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"The Liberals shall rise again," says Conrad Black

The young Liberals need to herd the old liberals into an old building, throw in all the old polices and books, lock the doors and burn it to the graound, plow the soil and toss salt on it. Then take the CPC history book and study it closely. Focus on building a grassroots based organization. forget the "white Knight" riding to the rescue, once you have healthy roots the leaders will come.
 
I think Edward has probably thought harder and more deeply about how the LPC can revive itself than most Liberals. Since he is a confessed card carrying Conservative Party supporter, it is a sad commentary about the nature of the Liberal party leadership as it exists.

I also think he has outlined how Canadian politics will unfold between now and 2020 (which is an even more amazing feat since a week is a long time in poitics. For soemone with strong libertarian tendencies, I approve of the direction we are heading in, especially since balancing the budget and trimming the size and reach of the State is a prerequisite to recapitalizing Canada (eliminating the national debt and unpaid liabilities, which total over a trillion dollars), and reducing the tax burden of Canadians, which allows us to produce and build our own stock of wealth, not just for us, but for our children as well. Contrast this to the progressive project, which has saddled each and every one of us with over $16,000 in debt ($32,000 when we add the unpaid liabilities) regardless of our circumstances, desires and ability to pay. This massive opportunity cost is probably the biggest millstone around Canada's collective neck, and needs to be eliminated as quickly as is practial.
 
Thucydides said:
For soemone with strong libertarian tendencies, I approve of the direction we are heading in, especially since balancing the budget and trimming the size and reach of the State is a prerequisite to recapitalizing Canada (eliminating the national debt and unpaid liabilities, which total over a trillion dollars), and reducing the tax burden of Canadians, which allows us to produce and build our own stock of wealth, not just for us, but for our children as well.

It's funny - I could swear the Liberals balanced the budget when they were in power, and ran massive surpluses which were used both to invest in the country and pay off debt. And I think they started cutting taxes a bit while they were at it. Maybe I'm just remembering that wrong? I definitely have a little bit of voter's remorse for voting Conservative for so long.

Mr. Campbell's assessment is fairly correct, I think - the track the Liberals will need to take, anyhow. If, as he suggests, they go for a "Manley Liberal" type leader, and try to fuse socially liberal ideas from the more left leaning end with a little more prudent economic policy, they'll probably be able to strip more disenchanted "red Tories" from the Conservative voter ranks, and probably convince some Dippers to hold their nose and vote for them too. That, regardless of their leader, will likely be the clarion call in the next election campaign - they'll be looking to highlight a lot of things the Conservatives have done to piss a lot of people off. I think, however, the Conservatives don't seem to care about things like robocalls, or the F35 debacle, or anything else, because they know right now there's no one who can bother them.
 
Redeye said:
It's funny - I could swear the Liberals balanced the budget when they were in power, and ran massive surpluses which were used both to invest in the country and pay off debt. And I think they started cutting taxes a bit while they were at it. Maybe I'm just remembering that wrong? I definitely have a little bit of voter's remorse for voting Conservative for so long.

Mr. Campbell's assessment is fairly correct, I think - the track the Liberals will need to take, anyhow. If, as he suggests, they go for a "Manley Liberal" type leader, and try to fuse socially liberal ideas from the more left leaning end with a little more prudent economic policy, they'll probably be able to strip more disenchanted "red Tories" from the Conservative voter ranks, and probably convince some Dippers to hold their nose and vote for them too. That, regardless of their leader, will likely be the clarion call in the next election campaign - they'll be looking to highlight a lot of things the Conservatives have done to piss a lot of people off. I think, however, the Conservatives don't seem to care about things like robocalls, or the F35 debacle, or anything else, because they know right now there's no one who can bother them.


You are right that the Liberals did balance the budget, but they did so in a very sneaky way: they did make some deep, even painful cuts - mostly to national defence and "high culture," things most Canadians always want to see cut, but they also offloaded HUGE expenses to AB, BC and ON - and Dalton McGuinty's Ontario Liberals are, in 2012, paying for decisions Jean Chrétien made 15 years ago; chickens do come home to roost. In my opinion Harper's trimming is better economics and even better politics.
 
