Fresh Starts

Following heavy defeat at the 2011 federal election, the Liberal Party of Canada is burnishing itself with a fresh start. Canada's longest lived federal party is hoping to rebuild its fortunes through a leadership election.

That leadership election took off in earnest last week when Mr Justin Trudeau officially launched his campaign (Naumetz, 2012). Since arriving on the political scene, as the son of former Premier Mr Pierre Trudeau, he has been courted as a future party leader (Greenway, 2008). Yet so far he has a lean record when it comes to policies.

Now the moment has come to clearly lay out the policy platform for a liberal future. When doing so there are a few things for Mr Trudeau and the other candidates to consider.

It has been covered previously on this journal that the UK's parties of the left have had plenty of lessons in cooperation to take from the Canadian left. Now, however, Canadian liberals have plenty of reasons to watch Mr Ed Miliband's progress as leader of the Labour Party in the UK - to study how leadership elections affect parties, what issues are affecting people, and what methods may or may not work.

A primary issue for the Liberal Party of Canada will be addressing the unexpected collapse from last year's election - not to mention a long term polling slump that still hangs over their heads (White, 2011). But a new leader is no sure salve: UK Labour's new leader Mr Ed Miliband has had a rocky ride since his election - which was won only by the narrowest of margins. He has tried to cast off the towering shadows of Mr Blair and Mr Brown (Telegraph, 2011) and rebuild the party's reputation. But such shadows are hard to shake.

And those inherited troubles have lead Labour, and will lead the Canadian Liberals, down a difficult road. Labour have had to try and rebuild their much maligned economic credibility (Elliott, 2012), which was so sorely strained over the course of the election - and afterwards when the full scale of public debt came to light. Overcoming those stigmas has lead the party to alienate some of its core support by backing the theme of the government's economic approach - even as they oppose the details (Wintour, 2012).

The Canadian Liberal party will need to avoid such alienation of its core supporters as it looks for a solution to the number of voters who have moved over to the Conservatives. While the easiest route will surely be to try and match their opponents blow-for-blow, there are alternatives - not least providing a realistic, practical and affordable way to assuage the fears that have driven voters over to a Conservative majority.

A third lesson should also be taken from UK Labour's leadership election. The favourite, Mr David Miliband, lost narrowly to the his brother Mr Ed Miliband - a point particularly pertinent to the favourite in the Canadian Liberal leadership race, Mr Trudeau. Nothing can be taken for granted.

Canadian Liberalism needs to be wary of the selfish path to short-term polling success. While effective at putting a party on the radar, it also breeds instability, alienation and dissatisfaction down the line - as UK Labour saw when its long-term policy of establishing itself as the sole bastion of the UK's political left has seen the party lose ground to left alternative parties across the last two elections. The question then becomes: how do you build a core of support and a framework of policies while avoiding the alienation of potential allies?

Beginning to answer that question will mean restating the values of liberalism and figuring out how those words translate into policy in the 21st century. And that means finding a starting point, something like the words of that former citizen of Mr Justin Trudeau's constituency,  Louis-Joseph Papineau (1867):

'It is to my fellow-citizens of all origins that I call on today as I always did; to them I say that we must not only be anxious to preserve the rights which are acquired, but that, by free discussion, we must unceasingly endeavour to acquire new ones.'

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References:
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+ Tim Naumetz's 'Trudeau makes it official and Liberals riding a wave of voter interest, 30,000 outside party sign up for leadership election';in Hill Times; 3 October 2012.

+ Norma Greenway's 'Justin Trudeau top pick as Liberal chief: poll; But rookie MP says he's not interested'; in the Montreal Gazette; 29 October 2008.

+ Anne White's 'In Canada’s election there have been two surges: the far-left in Quebec and the far right in the rest of Canada. The result bucks the recent trend of hung parliaments and may offer some lessons for the UK'; on British Politics and Policy at LSE blog; 5 May 2011.

+The Telegraph's 'Ed Miliband tells 2011 Labour Party Conference "I am my own man"'; 27 September 2011.

+ Larry Elliott's 'Labour still has a long way to go to restore its economic credibility'; in The Guardian; 30 September 2012.

+ Patrick Wintour's 'Ed Miliband backs Ed Balls's stance on spending cuts'; in The Guardian; 15 January 2012.