On Liberal Party Policy

The Liberals are pondering, planning and plodding their policy platform. This is not news – this is what all political parties do in preparation for elections. The platform will be continually revised until the day that it is released – and, often, parts of that platform may be revised after its release, right up to election day.

Theses days, what constitutes as a policy platform is a set of statements. These are not detailed policies that provide background to the issue, a solution, the impact of the solution and how the party, if elected, will implement the solution. Parties don’t care about policy. Parties simply want a short statement that says they stand for something. Parties don’t want to be restricted to something that may become politically unfeasible to complete. Moreover, the underlying theory of a political platform is that it should not be a target. The more detail, the more confusing it can become for a general reader, the better an opponent can twist your words.

The Liberals know this as well as anyone. One of their sins of 2008 was to release the Green Shift – a policy with a variety of tax cuts and credits that affected everyone in different ways. Without going into its merits, the Green Shift represented a bold shift in political policy making. Here, an opposition party released a complex policy document just before the slow summer months of summer when no election was on the horizon – thereby ensuring months of discourse on the Green Shift. To their misfortune, the Liberals at the time were an unpopular party, with an unpopular leader, who were still trying to figure out how to run an operation on a miserly opposition party budget, as well as having an ineffective communication strategy to promote the policy. Thus, the Conservatives took the initiative and defined the policy for the Liberals and made it the target of the 2008 election.

The Liberals are too scared to put out policies. They, like all parties, will release a platform come election time. Don’t count on it before hand.

That said, the Globe and Mail is making a big deal that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had dinner at his official residence with former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge, TD Bank Financial Group CEO Ed Clark, former Deputy Minister of Finance Scott Clark and University of Quebec economist Pierre Fortin.

These are individuals that Liberals refer to as “stakeholders”. They are not meeting with interest groups, members of the community, or average Canadian voters. Stakeholders are esteemed members of their respective elite group, and who are sought to undemocratically represent the interests of other Canadians.

According to the Globe:

Liberal Party Leader Michael Ignatieff has quietly reached out to an economic brain trust that includes former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge as his party begins developing a new platform that sources say would serve as an eventual trigger to bringing down the Conservatives.

[…]

The session with the economists was a brainstorming meeting where Mr. Ignatieff's ideas for revamping Employment Insurance benefits were discussed, as well as notions on how Mr. Ignatieff should further stimulate the economy if he becomes prime minister.

This is an exercise of ensuring that you have some heavy hitters in your corner. This is not the making of a party platform. Moreover, revamping Employment Insurance is the only issue Michael Ignatieff has taken a stance on – after both the NDP and the Bloc raised the very issue for months beforehand. But the Liberals idea of revamping EI is not a true policy in the sense of the Green Shift. Revamping EI, for the Liberals, is a numbers game. It is a single issue focused exclusively on lowering the number of days needed to be eligible for EI.

Despite Ignatieff’s reputation of being a big thinker, don’t expect any big policies to come from the Liberals anytime soon.They have accepted their role in opposition as being one of criticism. They are not interested in proposing ideas, they only intend to reject Conservative ideas (although, they do have a history of voting with the Conservatives).

By the by:The Globe's website has been revamped but not the reporting. They continue to give a free pass to Michael Ignatieff. The sleeker lines, bolder headings and increased use of coloured font is perhaps a slight improvement. However, a change of font is not the sort of change that I am looking for in this once esteemed publication.