On the Liberal void

Operating on the assumption that anything can be defined by generalizations, and media sources, in particular, can be pegged by partisan politics, over the past year I have viewed the Toronto Star as Liberal supporters. Aside from Susan Delacourt’s excellent blog, I have spent more time reading the Wheels section than their columnists (and I don’t own a car). There was a time in the post-2003 era when the Star paid lip service to Jack Layton and the NDP. A local boy poised for a Toronto breakthrough. As the breakthrough became a knock, the Star maintained a limited interest in the party as it poised for a Quebec breakthrough that was not the flood that was promised. More recently the Star has been advocating that Layton has over stayed his welcome.

And why not move on when you have two leadership hopefuls, Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff, from Toronto fighting to lead Canada’s natural governing party? Okay, maybe they have not showed the same commitment to local issues as Layton, but they could become Prime Minister. With Ignatieff assuming the mantle it was only a matter of time before those anti-Toronto and, thus, anti-Canadian values, Tories are booted out.

But the Toronto Star has proven that it, as a large media outlet, should not be pigeon-holed. James Travers provides a true service of succinctly addressing the problems with today’s Liberals:

Michael Ignatieff is not the Liberal problem. Liberals are the Liberal problem.
Three times they failed to stare at themselves while looking for a leader.
Three times Liberals opted for expediency over renewal.

The Liberals are waiting for everyone to hate Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. They only have to look south of the border to understand they may be waiting a long time - many Americans hated George W. Bush, but he was still re-elected. There is a certain arrogance amongst Liberal staffers that it is only a matter of time until they return to their natural state of ruling. Today’s non-confidence motion is a perfect example – the Liberals are not ready for an election and they know they will not defeat the government, but they pursue the idea anyways for no better reason but to say “we-are-not-Stephen-Harper”.

But it is not only the assumption that power is but an election away that is the problem. The Liberals don’t stand for anything.

If there's any consistency, it's the raw pragmatism of a big tent party so
sprawling that its canopy covers libertarians, fiscal conservatives and social
democrats. Determined to manage inherent internal conflicts and bury policy
contradictions, the once dominant natural governing party is content to follow
anywhere any leader likely to return Liberals to power.
From a distance,
Ignatieff was easily mistaken for that champion. A cosmopolitan public
intellectual with patrician bloodlines, the writer and professor blended exotic
success with domestic roots.

Under Michael Ignatieff shifting statements to the media has become policy. When forced to answer about concrete policies, Liberals return to notions of balanced budgets (but never say how!), the Kelowna Accord and national child care. As beneficial as these ideas are, for better or worse, the country has moved on. Kelowna, child care and fiscal policies would be different today then in 2004. The situation has changed but the Liberals have not because they have nothing to hang their hats on but “we-are-not-Stephen-Harper”. This absence of a unifying ideology or principles may work when the opposition is non-existent or hated (see e.g. the 1990’s and Mulroney/Campbell circa 1993). But it does not give Canadians a reason to vote Liberal. What it gives is a reason for potential Liberal voters to stay home.