At Home in Hespeler

I wrote this piece in response to Gerry Nicholls assertions that the Liberal Party was done like dinner, to quote a colourful figure from the past. It has been up on Gerry’s Freedom Forum for a couple of days now.

By the way, by “young, energetic new leader,” I don’t mean Justin Trudeau.

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Gerry Nicholls says the Liberal Party of Canada is a spent entity. Here’s how his argument runs:

The Liberal Party is based on a single ideology, power. Now out of power for three elections and five years, the Liberal Party has no other base to fall back upon. Where once the Liberals were loaded with talent, now the cupboard is bare, frontline talent so thin the Maple Leafs would give them a run in a best of 7 series.

Furthermore, the Liberals are lined up against a dastardly foe, Stephen Harper, the “Genghis Khan of Canadian politics,” a ruthless player of chess against everyone else’s checkers. Harper’s overriding ambition is to eliminate the Liberal Party of Canada.

I agree with Gerry on these points, and that the elimination of public political funding is a serious blow to the Liberal Parties ability to fight elections and collect entitlement with which to be entitled. However, I think the playing of Marche funèbre on behalf of the Liberal Party is premature.

Can the Liberal Party of Canada rebound?

It is first important to ask, if not the Liberals, who? The Bloc Quebecois seems to be in equally dire circumstances in Quebec, and seems less likely than the Liberals to ever rebound. With almost all of their funding coming from the now defunct $2.00 a vote scam, it seems likely the smart sovereigntist money in Quebec will go provincial. The Bloc, in other words, now that is a spent force.

After the last election I suggested the NDP had a problem. They now have two disparate bases, Quebec and Western Populists. Their western populist base, sprinkled with some union towns in Ontario and the Maritimes is the traditional NDP. The new Quebec NDPers, however, have old school Quebec ideas, i.e. the Federal Government needs to move resources out of the rest of Canada and into Quebec. Here in Ontario we seem to not get that Quebec’s $7 daycare is paid by us (or was, before Dalton McGuinty saved us from paying into Canada’s transfer payment system), but in the west they are very aware of who pays to keep Quebecers happy. The NDP, I argued then, had a tough balancing act:

He (Jack Layton) will also now have to make up his mind on a number of issues where he said one thing on Quebec and another elsewhere, particularly out West. You can’t play two sides of the fence in Parliament. It will be a delicate balancing act, and one if he gets wrong, could be very bad for the NDP next time around.

The juggling act would have been tricky for a skilled politician like Jack Layton, the chances that whoever replaces Layton will be able to hold the NDP vote together for future elections is unlikely. The recent caucus split on the issue of where to build Canada’s new navy ships, a split that runs along Quebec and not Quebec lines seems to prove this out.

All good news for the Liberals. The bad news is, they are in just as bad a shape. They have no funding base except the government, now run by their sworn enemy, they seem out of touch and out of ideas. As Gerry notes, leadership material is thin on the ground.

But they are not dead yet. Here’s what the Liberals need to do to survive. Elect a young, energetic new leader and give him a mandate to win not the next election but the one after.

This leader needs to go from town to town, riding to riding, meeting with Liberals and potential Liberals. They need to shake hands with every person they can, look them in the eye and listen to their concerns and ideas. They need to meet with the leaders of the Liberal party in every riding, talk to them, listen to them. They need to hold rallies, not $350 a plate dinners, and pass around the collection bucket at the end. It doesn’t matter if they donate a toony or a twenty, people must feel like they own the party.

Based on their travels, and listening to the people, the leader needs to create an ethos for the Liberal Party to base its policy on, not just pull policy out of thin air. Every item in the policy book needs to be tested against the ethos, and not found wanting. And the Liberals need to be prepared to let the new leader have an election to lose, to learn from the mistakes, to begin selling the ideas of the new Liberal Party.

The Liberal Party of Canada is, to borrow a phrase, not dead yet. And unlike Gerry Nicholls, I am unconvinced they will not recover. However, they have one chance to get it right, and only one.

Silly Liberals Freedom Forum, Gerry Nicholls, Jack Layton, Liberals

Now that the election is over, some Hesplerian thoughts:

I agreed back in February or so with Gerry Nicholls that a Conservative majority was coming. Why? It struck me that Michael Ignatieff had lousy political instincts and would be terrible in a hard election. Contrary to the media meme that he ran a good campaign, he was terrible. On day one he wouldn’t answer a simple question about coalition, all the while insisting he was answering it. It was obvious to anyone watching he was evading, and he wasn’t good at evading.

By the end of the first week, we had the absurd, red door blue door quote to make fun of. By week two it was “Rise Up!” which we on the right were busy making fun of, but the Ignatieff campaign kept repeating. The Liberal candidate in my riding was using a #riseup hashtag on his tweets. Guys, when they are laughing at you, stop making the joke.

