefully listened to the speeches made by Liberals MPs. I recognize today not only the collective value of their work but more so their sense of duty and commitment. Having myself been involved in politics for almost a decade, I have always acted with conviction and integrity. Today, this change in my political life is above all the continuity of my thought process on Canada’s future and the place that must be taken in our institutions by Quebecois and francophones from all over the country.

I represent a riding that is part of the genesis of Canada, equally on the cultural and on the economical side. The decision that I have made is motivated by the challenges that people in my riding will face; these people have been confronted in the last years to difficulties linked to the globalisation of national economies. We have had prosperous times, due to the forestry and pulp and paper sectors, and we must now make choices that will lead us once more to economic success.

I am in the Liberal Party of Canada because its direction on social policy, on job creation, on external affairs and on the environment appears to me as being able to generate hope for the people living in communities in my riding of Saint-Maurice-Champlain and indeed in all of Canada. The choice that I have made today is that of a woman free to express her opinion and which bases her political future on the country’s needs and on pragmatism necessary to the survival of our institutions, our social programs and the values that make the greatness of our nation. We live in a time of fundamental transformation, globally and nationally. It is thus crucial that we make choices that undoubtedly will protect who we are and who we want to be!

A floor-crossing afoot?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 10:18 AM - 0 Comments

Liberal leader Bob Rae and Denis Coderre are due in the national press theatre in 15 minutes for an announcement and Radio-Canada is reporting that NDP MP Lise St-Denis will be going over to the Liberal side.

As the Liberal party turns

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 9, 2012 at 4:39 PM - 0 Comments

On his way out, soon-to-be-former Liberal party president Alf Apps apparently posits that Bob Rae could run for the party leadership.

Eight months ago, Mr. Rae may have promised to not do so. Last week, Mr. Rae may have left open the possibility. Last November, as previously noted, he seemed to completely dismiss the idea.

As for Rae’s part in becoming the new leader now that Michael Ignatieff has stepped down? “It won’t be me,” he said, to which the atmosphere in the room became heavy. “I’m not going to run for leadership.” 

Anyway. Mr. Apps throws out three precedents for the current Liberal predicament—their electoral defeats in 1930, 1958 and 1984. Each time, the Liberal party rebounded (eventually) to win government. But those defeats also probably underline just how far the Liberal party has fallen and how much further it has to go this time.

A quick comparison:

1930. The Liberals won 36.7% of the seats, 45.5% of the popular vote and finished second.
1958. The Liberals won 18.1% of the seats, 33.4% of the popular vote and finished second.
1984. The Liberals won 14.8% of the seats, 28.0% of the popular vote and finished second.
2011. The Liberals won 11.0% of the seats, 18.9% of the popular vote and finished third.

Time gentlemen

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 1:37 PM - 0 Comments

The Liberals have released figures documenting what they believe to be Mr. Harper’s abuse of power.

By their reckoning, 21 government bills have been debated over the first 66 days of this Parliament. Five of those bills (23.8%) have been subject to time allocation motions and time allocation motions have been passed a total of nine times. By comparison, they say, under the last Liberal majority government Parliament sat for 419 days and debated 153 government bills. Eight of those (5.2%) were subject to time allocation motions and a total of ten time allocation motions were passed.

The Liberals report that, per sitting day, the Harper government has used time allocation more than any government since time allocation was added to the standing orders in the mid-1960s. Furthermore, they say time allocation has been invoked after an average of three hours and 53 minutes of debate, while the last Liberal majority did so after an average of eight hours and 22 minutes.

Previous coverage of this issue is compiled here.

Losers: the down and out

By Michael Friscolanti - Monday, December 5, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

David J. Phillip/AP

Backbenchers

After losing ground ever so slowly in the previous three elections, the federal Liberals were slaughtered this time around, relegated to just 34 seats. The once-unbeatable party of Wilfrid Laurier, Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien is on the brink of political irrelevance, and some long-time Liberals are not convinced that their fortunes can recover. As one senior official said: “It’s do something or die.”

Nickelback-lash

Despite album sales topping 50 million, Nickelback could be the most despised band in the history of musical instruments. Critics have long panned the Canadian rockers as dull, predictable and formulaic, but the venom reached a new level this year when the group was chosen to perform the halftime show at the annual Thanksgiving football game between the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. The announcement triggered such rage that 52,000 people signed a petition, demanding a replacement.

Continue…

Why the Liberals are yesterday’s party

By Peter C. Newman - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Cole Garside

Peter C. Newman’s latest political book was supposed to be a close observer’s inside account of the rise of Michael Ignatieff from novelist and Harvard professor to prime minister of Canada, with barely a stop in between. Instead, as Newman followed Ignatieff during his climb to the Liberal leadership and the party’s catastrophic federal election campaign last spring, it became clear that he was chronicling the destruction of the Liberal party. In this excerpt from When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada, Newman describes the Liberals’ abject failure to respond to the Conservatives’ devastating anti-Ignatieff ads and the Liberal leader’s hapless debate performance:

The attack ads defined Ignatieff in a way the Liberals did not—it turned out, could not—answer. Not because the accusations were true, but because they were repeated with brainwashing frequency.

How that lapse happened is the great untold story of the campaign. There was, during the 2011 election, no public proof that anything positive was stirring inside the Liberal camp, but in fact nearly $5 million quietly trickled into Liberal headquarters. Those voluntary contributions were greater than the totals mailed in during the last three elections. The Liberal party’s fundraising was actually quite good, much better than that of the NDP or Bloc. The problem for the Liberals was that the power brokers divided the spoils. The Grits had the highest infrastructure costs of all the political parties—every federal-provincial association demanded their own office budgets and staff, plus there was a commission for every special interest within the party, each with its own budget. The Liberals’ rotten internal culture meant that the power brokers would rather the party die than lose their little fiefdoms. The party thus left its leader helpless to defend himself. Too busy dividing what remained of fundraising dollars and the public subsidy between its fiefdoms and power brokers, the party was unable to save any for the response to the negative advertising that Ignatieff so desperately needed.

Continue…

A chance for the Liberals to take a chance

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, November 21, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Peter Power/The Globe and Mail

The best way to understand the situation facing the Liberals is to think of the party as a hockey team. It has won several Stanley Cups in a row, but by the last of those cups, it was relying on a clutch of 43-year-old veterans. With their retirement, the team has no option but to spend a few seasons in the basement, rebuilding. If it learns patience, while the draft picks mature and the losses mount, the team may in time become a winner again. If it does not, it becomes the Leafs.

It is still not clear whether the party fully understands the predicament it is in. To be sure, it understands it lost the last election, and lost badly: the worst defeat in its history. But even if Liberals grasp the magnitude of their defeat, they do not seem to grasp its implications.

A case in point is the “road map to renewal” the party’s national executive released last week. The document is properly proud of Liberal achievements, and properly bracing about the task ahead. Yet it remains fixed in the belief that nothing fundamental has changed for the party, or needs to. It just has to do the same things, better: better fundraising, better organizing, better communications, better outreach.

Continue…

Stepping boldly into the future

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 3:47 PM - 0 Comments

Sheila Copps, currently running to be president of the Liberal party, explains her plans for reform.

She’s planning to hold a “Very Scary Stephen party,” complete with Stephen Harper masks (if she can find some), as part of her bid to become the party’s president. “We want to try to make the party fun again,” she said. “And make it a go-to place for people who want to make change and have fun can get involved.”