Officially, this coming weekend Ottawa will host the 2012 Liberal Biennial Convention. Unofficially, if this convention were to have a name, no doubt the Reinvention Convention would be a strong contender with all the talk of rebuilding, renewal, rebirth, renaissance, etc. The simple fact is that much of the Liberal Party has been caught up in a wave of angst since the election results rolled in last year, helped along by a slew of Conservative pundits and media outlets gleefully gloating over the supposed demise of the Party. Let it never be said that some people aren't afraid to kick their opponents when they are down.
And so it is that this convention marks an extraordinary point in the Liberal Party history as candidates for the executive positions pit their visions for rebuilding the party against each other, and where significant changes to the Party's Constitution are set to be voted on. All this as much of the Party is seemingly buying into the media hype that only large scale changes can return the Party to power, or even just to official opposition status. Frankly, however, there are many who question the need for as major an overhaul as many of the leadership candidates are clearly pushing for. Members, such as myself, who believe that not everything is wrong with the Party, and that we need not reinvent everything simply for the sake of reinvention.
Certainly, there are changes to the Party that were overdue to be explored, and this year there are many interesting resolutions to be voted on. Specifically, the concerted effort to return the Party to a bottom-up, grassroots driven approach for setting policy direction, the move towards preferential balloting, and the resolution to remove the leader's veto on local choices for candidates that will go a long way towards removing the perception that the Liberal Party is an old-boys club driven by a small inner circle of power brokers. On the other hand, the Young Liberal's decision to force a ballot at this convention on a party position to sever Canada from the monarchy is ill-timed. While it is a valid topic in Canada, putting forth such a divisive issue at a time when growing support is the Party's primary concern is a bad move. No Liberal leader wants to enter the next campaign with a stated party desire to reopen the Constitution hanging around their neck.
But it is not the structure of the Party that primarily needs fixing in the mind of most voters. They did not vote for other Parties because of a distaste for how we choose local candidates nor for the voting system used to elect our leaders. These are internal issues of little interest to most of the electorate, and are not the reasons for the last election results. The fact is that Liberal Party failed to adequately respond to the move to year-round campaigning by the Conservatives, and the public never really warmed to a Liberal leader perceived to be a parachuted in leader who had a record of stated positions at odds with how he was presenting himself. And, of course, the sting of Adscam still haunted the campaign.
On the issues, the Liberal Party polled fairly well. Canadians were not uncomfortable with the platform offered by the Liberal Party in the last election nor with many Liberal candidates. Rather, they were uncomfortable with Ignatieff,, suspicious of his motivations for assuming the Liberal leadership, wary of the politicking that triggered the election, and unconvinced in a platform that seemed to be constantly shifting as the Liberal message changed throughout the campaign.
But contrary to the Conservative pundits eager to put a fork in the Liberal Party, one or two bad elections is not the death knell for Canada's oldest Party. It is a wake-up call that we need to continue to progress in the evolution of the Party to respond to the new campaign realities of dealing with an aggressive Conservative Party whose motto on their attacks is that "it doesn't have to be true, it just has to be believable." To that end, those members who are buying in to the need to totally reinvent the party are doing a disservice to the Liberal legacy. Indeed, it could be argued that such wholesale abandonment of the Party legacy plays to the false Conservative narrative that Liberals have no core beliefs if we are so eager to abandon those that we have.
It is instructive with regard to the current Liberal mindset that - in this effort to effect change - a candidate such as Sheila Copps' ties to the past are being held in disregard by some party faithful as she vies for the position of President of the Party. Liberals will be the first to remind you of all of the good things the Party has done for Canada whilst now simultaneously looking to distance themselves from the actual members who did the work. Members with an understanding of how to win elections, and how to make Parliament work.
As Jean Chretien mused last year, when he was first elected to Parliament Canada was a uni-lingual country whose Constitution was a British law. We did not have our anthem, our flag, nor were the Canada Pension Plan, medicare, nor most of the other social programs that have benefited so many Canadians available.
How much Canada has changed since 1963. This is the Liberal legacy, and it fuels the pride that Liberals feel for their party. A pride in knowing that much of why Canada is one of the best places to live in the world is the direct result of over 75 out of the last 100 years being managed under Liberal stewardship. In their hurry to make a break from past transgressions, Liberals must remember that there is also much of that past to continue to embrace. Admittedly, it can be a hard thing to convince the country that the Party has learned from its mistakes without reminding them of those mistakes, and to remind them of past successes without seeming to be living in the past.
However, while this Convention needs to focus on revising internal processes and defining a new party vision that we can all get together behind, going forward the concern must be on getting back to the basics of bringing our vision for the country to the electorate in a positive and consistent manner. If there is one area where the Liberal Party lost its touch in recent years it was in consistent strategic messaging. The Conservative Party maintains at least ten points of data on every single Canadian voter, condenses their platform to just a few key issues, and keeps up a consistent campaign of repeating those issues to the voters. The Liberal Party has maintained only one point of data on voters, putting us at a disadvantage when tailoring our message to the electorate, and has not had a strong strategy for marketing our platform to voters between elections. To regain a competitive position, refining the means by which we present ourselves to the nation is of paramount importance coming out of this convention.
With a new platform and the processes in place to bring it to Canadians, the Liberal Party will then be best served by muting the alarm bells, ignoring the Conservative pundits, and moving ahead with getting our message out to Canadians and finding a leader who best embodies core Liberal and Canadian values to lead us into the next election. The wake-up call from Canadians was received and understood. Now that we are awake, we need to get on with the work of today rather than continuing to focus on the mistakes of yesterday once we have resolved them.
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