Then there’s the debates. Jack Layton clearly knocked out Michael Ignatieff in both debates. Not speaking french, I’ll leave discussion about that to others. The english debate, however, was in hindsight all Jack. It wasn’t the suggestion that Ignatieff doesn’t show up to work, although it was a good shot, but Ignatieff’s response that killed him. Here’s the right response:

First off Jack, your numbers are wrong, I have not missed 70% of the vote. Secondarily, as leader of the opposition, I have responsibilities beyond normal Parliamentarians. Those responsibilities reasonably keep me out of the house sometimes. It’s far more reasonable for the leader of the opposition to miss some votes than the leader of the third place party spend almost $1m of taxpayers money transporting himself and his wife all the way to Toronto.

Here’s what you don’t say, especially when the label the opposition has placed on you is arrogance:

I don’t need any lectures on democracy from you.

Ignatieff went for the latter response, and today the Canadian Forces are dumping the corpse of his political career over the side of a frigate off the coast of Peggy’s Cove.

Stephen Harper’s best move was one he was heavily criticized for. He offered to debate Ignatieff one-on-one, then withdrew the offer when Ignatieff jumped at it. At to that Ignatieff’s response to Layton in the debate that (and I paraphrase) he should stop acting like he has a chance at forming government. The opposition groups were working together, trying to unseat Stephen Harper. What Harper did by offering the one-on-one debate was put the fox in the hen-house of the coalition. Ignatieff confirmed that indeed, some pigs are created more equal than others in any possible coalition/co-operation. The game was on, and the NDP helped take down the Liberals.

Champagne notwithstanding, the NDP has a real problem. It is now the party of Quebec, having gained only 8 more seats outside of Quebec. Half their caucus is from one province. Quebec voters have long memories and don’t forgive perceived insults. So what do you call it when a party runs a bunch of inexperienced kids? If some of these very lightweight politicians emerge to show what they are not made of, Quebec voters may well turn on the NDP. And controlling political amateurs who have nothing to lose by going off reservation is going to be a Herculean task. The expression herding cats comes to mind.

Beside that, Quebecers will expect Layton to stand in the house and speak for Quebecers. It’s what is done. When he goes in to his “I speak for all Canadians,” schtick, Quebecers won’t be happy. But if he stands and starts doing Gilles Duceppe’s old “I speak for all Quebecers,” schtick, the rest of the country will notice and note. He will also now have to make up his mind on a number of issues where he said one thing on Quebec and another elsewhere, particularly out West. You can’t play two sides of the fence in Parliament. It will be a delicate balancing act, and one if he gets wrong, could be very bad for the NDP next time around.

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Note: Ruth Ellen Brosseau is already a problem

What’s next for the Liberals? If I were the Liberal Party of Canada, here’s what I would do.

First off, disregard any talk of Liberal/NDP merger. Not this time, not with the NDP having the trump cards. A Liberal/NDP merger only works for Liberals if it is the NDP being absorbed by the Liberals, not the other way around. Like the PCs before them, they will need more than one drubbing to get the hint.

That said, the goal is rebuild. And like a hockey team, the best rebuilds are youth movements. I am not a Liberal, and I don’t pretend to know everybody in the party. Insiders would be better informed on the talent within, but I would shoot with a guy like Justin Trudeau. Yes, I know what the detractors say: his father’s charisma, his mother’s brains. That may be so, it may not, but I would risk it all on him, or someone like him.

To be sure I’m talking about a long-term project. Your new guy has to be willing to go riding to riding, Liberal to Liberal and shake hands, discuss what’s important to them, and convince them to leave a few dollars in the collection box on their way out. Every riding, every Liberal need to shake your guys hand, look him in the eye and connect (note: I am using the masculine here, but it could just as well be a woman. The prose was just getting too bloody awkward trying to neutralize the gender).

This strategy depends on one uncomfortable fact: you have to be prepared to lose the next election. Not that you can’t win it – 4 years is a long time in politics – but that winning it is not your aim. Rebuilding the party, developing policies, improving the finances, those are the goals. Two election from now, and we are talking 6 – 8 years, you are looking to win. By then you have a veteran leader who has been through the wars, he has made his mistakes, and he’s ready to lead. That’s the route I would take and it is, I think, the only way to avoid the end of the Liberal party.

Of course, you could disagree and make 64 year-old Bob Rae your leader, just as the PC’s went back to Joe Clark. That worked so well for them, after all.

Ruth Ellen Brosseau lives in Ottawa and works at a student pub, does not speak french and has never been to Berthier-Maskinongé. During the campaign, she went on holiday to Las Vegas, and had to be called in Vegas and told to come back, because she was winning. The voters of Berthier-Maskinongé elected her to Parliament anyway: can we now do away with the myth that Quebecers are more sophisticated voters?

election '11 Jack Layton, Joe CLark, Justin Trudeau, Michael Ignatieff, Ruth Ellen Brosseau, Stephen Harper,  Berthier-Maskinongé

Interesting piece by John Ivison in today’s National Post: Jack Layton apparently has his sights sets on leader of the official opposition.

