Can Canadian Liberalism survive? Is the party over?

The times are clearly dire, for Canadian Grits. One need only to survey newspaper opinion pages to know this is so.

“(There has been) a new round of media and public speculation about the imminent collapse of Canadian Liberalism,” wrote one respected analyst in the National Post. “The Liberal party (is) dying … the future (will) reveal Canadian national politics as a two-party struggle between the Conservatives and the NDP,” the Post declares in another column.

A Montreal Gazette opinion writer is similarly gloomy. The Liberal Party of Canada is buffeted by “alternate attacks of political depression and paranoia,” he intones. The Liberal brand is “under siege,” it is suggested.

The future is in doubt. “(Liberals are) likely to undergo further factional fighting as prospective contenders try to build support for their future leadership runs,” declares a Maclean’s cover story.

Liberals are “essentially rudderless,” yet another Post columnist writes. “(The Grits) failed to modernize and reposition the Liberal party.”

The columnist quotes a former national director of the Liberals: “The Liberals didn’t know where they were going, and still don’t.”

And so on, and so on. Everywhere you look, it seems, the story is the same. The assessments of Liberal fortunes are similarly dire.

With the federal Liberals in third place and seeking new leadership — and with the Ontario and Quebec Liberal parties effectively leaderless, and facing the prospect of being out of power for a long time to come, perhaps indefinitely — the Liberal party brand seems to be “dying,” as the Post columnist wrote.

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From longtime friend, Chretien loyalist, and future Prime Minister Chris Collenette, who now resides in the land of my ancestors: Fight The Right takes the Emerald Isle by storm!

“Warren: I headed into town today with the family to run a couple of errands and wouldn’t you know that everywhere I went, I ran smack-dab into Fight The Right and I took a couple of photos along the way:

First I stopped into PJ Murphy’s used book store at 1 Lincoln Place across from Kennedy’s Pub.  There sat was Fight The Right displayed prominently along with some other celebrated Irish writers.  PJ took a look at your picture and told me he is from the Wexford Murphys who intermarried the Wexford Kinsellas and no doubt you are distant cousins – no word of lie.  If you ignore the Ledrewesque bow-tie, there is some resemblance – although he is a tad bit older.

Then I rounded the corner to Merrion Square to pay a visit to Oscar Wilde, and wouldn’t you know it, resting in quite a serendipitous manner upon a fallen maple leaf, was another copy of Fight the Right.

After a visit to the play-park in St. Stephan’s Green and a leisurely stroll down past the Grafton street buskers, we stopped by to see what type of wares Ms. Malone was selling.  Wouldn’t you know it, there sat another copy of Fight the Right?!

Then, and I couldn’t have arranged it even if it was 1993 and F. was with me – this costumed leprechaun kept wanting to get in the picture!

Following this little excursion and a train ride home on the DART along Dublin Bay, and after sending the kiddies home with their mother, I settled in at The Old Punch Bowl, one of my locals in Booterstown, Blackrock, and began to peruse the much talked about book.  Review to follow, but from what I read so far (acknowledgements) I like what I see.”

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This Conservative government occasionally makes me want to throw up.

This is one of those times.

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The media who were criticizing Justin Trudeau and his Liberal supporters for a permitting “coronation” instead of a leadership contest?

Yeah, well, they’re the same geniuses now criticizing Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal supporters for wanting the Ontario Premier to enter the leadership race, and thereby make it a contest and not a coronation.

I swear to God: these guys are the type of people who demand crucifixion, and then complain about the view.

Rule of thumb: when they say to do something, do the polar opposite.

You can’t lose.

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We’ve been asked to play at Strummerfest in K-W, on the tenth anniversary of his passing. Practiced last night. Our ‘Bubbles’ video, for those who care what we still sound like, below. (Oh, and our new LP is being sold everywhere, now.)

In part, yes, I am posting this to drive down that ‘As It Happens’ clip, below, so that the damn thing doesn’t reopen every damn time I refresh the damn page.

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Now, then.

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Is it ever a good idea to attack the guy without whom you wouldn’t have been elected in the first place? The guy you left high and dry to go to Ottawa? To attack him, a potential leadership candidate, on behalf of a declared leadership candidate?* To give high-sounding civics lessons, when you couldn’t even get re-elected in your own seat?

Or is it better strategy to understand that there has always been something else going on here?

Questions, questions.

UPDATE: And here’s a gem from the archives. There’s a lot more.

The Globe And Mail
Mon Oct 16 2006
Page: A1

…The heated exchanges involved three of the four major contenders, leaving out Gerard Kennedy, who warned later that the internal attacks threaten the unity and renewal of the Liberal Party.

“Unity isn’t just language, it’s what you actually do. I’m in this race because I believe we need someone new that can draw this party together. There’s still some old battles being fought on this stage,” he said.

*UPDATED TWICE*: I have been told, and I accept, that what Kennedy did was not done to boost anyone else.  So that speculation on my part was wrong.  My criticism of him biting the hand that long fed him, however, remains.  Kennedy should read John McKay’s very perceptive comments, at the bottom of this story.

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I don’t recall saying that Trudeau was the only solution. But he’s a great, great guy.

Anyway, here I am back in The Charlatan – thirty years after I was an editor there. I grow old, I grow old, etc.

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I knew there was a reason why I admire her so much.

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