In the aftermath of the political tsunami that was the recent federal election, the Liberal Party is at a crossroads. Steve Pinkus and Désirée McGraw, two Liberal Party insiders, have written a very compelling editorial urging renewal. But will it happen?
h/t ‘batb’
As a result of the last election, Canadians are being forced to choose between two extremes. Why? As proud Liberals, we are confident there is an important place for a modern political party in Canada that can determine its social policy from the centre left and its fiscal policy from the centre right.
Because left wing social policy and right wing fiscal policy are fundamentally incompatable, that’s why.
To pretend that you can have both is to engage in what has obviously been proven time and again to be economically unfeasible.
Leftist social policy has ramping fiscal costs.
From Jack’s Newswatch re Bob Rae
http://www.uncharted.ca/content/view/223/35
That op’ed piece just shows they “don’t get it”
Once they learn that they’re “servants” to their constituents and not just members of their party they may be able to move ahead, and dump the likes of Rae and Hedburg Fries, and get rid of their appeal to emotionalism.
“Have your cake and eat it too” describes the leftist desires, However, once you eat your cake, you don’t have it anymore … why don’t they get that?
Harper should keep a rump of a Liberal Party around to split the left side vote with the dippers.
Lefty fratracide is a good thing.
Liberal Party Election Results:
2000 = 40.8%
2004 = 36.7%
2006 = 30.2%
2008 = 26.3%
2011 = 18.9%
Down and down and down she goes …
One other interesting note. The total combined vote for the former PCs and Alliance in 2000 was 37.7%. In the 2008 election the CPC tied that with a 37.7% result, thus completing the uniting of the right of centre. The Tories are in new territory now with 39.6%, eating into centrist and former Liberal territory. The Liberals have a nearly impossible task ahead of them in order to make a return – they need to steal votes from the left and right, essentially speaking out of both sides of their mouths. In so doing they will inevitably leave people confused as to what they really stand for.
Good. It sounds like their idea of reform is going to be to continue to tell Christians to F-off (instead of returning to pre-Trudeau “values” of the party) while pretending to be fiscally sound. As long as the CPC doesn’t turn into fiscally-sound Liberals, they should have a long period of governance.
This is the death of Trudeaupia.
It doesn’t get better than that,
Interestingly, this article highlights the fundamental problem. Political parties typically start with an idea, a policy position, and people rally around it, and form a party. The liberals, on the other hand, formed a party of elites, and went looking of a platform to justify it. The liberals are still looking for the ‘killer app’, to justify their existence.
There’s nothing new in what the authors are saying. It is still about central planning of society, the economy and the environment. At least two of those are none of their business. The Liberals will still be a party that fundamentally represents the regimentation of State control and diminishing freedom of choice. They haven’t even started the rebuild and they’ve already failed.
The Liberal Party has become a shell – the outside looks good but inside its hollow. What do Liberals believe – that is the question. Cheers.
“An endowed liberal think tank would contribute to answering the fundamental question: What does the Liberal Party stand for as we enter the 21st century? One promising model to consider is the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, which has an explicit mandate to develop conservative policy ideas and to train conservative political aides.”
But I thought that Liberals thought that Manning was a Neanderthal from the redneck West whose ideas were “un-Canadian”.
It’s OK Liberals, the first step in a 12 step program is to accept that you have no power over ….anything! Now that you’ve bottomed out, based on our Conservative experience, you will sort yourselves out in about 13 years. So you might want to be thinking in terms of people under 50.
Ohhh and they will have to be perfectly bilingual …so that eliminates about 90% of the population in the ROC, meaning you will have to fish around mostly in Quebec. Maybe some young BlocHeads could be enticed … it worked for the NDP.
but, but, it’s POLITICS !!!!! it’s ALL about image and perception, so what is this talk or deep and real renewal? what, a new image and perception?
I remember my poli sci prof talking about how the libs were in power for most of the last century (mackenzie king, turdeau et al) because they appealed right down the middle where the middle class was.
(hint: it’s demographics boys, dem-o-graph-ics)
All the Liberal Party needs to do is move to the right.
Get a charismatic leader.
Figure out how to fundraise millions of dollars from a broad base of people.
Plan a campaign for 2015 that focuses on “Change”.
Hope the Tories make some horrible mistakes or PC/Alliance divisions erupt.
Get involved functionally in communities.
There….that shouldn’t be so hard now should it?
