Liberals' glory days add to their stumbling ways column
FROM THE IVORY TOWER GARY MACDOUGALL
The Guardian
The federal Liberal party has often been referred to as the 'natural governing party' because of its historic domination of the political scene in Canada.
From the country's beginning in 1867 up until the early 1990s, the Liberals were full measure for their electoral successes. Election after election, they went up against a powerful opponent, mainly some national form of the Conservative party, and more times than not won over the majority of Canadians.
But something changed in the 1993 election, something which I think haunts the Liberal party to this day. It became too easy to win and Liberals started believing their own hype.
Jean Chrétien led the Liberals in the 1993 election but his party's traditional national rival, the Progressive Conservative Party, was reeling. Canadians had become disenchanted with Tory Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The always politically astute Mulroney knew his time was up so after nearly a decade in office, he exited the national stage. Kim Campbell replaced him but the PC party she took into battle with the Chrétien Liberals was a shell of its former self. The Liberals won a whopping 177 seats in the '93 election; the Conservatives won two. The official Opposition, much to the shock and chagrin of Canadians, was the Bloc Quebecois, a party whose main goal was to take Quebec out of Confederation.
But in addition to being tired and bankrupt of ideas, the PC party of 1993 also faced a new nemesis, the 'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore' Reform party of western Canada. It won 52 seats, most if not all of them formerly held by Conservatives.
The Chrétien Liberals followed up the 1993 electoral romp with another big win in 1997, winning 155 seats. The Canadian Alliance, the movement the Reform party had morphed into, won 60 to form the official Opposition. Although the once-proud Progressive Conservative Party won 10 times more seats in '97 than it did in '93, that only added up to 20.
Fast-forward to Chrétien's final election in 2000 when his party captured 172 seats to the Canadian Alliance's 66. The PCs regressed to 12 seats, the second worst in the party's long history.
What was happening of course was that while the Liberal party remained united and it captured its traditional vote, any semblance of a national Conservative party had been neutered by the birth of the Reform/Canadian Alliance Party, which drew its support from former Progressive Conservatives.
So, in effect, the Liberals romped to electoral wins in 1993, 1997 and 2000 without facing a legitimate national opponent. In essence it was impossible for them to lose; they were the only team on the ice. The times were good for Liberals but unfortunately they took more credit for their electoral success than they deserved; they got sloppy in terms of the sponsorship scandal and airing their dirty laundry in public. There is no doubt Mr. Chrétien was a very able and wily politician, and might well have beaten a united Conservative side of the political spectrum, but he barely had to work up a sweat to get his majorities.
There is an old saying that "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely". That was the case with the Liberal party, at least in the sense that its members relaxed, thinking they were on third base because they had hit a triple when, in fact, they were there because of political circumstances.
As we all now know, the Conservative side of Canadian politics has since coalesced into the new Conservative Party; the Liberals became embroiled in a bitter internal feud between the Chrétien and Paul Martin camps; and the Conservatives under Stephen Harper took power in 2006.
The Liberal party, still dealing with bitter internal factions, countered with Stéphane Dion as its leader. He was actually the party's third or fourth choice but the party had too many divisions to allow a more marketable candidate to win. And surely, loyal Liberals thought, Canadians wouldn't make the mistake of electing Stephen Harper again. Well, it turns out they did in re-electing Harper in 2008.
Now the Liberals have turned to Michael Ignatieff, but to date, all he has done, despite some well-documented Harper gaffes, is fritter away a once-promising standing in the public opinion polls for him and his party.
In contrast, Prime Minister Harper can be seen singing Beatle songs and dancing with Bollywood stars. Dare I say, that's the stuff Pierre Trudeau, a Liberal, used to engage in.
Someone needs to tell the Liberal party that the 'natural governing party' was just a slogan and that the Liberal party that inspired that slogan is gone.
Many of today's Liberals are still living in the Chrétien years; they think all they have to do is wait until the Canadian electorate wakes up some day screaming, "Harper is in power! Harper is in power!" and turfs the Conservatives out like a house guest with H1N1.
Here's some free advice to today's Liberal party: the salad days of winning elections when you didn't have a national opponent are over. And they have been for a long time. The Canadian electorate is not going to turf Mr. Harper and his Conservative party out of power until it sees something better. There you go, my Liberal friends, that's my advice. That and a few quarters will get you a cup of coffee.
Gary MacDougall is managing editor of The Guardian. He can be reached by telephone at (902) 629-6039 or by email at gmacdougall@theguardian.pe.ca.
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