An Ill-Concieved Coronation

With only one candidate left, the Liberal party dismisses the prospect of renewal

In the midst of what has already been a historical two weeks in Canadian politics, the Liberal party has decided to set just a little more.

With Bob Rae and Dominic Leblanc both having dropped out of the Liberal leadership race, only one candidate currently remains -- Michael Ignatieff. The expectation now is that Ignatieff will be coronated as the leader of the Liberal party.

Never before in modern history has the Liberal party decided its leader by having all the other candidates simply fold their campaigns.

"I am not a candidate for the interim leadership, nor shall I pursue my candidacy for the party leadership at the Vancouver convention," Rae announced today. "I believe that the Liberal Party of Canada requires a new leader to be in place before Parliament returns at the end of January."

Rae's intent is clearly to keep the Coalition alive long enough to try and defeat the government on January 27th. The Liberals certainly do stand a better chance of doing this with a full-time leader in place rather than simply an interim leader.

But just as many Liberals are beginning to question whether or not the Coalition itself is a good idea, a great many Liberals should question if simply choosing a leader in such a clearly ad-hoc fashion is good for the party.

Many rank and file Liberals are undertaking an extensive process renewal process at the grassroots level. But in order for this renewal process to truly penetrate the upper echelons of the Liberal elite the selection of the new Liberal leader needs to be conducted in concert with that process of renewal. The leader selected needs to be one accepting the results of that renewal process.

Instead, the best they can now hope for is to conduct their renewal process around the selection of the new leader. Instead of choosing a leader who reflects the principles and values established by that renewal, they'll be attempting to adapt that renewal to a leader essentially chosen by default.

Perhaps that's the reason why Ignatieff himself should invite new candidates into the race and insist that it continue -- a leader chosen by default, at the head of a party that has already proven itself willing to sacrifice its principles vis a vis national unity, will find his credibility with the Canadian people to be very short.

Figures as near and dear to the Liberal elite as former President of the Liberal Party Stephen LeDrew have recognized the folly of an Ignatieff coronation.

Unsurprisingly, LeDrew blames Dion:

"Even in taking his leave, Stephane Dion can't get it straight. By stating that the party needs a leader before the Commons resumes at the end of January, he is effectively rejecting the benefits of a considered leadership debate, while robbing tens of thousands of Liberals of their voice in choosing their own leader."

Hopefully, Ignatieff sees the folly in all of this as well.

For the Liberal party's own good they simply cannot afford to rush to coronate a leader, and certainly not under circumstances as dubious as these.


Other bloggers writing on this topic:

"The" Scott Ross - "Ignatieff and Arrogance"

My Politicophobia - "Screw You Bob Rae"

Dysfunctional Parrot - "Bob Rae Gets Out of Dodge City"

Pearce Richards - "Hey Liberals, Chill the Fuck Out. You Did This to Yourselves."

Tories in For Sleepless Nights?

Ding Dong the Green Shift's Dead

Ignatieff, Rae, LeBlanc abandon Green Shift for good

In the aftermath on an election in which Stephane Dion staked his party's fortunes on his Green Shift plan and lost, it was only a matter of time before the Liberal party left it in the pages of history's footnotes.

As such, it's back to the drawing board for the Liberal party.

"You go back to the drawing board on how do you get to where we want to get to in a way that's going to be eminently practical and a way that's going to raise the interest and the passion of Canadians," Rae said. "It's not like cod liver oil. You've got to make sure that what we're providing for people is something that they actually want."

"The voters have told us to come back and think again about how to reconcile environmental sustainability and economic progress," added Ignatieff.

For Ignatieff, his casual abandonment of the Green Shift could become more ammunition for his opponents to use against him. After all, in 2006 he ran for the Liberal leadership on the strength of a carbon tax plan. Stephane Dion adopted a carbon tax and suffered one of the worst losses in the Liberal party's history.

Many Liberals will likely be forgiven if they come to suspect that Ignatieff's next big idea will be a comparably bad one.

Dominic LeBlanc has also confirmed that the Green Shift won't be part of his platform.

Bob Rae, at the very least, seems to have learned a lesson from the entire Green Shift debacle.

"You don't start with a theory," Rae said. "You start with the hard bedrock of the experience of Canadians in all walks of life. If you lose sight of that you can have an interesting life, but it won't be a successful political one."

Now, the only question that remains is thus: will the three candidates in the Liberal leadership race approach Liberals -- and, later, Canadians -- with a pragmatic -- even if ambitious -- program for running the country, or will they resort back to Liberal hallmark gimmickry?

Only time will tell.

Justin Trudeau Calls for a Generational Shift in Canadian Politics

Son of Trudeau calls for more youth involvement in politics

If Justin Trudeau was unaware of one particular fact about Canadian politics, he's likely to learn it very quickly.