Quote: the Liberal Party is at a crossroads.
Problem is…..one road turns left and the turns far left.
While I have little sympathy for Liberal Party members, I still do think it’s in the best interest of Canada to have them return to prominence one day. Why? Because eventually the Tories will lose power and when that happens do you actually want the NDP running things? I don’t.
PET Cemetery Report.
All are comfortable here. They brought along their entitlements and Cerberus has vowed to be a faithful watchdog.
One ex-Liberal has avoided our grasp; he is reported to have sought asylum at O’Harvard.
The one thing that always stuck in my craw was the idea that Canada’s culture was manufactured in Ottawa and not from the Canadian people.The Liberals invented the idea and thats one of the reasons for their demise.
The reason for the LIBRANOs downfall/decline was their focus was on power…..and judging from this article that hasn’t changed.
A party dominated by ivory tower academic elites, easily hi-jacked by corupt politicos such as Martin and Cretin.
“What does the Liberal Party stand for as we enter the 21st century?”
The NDP is left wing, they believe in socialism. They must also embrace some capitalist values to be electable.
The Conservative party is based on conservative values. They must also endorse a certain amount of liberal ideas in order to be electable.
The Liberal party is predicated on the idea that they should rule. They believe nothing in particular, stand for nothing in particular except that they should rule. If socialism is in favour, they move left. If fiscal responsibility is demanded by the electorate, they move right.
They may have stood for something at some time in the past, but no longer. It’s going to be rather difficult to rebuild the party on the divine right to rule.
“The liberals, on the other hand, formed a party of elites, and went looking of a platform to justify it. The liberals are still looking for the ‘killer app’, to justify their existence.
Posted by: Ian Vaughan at May 23, 2011 12:57 PM”
Exactly. Talking to family members and friends after the election results came in, I heard “the Liberals don’t seem to know what they stand for” and “Liberals have no idea how hard it is for most people to get by nowadays.” Choosing Ignatieff to head their party at a time when steady, strong leadership is crucial for our country was just plain foolish, and pie-in-the-sky programs and higher taxes don’t wash when households are trying to be frugal.
Its all over for the Liberal party – they’ve been cloned now and the name of the clone is…the CPC.
1. The Liberals first problem is their belief that Canada needs a third party. Provinces like Sask. function quite well without the Liberals.
2. I think it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for the Liberal Party to change how they relate to rank and file liberals. It is the party of VIP insiders and Backroom Boys. The party constitution encourages and protects this structure.
3. They’re broke
I think the Liberals could benefit from an NDP failure to hold on to Quebec seats. An Ontario and Western Canada alliance ends Quebec’s kingmaker role in Canadian politics so progressive Quebecers (aka. the extortionists) will become desperate to maintain their claim to special privileges paid for by the ROC. When the NDP fails to deliver they may look to their old benefactors, the Liberals, to restore Quebec’s entitlements.
The Liberals, being lazy and trapped in nostalgia-ville , will jump at the chance to return to power via provoking Upper Canada/Lower Canada/Western Canada divisions.
The op ed is truly pathetic in its utter cluelessness. The Liberals have no thoughts, no thinkers, no leader, and no idea of where to begin. They don’t understand the word “renewal”.
The old Progressive Conservative Party dissolved and some of its members coalesced around the Reform Party. That is “renewal”: death and rebirth. Indeed, one can say as one reads over the history of the Progressive Party, the Progressive Conservative Party, and the CCF, that new political ideas and new political movements have come from the West.
The op ed is clear enough that the unelected leadership of the Liberal party has to go. But their ideas hae to be buried: the idea that politics is nothing but spin; that the way to win a campaign is to slander your opponents; and above all, that a tedious rehash of old old leftist ides are going to win, will be a millstone around Liberal necks until there are no more Liberals.
“Liberal Party Renewal: Do They Have It In Them?”
No, because any “renewal” they do is going to be a coat of paint over the rusty reality of their “People Are Stupid!” belief system.
It would be nice if they were so shaken by this defeat that they’d question their fundamental assumptions on governance, but I see no indications of this. Quite the contrary, they think Harper thought up a better version of “How can we fool them today?” and beat them at their own game.
Tax-and-spend socialism got us all into a crack that it can’t get us out of. Its over for the Liberals. The NDP have gained traction in certain quarters by being MORE socialist, MORE taxes, MORE spending. But I think enough of the electorate sees events in Europe, like governments seizing private retirement funds to meet their bond payments, and they don’t want those same people running things here.