E.R. Campbell said:
You are right that the Liberals did balance the budget, but they did so in a very sneaky way: they did make some deep, even painful cuts - mostly to national defence and "high culture," things most Canadians always want to see cut, but they also offloaded HUGE expenses to AB, BC and ON - and Dalton McGuinty's Ontario Liberals are, in 2012, paying for decisions Jean Chrétien made 15 years ago; chickens do come home to roost. In my opinion Harper's trimming is better economics and even better politics.

That is somewhat true - and the provincial governments - at least in the case of Ontario - just downloaded their own costs to municipalities. I agree about Harper's cuts side - I just wish he hadn't made decisions like cutting consumption taxes.
 
Redeye said:
It's funny - I could swear the Liberals balanced the budget when they were in power, and ran massive surpluses which were used both to invest in the country and pay off debt. And I think they started cutting taxes a bit while they were at it. Maybe I'm just remembering that wrong? I definitely have a little bit of voter's remorse for voting Conservative for so long.

Yes, he did...by lying about his Little Red Book's three promises, and only cutting the EH-101, whilst keeping Brian Mulroney's GST and NAFTA.

So yes, you're right, Chretien lied, then used Conservative tools to increase Canada's financial solidity.


Regards
G2G
 
Cretin was a lying bastard who would sell his mother for a vote.  We'd have been better off with my dog running the country.
 
Good2Golf said:
Yes, he did...by lying about his Little Red Book's three promises, and only cutting the EH-101, whilst keeping Brian Mulroney's GST and NAFTA.

So yes, you're right, Chretien lied, then used Conservative tools to increase Canada's financial solidity.


Regards
G2G

You mean like spending the pension surplus instead of using it to offset unfunded liabilities? Or perhaps stealing the EI surplus instead of returning it to the taxpayers? I don't recall the Conservatives ever doing, or saying they would do either of those.
 
The Enron like accouting of the 1990's only served to eliminate the deficit, and the overtaxation that occured later was simply used to restart the spending to pander to special interests, rather than actually pay down the debt or unfunded liabilities. And of course the Liberals party led the charge for the $30 billion "stimulus" spending in 2008 that put us back into deficit (then of course howled that there was a deficit again).

While I am very unhappy with the Conservatives for ramping up soending during minority and also for the mildness of their trimming today (I would have been most pleased to see the trimming start at $10 billion), at least the trimming is being done via spending cuts, and is sustainable. Getting to broad based tax relief and revving up the economy *shoud* be the next item on the agenda, and if the forecast to 2020 is anywhere near correct, then the opportunity presents itself after the budget is balanced (which would fit nicely with the "short back and sides" prediction for 2016).

Paying down the debt and unpaid liabilities is a matter of urgency, since the fundimentals of the global debt crisis have not really been resolved (indeed the extra 5 trillion dollars the US Admininstration ladled onto their debt has only made the conditions worse), and the mismanagement of Ontario and to a lesser extent Quebec have landed a ticking time bomb in the Canadian economy as well. Deleveraging the national debt and providing the population with the opportunity to deleverage and build up their own wealth is really the only way to provide long term protection.
 
ModlrMike said:
You mean like spending the pension surplus instead of using it to offset unfunded liabilities? Or perhaps stealing the EI surplus instead of returning it to the taxpayers? I don't recall the Conservatives ever doing, or saying they would do either of those.

Yes, it was $13 billion dollars, if I recall correctly.
 
Good2Golf said:
Yes, it was $13 billion dollars, if I recall correctly.

I remember the controversy was over a 40B figure....can't remember the details....
 
GAP said:
I remember the controversy was over a 40B figure....can't remember the details....

I recall that figure too, GAP.  Maybe the $13B was the CFSA alone, and the $40B included it and the PSSA and RCMPSA all together?
 