When your name is Trudeau, it isn't hard to get someone to come out to hear you speak.

In Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Trudeau drew a crowd of 1,000 people to a party fundraiser where he talked about the need to get Canada's youth involved in politics -- or at least in the Liberal party.

“The challenge that we face as a political organization at all levels, both federal and provincial, is the idea of mobilizing our young people,” Trudeau announced. “We need to reach out to young people as more than just campaign volunteers who lick envelopes and put up posters, but as those who actually have input and are valued for their idealism, their energy and the way of thinking they bring in, which is a lot more long-term.”

Trudeau noted that too many Canadians are being drawn into one-issue political movements. Youth especially so.

Trudeau's musings seem to closely resemble leadership candidate Dominic LeBlanc's recent calls for a generational shift within the Liberal party.

And by that he doesn't simply mean selecting himself -- at 41, the youngest of the officially declared candidates -- for the leadership.

"It's not enough to change the head, you have to renew the whole and that's done with a new generation of leadership that springs the party forward," LeBlanc insists.

Some may have to wonder if Trudeau embracing LeBlanc's "generational shift" idea is a prelude to an endorsement of LeBlanc. But if "like father, like son" can be considered a rule of Canadian politics, one may also question the extent of Trudeau's commitment to any such generational shift.

Trudeau's father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, first got himself elected Prime Minister using two broad promises: that of the "Just Society" and that of making Canadian politics more participatory.

In the end, the vague Just Society promised was abandoned entirely. And Trudeau's "participatory democracy" was ultimately meant only for those who were members of the Liberal party -- regardless of whether they had voted for the Liberals or not.

For the most part, Justin Trudeau, like his father, is making a positive impression on the Canadian political scene. But sometimes these impressions are hard to keep up, and Trudeau would be wise to remember that the polish can wear off a politician quickly if he's found to be too flexible in regard to his promises.

Trudeau should remember one other lesson his father's example teaches: always back a winner. Most analysts consider the prospects for an "up the middle" victory for the Liberal leadership to be rather faint.

He would be much better off backing either of the two main contenders.

Media Out, Gloves Off

Liberal leadership forum turns ugly

Before officially embarking on their Liberal leadership campaigns, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae promised to keep their campaign civil.

"We've talked about the importance of civility, talked about the importance of people working together, talked about the importance of how we build the party, talked about the importance of how we make sure that we can defeat the Conservatives," Rae previously said.

Ignatieff has even mused that he's more interested in running his campaign against the governing Conservative party than against his fellow leaders.

Now, with news of the unpleasantness ensuing at the first forum of the leadership campaign, a great many Liberals should be asking themselves what happened.

It seems the first problem arose with some confusion over whether or not the media would be allowed access to the debate.

Bob Rae insisted that he wouldn't attend under those grounds.

"It sends an awful signal to have a debate that is closed to the media, closed to Canadians," Rae insisted. "I am calling for open debates, and I think we have to start right now, this weekend."

Furthermore, the news release accused Michael Ignatieff's campaign of barring media presence from the debate, something that Ignatieff himself claims to know little about. Instead, he insists it's the Liberal party behind the move.

"I don't make the rules. The party makes the rules. I show up and do what the party tells me to do," Ignatieff insisted. "The party wants to have a family discussion and that's what we're going to do this afternoon."

Ignatieff further insisted that all three campaigns had agreed to the rule. Rae clearly disagrees. "What we agreed to is that we would come. The idea that it would be closed is news to me," he insisted. "You can't have a town hall without a town."

On that note, Rae has clearly drawn first blood in this campaign. After all, Liberals from across the country will be sending delegates to vote in Vancouver for the next Liberal leader. Thus, it isn't at all unreasonable to insist that Liberals across the country have a right to know what's being discussed in each and every leadership forum, and have a right to know about the positions being taken by each and every candidate (all three of them to date).

Perhaps the big winner is Dominic LeBlanc. While Rae and Ignatieff trade shots over who's making the rules and how, LeBlanc is choosing to try to stand above the entire mass.

"The game hasn't even started and they're at each other's throats," LeBlanc said.

But at the same time, such comments may undermine LeBlanc's standing as a serious contender. LeBlanc's apparent disinterest in the nature of the rules betrays a recognition that they may mean very little to his campaign: one way or the other, either Miachel Ignatieff or Bob Rae will lead the Liberals into a future election, and LeBlanc will be a kingmaker at best.

For his own part, LeBlanc echoes Ignatieff's narrative that each candidate's opponent in this campaign should be Stephen Harper. "I believe that for the sake of the Liberal Party this leadership process should proceed in a civil way where the opponent is Stephen Harper, and the opponents aren't other Liberals," LeBlanc insisted.