The Party needs to engage in an open policy process and produce a forward-looking platform that will once again capture the imaginations, respect and support of Canadians.
In other words become even more left leaning. Thats not renewel its suicide.
They have eaten themselves fat on the opiate of Socialism to the point of no return.
They shouild purge the left leaning fanatics, than have a real platform od citizan oriented platforms, not the moldering Communism of yore.
They won’t though. The elitists in this Party have had the dog run so much they can’t see beyond thier entitlements.
At the cost of this Country no see the need for a united Canada. Its alway play one region against another with these fools.
To the detriment of all Canadians. Plus they just can’t keep thier paws off of Provincial rights but want to force us all in the Toronto centric mold.
The leaders of this party have become a mafia, not leaders.
JMO
The beginning of the end was the unintentional beer&popcorn comment. It clearly revealed the Canadian Liberal mindset.
aka, as others have previously mentioned – the Elites, the Intellectuals believe the masses are stupid and have to be “protected” from themselves.
The liberals stand for Canadian values, it’s that simple. Now to get them to explain what those Canadian values are is the difficult part.
mid island mike
Well, if the future of the LPC rests with the likes of these two authors, then it doesn’t have a chance. Such consultant-speak representing and signifying nothing… You could tear them apart with just a few pointed questions on issues – the Wheat Board, Lower taxes, Carbon taxes. They have the old, mostly central Canadian psychosis of not knowing what they are, but knowing what they aren’t – they aren’t conservatives.
But the realpolitik in Canada is this:
If the CPC is not going to be the ruling party for the entireity of the next ten-plus years, it will not be a single party that replaces them, rather it will be a coalition of centre-left and left-wing parties. The NDP is incapable of throwing the unions and nutty left elements overboard, whilst the LPC – judging by the likes of these two authors – is just – well, incapable of agreeing on anything.
Bob Rae knows this and his insincere promise to be interim leader but not permanent leader is based on the knowledge that the LPC is in chaos, that the ND will implode and that should the CPC move too far to the right, the LPC could – even in its frail condition – be the lead party of that coalition with him as its leader. Already there are those in the LPC who are arguing that the interim leader should be able to run for the full-time role. (and Rae has no money worries with the Demarais writing the cheques as needed.)
The second realpolitik that many – including those very high-up in both the LPC and the NDP and the MSM – have not adjusted to is the plain and simple fact that from here on the House of Commons will be dominated by those ridings west of the Ottawa river. Take the 25 ridings of ultra-urban Toronto out of that area and the CPC won a solid majority of the votes. Add in 30 more seats in this centre-west region for 2015 and beyond and it becomes a fortress for the CPC that could deliver serial majorities for the CPC – even if the ND and LPC merged.
This area is the new Canada – a Canada that believes in smaller government, lower taxes, responsible entitlements, a tougher approach to dealing with crime and an assertive more martially-prepared stance on foreign affairs matters. The ND and LPC both are on the wrong side of all of these issues.
Thus the realpolitik for the LPC is first and foremost it must look West and adjust its policy positions accordingly – leaving the old canada to either vote with them or leave for the ND train wreck. Judging by the column above, they are nowhere near adjusting to that fact.
If by some miracle, they do come to acknowledge that reality, they very quickly must reform their structure – modelling it along the lines of the CPC/Reform. The Reformers overwhelmed the PCP because the PCP had the same antiquated elitist structure that the LPC still has while the Reform party had a modern, grassroots , soldily democratic structure that is almost elite-resistant. The LPC will also struggle to implement it because the elements that currently keep the financial lights on – the Demarais et al – would have to be repulsed in a manner similar to the old Canada noted above.
It is notable that much of discussion in the article cited above revolves around leadership. This has been the Achille’s heel since the days of Pearson for the LPC. Leadership has been seen as the magic elixir – the thing that heals/masks all of the party’s flaws. And it is the thing that the party should be least concerned with at this point in time (and this has been the case since even before the days of Chretien as PM. (Preston Manning hs written recently about this as well – arguing that the legacy of decline rests largely at the feet of Chretien.) The next great leader of the LPC is not amoung the current list of contenders. All of those guys represent different factions within the party elites. The elites must be removed from the power structure before the next leader is chosen. And if that leader is to become a majority leader he/she has to be from Western Canada.