Good2Golf said:
I recall that figure too, GAP.  Maybe the $13B was the CFSA alone, and the $40B included it and the PSSA and RCMPSA all together?

Kinda makes the F-35 like a drop in the bucket...
 
Here is a rather useful reminder that parties, even Liberal Parties, can wither and die. It is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Opinion/Columnists/6487141/story.html
A British history lesson for Canada’s Liberals

By Dan Gardner, The Ottawa Citizen

April 20, 2012

If history repeats, we are about a decade away from the publication of a book called “The Strange Death of Liberal Canada.”

The history in question is that of Britain’s Liberal party, which dominated British politics in the late 19th century, laid the foundations of the modern welfare state at the beginning of the 20th century, led Britain in the First World War ... and then collapsed. It wasn’t reduced to rubble all at once, of course, but the transition from dominance to irrelevance was swift and bewildering. George Dangerfield captured the feeling of political observers in the title of his 1935 classic The Strange Death of Liberal England.

Like Canada’s Liberal party, Britain’s Liberal party had roots in a classical liberal philosophy of legal equality and free trade. In the 1890s, the Liberals started to embrace a more interventionist approach. Free trade was still the foundation. But government would take steps to take the rough edges off capitalism.

Gradually, middle class support slipped from the Liberals to the Conservatives, but the Liberals became the party of industrial workers. The Liberals also enjoyed regional bases in Scotland and Wales. It was a winning combination.

A landslide in 1906 was followed by the enactment of the new program — old age benefits, health insurance, workman’s compensation — and the extension of the franchise. More victories followed. But then came the First World War and the end of the golden age. (Dangerfield argued the Liberal decline began prior to the war. Historians don’t agree. The Strange Death of Liberal England is, one wrote, “a literary confection which does not attempt serious analysis.” In this column, I’m mostly working from Chris Cook’s A Short History of the Liberal Party, which is the standard introductory reference.)

Liberal prime minister H.H. Asquith led the government into war and in 1915 he brought Conservatives into cabinet. But stalemate at the front and the terrible strain of the war on British society doomed Asquith. He was effectively pushed out. David Lloyd George, a leading Liberal minister, replaced him as prime minister, with the support of the Conservatives. Asquith and many other Liberals chose to sit in opposition.

In 1918, the war ended and an election was held. The de facto coalition of Lloyd George Liberals and Conservatives won a huge victory and Lloyd George continued as prime minister for the next four years. (Minority governments were common in this era. So were coalitions, alliances, and a wide variety of electoral arrangements. As a Canadian reading about this history today, it’s striking just how completely it repudiates Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s claims about coalitions and how the Westminister system works.)

Outwardly, then, the Liberals were divided but still in much the same position they had been before the war. In reality, however, there had been a seismic shift.

Lloyd George’s Liberals — despite not having to compete with Conservatives in many ridings — had done poorly, and became in fact the junior partners in the coalition. Worse, Asquith’s Liberals were crushed. Worst of all, Labour became the official opposition for the first time.

The Labour party had been founded at the beginning of the 20th century (with earlier antecedents) but the Liberals had always co-operated with Labour, rather than treating it as a threat. There was even a secret agreement to minimize competition in the election of 1906. This approach worked well for the Liberals. Before the war, Labour’s support was in the single digits and the Liberal dominance of the industrial working class was never in doubt.

But with the split in the Liberal party, Labour moved aggressively. Its pitch to industrial workers wasn’t that it was more radical. In some ways, it wasn’t. Instead, it portrayed itself as the more united, more competent, more effective alternative to the Conservatives. And it worked. Whole swaths of voters switched from Liberal to Labour. Despite a modest Liberal resurgence in the election of 1923 — when a Conservative protectionist platform allowed Liberals to rally around the old battle flag of free trade — Labour steadily conquered Liberal territory.