But once again, many Liberals will likely choose to take issue with the notion that external policy differences are more important than internal ones when discucssing the Liberal leadership -- particularly in a party with as stark a left/right divide as the Liberals.

With no media access to the debates, accusations flying over who's making the rules and why, and suggestions by two candidates that internal policy differences are largely off-limits, many Liberals may be questioning whether this leadership campaign will turn out any more favourably than the last.

Michael Ignatieff Formally Joins the Fray

Liberal leadership campaign shaping up to be Ignatieff/Rae rematch

After nearly three weeks of waiting, it seems that the Liberal party finally has a leadership contest on its hands.

Michael Ignatieff -- long expected to join the leadership fray -- finally formally declared his candidacy yesterday. Now, the real business of choosing a Liberal leader can begin.

Ignatieff has an interesting strategy for becoming Liberal leader: instead of running against his opponents, he'll simply run against Stephen Harper.

"Now I'm going to be in competition with some fine fellow Liberals but I'm not running against any of them, I'm running against Stephen Harper and the Conservative government," Ignatieff insisted. "My target is not my friends and my Liberal colleagues, it is the disappointing record of the Harper government."

Of course, Harper won't actually be running for the leadership of the Liberal party, but one digresses.

Not to mention that when Ignatieff last had the opportunity to run against Harper and the Conservatives, he instead spent the better part of the 2008 federal election being largely invisible.

Ignatieff has his vision for the renewal of the Liberal party. Namely, "throwing open the doors of this party to the next generation, to the best and brightest our society has to offer."

Not that Ignatieff, 61, is feeling his age. "The youngest ideas aren't always from the youngest candidates. I think age is not a biological fact. It's a habit of spirit and mind."

This comes in response to Dominic LeBlanc's insistence that the party needs a generational shift. Which it very well might, but LeBlanc, 41, may not be the best individual to rally the youth wing of the party. Justin Trudeau (who, once again, isn't running for the Liberal leadership) would be much better.

Ignatiefff's candidacy certainly must relieve some deep worries at Liberal HQ, as they finally have two solid leadership candidates for Liberals to choose between.

The Liberal leadership campaign is finally on.

Glass Ceiling Breakage Deferred

No women in Liberal leadership race as Martha Hall Findlay demurs

In what's emerging as the latest in an amusing trend that should be very distressing to many Liberals, yet another potential contender has bowed out of the impending Liberal leadership campaign, set to conclude in April.

Martha Hall Findlay will not run to replace Stephane Dion, making it more likely that there may be no women in the Liberal leadership race.

Ironically, it was Dion himself who had pledged to improve the prominence of women in the party by nominating more of them for elected office. In his wake, however, it seems that women are no more prominent within the party than before. Considered it merely yet another one of Dion's unaccomplished goals.

The party has clearly not come very far since the days when Sheila Copps stayed in the Jean Chretien/Paul Martin leadership contest just for the sake of keeping a woman in the race.

While Ruby Dhalla may still run, one has to consider that the hiked entry fee for the contest -- up to $90,000 from $50,000 in 2006 -- may keep dark horse candidates such as Dhalla out.

While the lack of women in the race will almost certainly prove to be distressing to many Liberals, the lack of candidates in general should only more so. So far, Justin Trudeau, Frank McKenna and John Manley have all decided not to seek the leadership.

While Michael Ignatieff will almost certainly do so again, only two candidates -- Dominic LeBlanc and Bob Rae -- have formally declared. One has to imagine that many Liberals are becoming concerned with the lack of real options that will be open to them come April.

Update - Gerard Kennedy has officially announced that he won't be seeking the Liberal leadership. Nor will Denis Coderre.
javascript:void(0)
That now places the tally at two confirmed candidates, and six declining candidates.

Things must be getting very tense at Liberal Party HQ.

And Then There Were Two

Bob Rae declares candidacy for Liberal leadership

Liberal (interim) leader Stephane Dion is searching for a new Foreign Affairs critic today, as Bob Rae has resigned that post in order to pursue the Liberal leadership.

Although he and principal rival Michael Ignatieff had to settle on Dion as the compromise candidate in the 2006 Liberal leadership contest, this time around Rae intends to win.

"Our campaign will be stronger, better organized than it was last time, and we're going to win. I'm looking forward to it very much," Rae announced.

Of course, Rae will face the same questions regarding his dismal record as the NDP Premier of Ontario. "People say, 'well, Bob Rae has a history,' and I just say 'you're damn right I have a history,'" Rae admitted. "I've worked very hard in public life in this country for 30 years."

If Rae can take ownership of the Liberal left wing and find sufficient support from the soft middle, he can very much be a contender in this leadership contest. However, he may still have to contend with Ujjal Dosanjh, who was the former NDP Premier of British Columbia.