…
After noting all of these daunting, possibly insurmountable obstacles, the LPC is in far better shape going forward than the NDP. That party is in for at least four years of chaos, with the Que wing trying to take over from the established Toronto wing and pull it even further to the left and away from the reins of power. Jack Layton’s departure – likely before 2015 – will leave a massive leadership vacuum with no moderate capable candidates currently visible. Purging the Unions is impossible and merging with the LPC is impossible without the purging…The NDP remains uncapable of becoming a ruling party.
ron in kelowna: “The beginning of the end was the unintentional beer&popcorn comment. It clearly revealed the Canadian Liberal mindset.”
The beginning of the end was simply the Librano$ being so “progressive,” but you’re right, this remark put their attitude in a nutshell.
Even though I was way past the time with my children to benefit from the CPC-initiated $100/child six-and-under/month, I was incensed by the l/Liberal attitude that this benefit was “peanuts.”
When my two children were young and I stayed home with them, $2400/year would have been like manna from heaven. At the time I was a full-time mother, my family living frugally on my husband’s one income, the Liberal$ were taxing to the max single-income families with a parent home to care for their own child/ren.
Scott Reid’s insufferably arrogant comment put in stark relief exactly how the Liberal$ felt about the average Canadian yokel. Well, the yokels have spoken — and thrown the Librano$ out with the trash.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
All your (decent) principles are blong to us.
Nyuck, nyuck.
IMO, Mike, the Liberals values and direction is similar to little kids at soccer (or hockey) practice. The two factions follow the ball all over the field with each individual attempting to kick the ball somewhere in the vicinity of the net. Meanwhile, special interest groups yell conflicting directions at them from the sidelines while the MSM lovingly encourage their little darlings no matter how terribly they play.
It is a self-centered little grouping that has no interest in those outside the clique. After the Liberals historic defeat it was amusing how angry journalists and G&M/CBC posters were with voters. Apparently it is the voters responsibility to think and vote as commanded by their moral and intellectual superiors.
Federal Liberals? Wasn’t that a party?
They can’t come to grips with their situation and realize they are down to bare bones when it comes to ideology.
For years they got away with being all things to all people then gradually ran out of steam as someone stole their thunder by actually standing for something the people could buy, that fit with the times, and addressed what years of Liberal power wrought us. It took a few years but that’s the Canadian way.
The Liberals need a Cognac Party. Like the Tea Party but somehow classier. They should find out what the people that vote Liberal want and forget about all of their focus groups. Every election the same people tell them the same thing but they live in Hogtown. Get some bodies from across the country might be a place to start.
They won’t do it though. They will take a lame try.
It was not apparent at first, but the Liberal Party of Canada began to lose site of representing the common man during Pearson’s government and evolved into telling us what is good for us under Trudeau’s progressive regime, attempting their best to destroy the family unit and finally culminating in the “beer and popcorn” that expressed its view and contempt of the citizenry.
Abe Froman @ 12:55 and batb @ 3:35 sum it up well.
Gord Tulk @ 3:29, you are right and hopefully it takes a decade or more before the Liberals find themselves again.
At this point in Canada’s history, the Conservatives represent man’s basic desire for freedom. The NDP represents the urge of some to make us all cogs in a machine. The Liberals have lost their eight hundred year involvement of liberal democracy and do not know if they represent the former or the latter.
Wolfy writes, “Its all over for the Liberal party – they’ve been cloned now and the name of the clone is…the CPC.”
Really? I’d guessed the NDP.
“This is the death of Trudeaupia.”
Posted by: Abe Froman at May 23, 2011 12:55 PM
Let’s hope so, but there is so much to undo. Eight years of PMSH might make a good dent, but to kill the leftard beast we have to restructure academia, the snivel service, union healthcare, the supremes, the senate, and it is all moot without selling off the ceeb tv.
Excise the tumor to cure the organism, cut the agitprop host loose from the fiscal teat.
The Liberanos attained and maintained power by owning the msm; Canadians had no other source of information – then along came the internet…the rest is history. The first critter to go four feet up was the Sask Dippers and Forlorn Lorn – SDA struck them down – next Paulie II, then Dionsky,. Regular people could not communicate or correct the msm except at Reform town hall meetings where we were preaching to the choir. Brochures and information sheets were expensive and time consuming and Canada Post employees were unreliable and expensive. Much of the delivery was done on our own two feet. Today a liar can’t open his yap to squash the truth the way the msm used to do for the Troika – it is all over the internet in seconds!