The task looks Herculean – the Liberals polled an average of 29% in the four polls this month: the NDP just over half that…

It may seem nuts, but I like Layton’s chances, just as I like the Conservatives chances of forming a majority. The truth that’s not being told is, Ignatieff has never been a big player in a high level campaign. He ran one leadership campaign, was way out ahead when it began and blew it: the more Liberals saw him, the less they liked him.

His second leadership campaign he won by backroom manoeuvring, taking the decision making out of the hands of Liberal party members and their inconvenient votes.

You can’t backroom your way through a general election.

Everytime I see Ignatieff, my spidey senses tingle the same little tingle: when the going gets real and tough, this guy will fold like an Ikea chair at an overeater’s anonymous meeting.

Jack Layton is right (yes I wrote that: Dec 15, 2010, mark it on your calendars), Michael Ignatieff is very vulnerable in a campaign. He talks about a campaign on leadership, but what he means is he thinks Ignatieff isn’t up to the job of winning peoples minds and hearts when it counts.

Jack Layton Jack Layton, Michael Ignatieff, National Post, Stephen Harper, Stornoway

Jack Layton is in the middle of the crowd when they cut to the camera at Wayne Gretzky’s pub in Toronto. A girl’s arm is in the way of the camera showing his always smiling face, and he moves the arm.

h/t  Torontoist

Jack Layton, Jacobian Piece of Impertinence canada hockey, Jack Layton, wayne gretzky

I remember it like it was just last year, Jack Layton was telling every microphone within’ diaphram-shot that he wasn’t running to finish third place; he wasn’t even running for leader of the opposition. No in the 208 general election, Jack Layton was running for Stephen Harper’s job. He had the stuff, he was The Man: Prime Minister material.

But Prime Minister’s lead, Prime Minister’s make a decision and stand on that decision. Voting present, as Rudolph Guiliani put it, is not an option. That’s what Stéphane Dion’s Liberals did, and Jack derided him.

Yesterday, “the prime minister in waiting,” Jack Layton, and his caucus sat while Parliament’s confidence in the current government was being decided. For all his big talk the past number of years, when the decision was a tough one Layton’s NDP abstained: they voted present.

Jack Layton: Stéphane Dion in waiting.

Jack Layton Election 2008, Jack Layton, Liberals, NDP, Rudolph Guiliani, Stephane Dion, Stephen Harper, voting present

sounds more like a patch honest politicians would wear on their Armani jacket. It is, instead, a rule for an MP sending Parliamentary flyers to someone else’s riding.  It’s wrong, and it should end.

When a bureaucrat designs a "ten percenter" patch.

John Mraz goes over the top,  calling it corruption. It’s not, but it is, as he notes, “the diversion of public resources to politicized ends.” I would not call it corruption more because it’s above board, and of such a small scale. Mraz, a former Liberal campaign manager, also throws a blame grenade at the Conservatives, both here and in the US. Note, for example, fringe Republican Obama birthers are the only ones who are nuts, ignoring Democrats who thought GW Bush was a) the dumbest man ever to learn to knot his own tie b) the criminal mastermind behind 911. In other words Mr. Mraz’s biases get in the way of his thesis.

His thesis, however, is spot on. Ten percenters are wrong. Parliamentarians are using the rule that allows them to send informational material to ridings other than their own, up to a total of ten percent of the constituents in their riding. I have complained before about this policy, but still receive quarterlies from Jack Layton. These things are not informational, they are propaganda. Paper wasted bashing the other party, taking biased surveys, that you can send back at parliamentary expense (i.e. taxpayer expense).

To be sure, I receive the same nonsense from my MP, Conservative Gary Goodyear, but he’s at least my MP. Their is a legitimate argument to be made that an MP needs to communicate with constituents, and needs to offer constituents a forum to let their MP know how they feel on issues. If I find the communiques so offensive, I can always vote for someone else. I can’t, however, choose to vote against Jack Layton MP. So why am I receiving his mailers? And why, far more significantly, am I receiving his mailers at parliamentary expense?

Conservatives and Liberals are not innocent in this, and Gary Goodyear has been the subject of a formal complaint to the speaker on this very subject.

They are all doing it. And they are all wrong. On this, I agree with Mr. Mraz. It’s time to stop the practice of ten percenters.

Politicians acting badly, Silly Politicians 911 truthers, Barack Obama, Canadian Parliament, Conservative Party, Democrats, Gary Goodyear, GW Bush, Jack Layton, John Mraz, Liberal Party, National Post, NDP, Obama Birthers, one percenters, Parliament, Republicans, ten percenters