In 1924, Labour formed its first government, a minority, and the Liberals were relegated to third-party status. Even more unfortunate for the Liberals was the determination of Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour prime minister, to avoid being seen as a socialist radical. His government was moderate and competent. And British politics increasingly looked like a choice between Conservatives and Labour.

Division is an obvious theme in all this. Another is the lack of leadership. Asquith and Lloyd George were both impressive men but their best days were behind them by the 1920s. The Liberals drifted. The party’s constituency associations crumbled.

However, notes Chris Cook, “this failure of leadership, together with bitter personal divisions within their ranks, tended to obscure a more fundamental weakness in the party: Its whole fundamental philosophy.”

It wasn’t clear what the Liberals stood for, what they believed, why they wanted to win. It wasn’t enough to be the alternative to the Conservatives. Labour was that. And it wasn’t enough to be in the reasonable centre. Labour was there. Neither Asquith nor Lloyd George made any serious attempt to shore up the party’s intellectual foundations and so there were constant defections, with left-leaning Liberals going to Labour and right-leaning Liberals (including Winston Churchill) going to the Conservatives.

In 1926, Asquith retired. Lloyd George took sole control. He had one final chance to restore the party’s fortunes and he made the most of it.

Lloyd George assembled many leading intellectuals, including John Maynard Keynes, to discuss policy. Together, they published a series of important, insightful research papers and books. In the election of 1929, the Liberals had a policy platform which was hailed at the time, and by historians ever since, as the most intellectually distinguished document of its kind.

Liberal hopes were high and Lloyd George campaigned well. But it came to nothing. Because it was too late.

The Liberal share of the popular vote did rise substantially. But the Liberals didn’t have a base. Labour had taken Scotland and much of Wales from them, and snatched away industrial workers. As a result, the Liberal vote was spread evenly across much of the country. That’s deadly in the first-past-the-post system.

Labour elected 287 MPs, the Conservatives 260. The Liberals had 59. The circumstances had been right and the Liberals had done all they could, but still they were reduced to a rump, and they withered further in the years that followed. Never again did they seriously contend for power.

And if Canadian Liberals don’t see lessons in this history it won’t be long before someone writes “The Strange Death of Liberal Canada.”

Dan Gardner can be reached at dgardner@ottawacitizen.com.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen


I have a well thumbed copy of The Strange Death of Liberal England in my library; so too, I suspect, does Stephen Harper, most likely John Manley has one, too; I wonder if Bob Rae has read it? If you haven't you should get it from your local library.

 
The LPC is not exactly showing signs of life; this is probably good news for the CPC and excellent news for the NDP, OTOH the idea of them dissapearing and creating a united Left is a bit unsettling. The list of "illustrious names" who have abandoned the LPC now that it no longer serves their purpose is also telling; their loyalty to the Party is only in proportion to what they could gain by belonging to it:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2012/05/26/19802586.html

Liberals struggle with identity
By Mark Dunn, QMI Agency

OTTAWA - A spate of recent polls suggest Liberal pallbearers should send their mourning suits to the drycleaner.

Liberals will tell you polls are like the tides - they come and they go; the only real poll is the ballot box.

But the big worry for the struggling Grits is whether the sinking numbers begin to stick, and the one-time "natural governing party" finds itself permanently displaced by the New Democrats and fighting for survival.

Calling for the resignation of the prime minister and for an expensive Royal Commission to look into jet procurement is not the way to win attention and bold headlines.

It sounds foolish and desperate.

The only buzz around the Liberals is how far the party has fallen and if it can ever reclaim ground now being trodden by New Democrats on one side of political centre and the Conservatives on the other.

As far as I can tell, few are coming to the party's rescue - leaving it to a former NDP premier of Ontario to preside over the Liberal's fortunes.

Even Jean Chretien, the three-term majority prime minister, has given up on the brand with his repeated musings that the Grits and NDP should join forces or the Conservatives will continue to sneak up the middle and hold on to power.