I think that the msm sees the curtains drawing across for them too – do they seem more twitchy (esp Craigo and the fella with the bad hair dye job)? IMO, the election of an honorable man to the position of Prime Minister was the very BEST thing to have happen. The fact that one of the Troika is choking (croaking) is nothing but music in my ears. I don’t care what happens to that thieving, NEP loving party of thick lipped, Bolsheviks. And I want ALL thee money they stole or borrowed from the public coffers repaid before any of them even consider claiming a pension or a paycheck from OUR House of Commons, Senate, or anywhere else they have holed up on the taxpayer dime.
Payback, Payback, Payback – my thought for the Liberanos.
What the Liberal Party has in it is Trudeapia Cancer.
Until that disease is killed off, they are done like dinner.
Jema 54, why don’t you tell us how you really feel!!
I suspect that the conservatives are going to govern like the old “progressive” conservative party. In Mulroney’s day the libs and cons were tweedle de and tweedle dum. Didn’t matter who you voted for you got the same nanny state crap anyway.
I may be niaive (spell check doesn’t work on this computer and I can’t be bothered to look it up!), but I think democracy would be better served if politicians tried to convince the voters that their position was correct, instead of trying to buy off interest groups for support. The conservatives and liberals spent the last couple of elections with the whole targeted tax credit b.s., when the right thing to do would gave been to increase the personal exemption or knock a percent of each bracket.
It will continue to be about buying our vote.
Yes Jema 54, you have a unique nice way of putting it.
“Canadians are being forced to choose between two extremes.”
That right there explains why they are dead. This is the party that brought political correctness to Canada and everyone who doesn’t subscribe to that BS is an “extemist”. (Scare quotes deliberate.)
Note with respect to the Dippers it applies quite well. And that, IMHO, is what’s now at play. Ordinary Canadians against extremist ideology. No place for mushy on-again off-again dodgy, befuddled middle-of-the-ever-winding-road-Divine-Right-to-Rule Natural Governing Party. Let the real contest of ideas begin.
I don’t think that she could print that here and not end up in jail.
minuteman said “I suspect that the conservatives are going to govern like the old “progressive” conservative party. In Mulroney’s day the libs and cons were tweedle de and tweedle dum. Didn’t matter who you voted for you got the same nanny state crap anyway”.
I suspect that you are right and some of the signs are already there. I was going to say that, but was afraid to do so because I do not want to see this and was burying my head in the sand.
Wolfy, “Its all over for the Liberal party – they’ve been cloned now and the name of the clone is…the CBC.”
FTFY
What Jema said.
I’ve spent over 30 years hating what the Liberal party stood for and where it took Canada.
I refuse to engage in the media game of looking for and suggesting solutions to their problem and ways to get them back.
I’m just too pleased with a CPC majority.
Good riddance to the Libs!
The last 2 weeks we have seen the direction PMSH is going, and it’s to the right….so Ken I don’t know what you are referring to. You and I usually agree..?!
The Liberals can’t help it. They are the UN party. The party that swallows all the policies and procedures from UN HQ. After all the UN believes that “thinkers” and “thought leaders” should be planted to encourage the little people to accept the totally wacky policies that come from that organization. The Harvard Kennedy School of Governance is churning out policy wonks yearly. I think everyone saw the G&M and their “Catalysts” as being an extension of this idea. They are still at it with their sidebar opinions from “thinkers” and their Time to Lead series. Ignatieff’s Red Book was entirely UN policy. The UN would like a world run by professors and great thinkers. The Liberals have chewed up two professors now, and Obama isn’t doing much better in the US.
Their problem is that they refuse to admit their party is indistingushable from the NDP, yet frankly this what happens when they continually mimic those left wing policy’s for so long, they become those that they imposture. But the bigger dilema now is that for all the years they’ve been demonizing the right, those proposals of moving to the centre ignore the elephant in the room that to make that mile long shift, they have to move to the right. So as soon as they discuss platform planks, they can’t swallow that liberal pride accept that trudeamania social engineering won’t sell, and realize we all know that their newest flavour of the moment platform plank as policy isn’t paid for by somebody else.
That article was a poor attempt at promoting Bob Rae’s acclimation as leader btw.
Who cares…