Dosanjh seemingly has yet to make a final decision about whether or not he'll make an attempt at the Liberal leadership. One has to imagine that the big factor standing in the way of that decision is the recounts he continues to face in his riding of Vancouver-South.

If Dosanjh -- whose margin of victory shrank to a mere 22 votes in a recount involving only 18 of 184 ballot boxes and rejected ballots -- loses his riding, it will be hard for his campaign to gain any traction. The prospects of the Liberal party electing a leader who would have to seek a Parliamentary seat in a by-election -- one in which the Conservative party and NDP may choose not to extend leader's courtesy in a tete a tete retaliation for Stephane Dion's ill-fated electoral deal with Elizabeth May -- should be considered especially dim for an individual who just lost his seat in a general election.

For Dominic LeBlanc, the pressure will now be on. With two candidates already in the race, more candidates can be expected to declare soon. It will only get harder for LeBlanc to draw attention to his campaign from here on out. If he doesn't act boldly, and soon, his time in the spotlight could be considered all but finished.

For now, there are only two candidates in the race. Both candidates have an opportunity to build some momentum, but each man will have to work for it.

LeBlanc Is In, McKenna Is Out

First Hat in the Liberal Leadership Ring

If the Liberal leadership were decided right now, at this very moment, the party would have a new leader.

Not Bob Rae, Michael Ignatieff or even Frank McKenna. Rather, it would be Dominic LeBlanc, the first Liberal to officially declare his candidacy in the Liberal Leadership contest.

In terms of party renewal, LeBlanc has his share of ideas on what has gone wrong, and how to fix the problem.

“Perhaps, in recent campaigns, we have drifted from that pragmatic centre of Canadian politics and we haven't given some of the traditional Liberal voting blocs an enthusiastic reason to support us," LeBlanc announced.

"I think that the Liberal party needs to return to a pragmatic, centrist approach to policy and to politics," he added. "I think that we need to regain our position as a voice for the middle-class and working Canadians, anglophones and francophones and for younger people."

With LeBlanc declared for the race, one might have expected the campaign to be set to heat up. Not so.

An individual expected to have been a front-runner in the campaign, former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna has decided not to join the contest.

"The challenge of winning the leadership, restoring the health of the Liberal Party and returning a Liberal majority government requires a longer time commitment than I am prepared to make," McKenna announced. "There will be an ample number of well-qualified candidates to do this important work."

Certainly, Rae and Ignatieff -- both expected to declare for the race -- must be breathing a sigh of relief with another potential front runner deciding to forgo an attempt at the leadership.

But as Ujjal Dosanjh and John Manley continue to consider running, each will face significant competition for their respective target demographics, as their potential supporters consider holding out for a better deal from competing camps.

But right now Dominic LeBlanc is the only candidate in the race. Until a few more candidates actually come out and declare, there isn't much to talk about in concrete terms -- the entire Liberal leadership race remains largely hypothetical.

Please Try Not to Laugh at Dominic LeBlanc

Stephen Harper apparently steals show at Acadian festival, LeBlanc pouting

Liberal party MP Dominic LeBlanc apparently feels that Stephen Harper stepped on his and Stephane Dion's toes by attending an Acadian festival in Caraquet, New Brunswick.

He responded by jamming them directly into his mouth, in what can only be described as a petulent, hypocritical tirade.

"At what should be a cultural celebration, Mr. Harper and his staff have chosen to behave like schoolyard bullies in a very crass, political way," LeBlanc complained. "This shouldn't be a partisan event."

Indeed it shouldn't have been. Now, if Harper had made a blatantly politicized speech, one could understand LeBlanc's objections.

Harper's speech?

"The battle for the survival and vitality of the French fact in Canada was fought and won by communities like Caraquet and many other Acadian communities," the prime minister said. "Long before Canada's founding, it was Acadian men and women who provided the most impressive example of the loyalty of a community to its values and its culture. ...Canada today is an example to the world in our embrace of diversity and the ability of Canadian federalism to preserve what distinguishes our communities while strengthening what unites us as a country."

"On the world scene, the mutual enriching of the two languages and the two cultures is recognized as one of Canada’s signature accomplishments and most important assets," Harper added.

Reportedly, the closest Harper came to partisanship was to reaffirm his government's support for bilingualism and minority language communities.

Stephane Dion was noted to have taken the opportunity to criticize some of Harper's budget cuts.

So apparently, what LeBlanc really meant when he said that the festival should have been a non-partisan event is that Stephen Harper should have not showed up, so the festival could have been a Liberal partisan event.

But try not to laugh too hard at Dominic LeBlanc. He's fragile, and feels like he's been "bullied".