Rarely do we hear a proactive peep from the Grit's old guard - many of whom are now making personal fortunes in the private sector after long political careers. Why haven't familiar faces like Lloyd Axworthy, Alan Rock, Brian Tobin, Anne McClellan, Bill Graham, John Manley and others come to the aid of a party that served their ambitions so well for so long?

It's clear the NDP has no intention of playing footsies with the Grits now that they are one step removed from 24 Sussex Dr. So, it's up to Liberals to break out of their slumber and find a way to convince Canadians they have something to offer.

Fixing fundraising, a shattered organizational structure and wooing grassroots foot soldiers is a good start by new party president Mike Crawley.

Liberals can only hope it's not too late after years of neglect, patronization and leadership coronations that went horribly wrong.

The future of the Liberals largely rests on decisions coming up in the first week of June. That's when the party's executive sets rules for next spring's leadership, and decides if Bob Rae will be permitted to seek the full-time job.

No one else appears to be seriously champing at the bit to run, and the names being floated are not inspiring for a party in need of fresh faces, ideas and vision.

As always in politics things can change in a heartbeat, and that can be a good or bad thing for any party still more than three years away from a general election. But the Liberals really need to start rebuilding now, or the Grim Reaper may yet come to visit.
 
The Liberals will do well to ditich the old guard, read the Conservative history for lessons learned, look at the long view and build the grassroots. Head for the centre borrowing slightly from left and right. The BIA (bill C-38) in front of the house right now is going to haunt the Conservatives, making up law on the fly always bites sooner or later and as much as Canadians like to say "deregulate" what they are saying is; "cut regulations I don't like, but make sure you regulate that guy down the street" As Canadians start hearing more of "Sorry we can't help you" when they call government departments, they will be pissed. If the Liberals were smart they would start to build on the unease people have about the scope and breadth of bill C-38. However I don't think the Libs have clued in to what they have to do. Fire first, then rise out of the ashes.
 
I don't think bill c-38 will have much effect on the next election. This will be old news that I believe the average Canadian really doesn't care about. Conservatives are "smart" to get this out of the way early in their term.

Unless the NDP leans much more towards the center ( Which I believe is what Mulcair is trying) the Liberals will lose ground next election to the NDP; not in numbers to have any change onm the CPC majority.

While I don't agree with bill c-38 at all; I find most people really just don't care.
 
dogger1936 said:
I don't think bill c-38 will have much effect on the next election. This will be old news that I believe the average Canadian really doesn't care about. Conservatives are "smart" to get this out of the way early in their term.

Unless the NDP leans much more towards the center ( Which I believe is what Mulcair is trying) the Liberals will lose ground next election to the NDP; not in numbers to have any change onm the CPC majority.

While I don't agree with bill c-38 at all; I find most people really just don't care.

I'll agree with that synopsis. C-38 will be a dead issue in 2015.

Mulcair is just going through the motions (opposing everything) with the Government. His real, behind the scenes operation is to give all the disgruntled and disaffected liberals a new home and present a centre to far left party to oppose the centre to far right one of the Conservatives.

He's trying for a two party system.

As far as Bill C-38, I think there are as many people for it as oppose it, polls notwithstanding, which kind of nullifies any sort of an advantage for either side.
 
recceguy said:
I'll agree with that synopsis. C-38 will be a dead issue in 2015.

Mulcair is just going through the motions (opposing everything) with the Government. His real, behind the scenes operation is to give all the disgruntled and disaffected liberals a new home and present a centre to far left party to oppose the centre to far right one of the Conservatives.

He's trying for a two party system.

As far as Bill C-38, I think there are as many people for it as oppose it, polls notwithstanding, which kind of nullifies any sort of an advantage for either side.


The Conservatives will be tempted to use omnibus bills whenever they want to get two or three or even five or six years' work done in one - and budget bills are prime candidates. I expect another big and bad news budget in 2013, albeit not a much 'bad news' as in 2012. I expect 2014 to be a bit 'kinder' and the 2015 budget will be (relatively) full of 'goodies,' it being an election year and all.
 
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