Former Liberal President: "Liberals need to lose"

When former Liberal Party heavyweights like Warren Kinsella and former Liberal Party President Stephen LeDrew are talking like this, you know the Liberals must be in serious trouble.

Stephen LeDrew: Liberals need a near-death experience for the good of their health
Posted: September 24, 2008, 8:01 AM by Kelly McParland

Barring a miracle -- that intermittent visitor to political campaigns -- the Liberals are going to take a drubbing in this election — which is exactly what they need in order to survive as a viable national force.

Sounds odd, doesn’t it? Getting your clock cleaned in order to carry on? Nevertheless, a beating is exactly what the Grits desperately require, or else the Liberal Party of Canada could face the same fate as the once mighty Liberal Party of Great Britain, now relegated to the trash heap.

The immediate causes of the Liberals’ campaign trouble are myriad: a leader who doesn’t resonate with the public; a platform that is, depending on whom you talk to, either incomprehensible, or just plain dumb; a team that seems to have all its oars pulling on the same side of the boat -- the list goes on. And as anyone who has been involved in campaigns can attest, once a campaign gets bogged down, troubles that would normally be overlooked metastasize into a deadly condition.

Still, campaign workers will soldier on for four weeks, fighting with vigour, delivering votes and reaping something from this disaster. But the real work begins after the polls close.

One hopes that in defeat, the Liberals will realize that they must do more than paint Stephen Harper as a Bush clone. They must do more than chant that the Conservatives will steer Canada inalterably toward its demise. The Tories are following a small-l liberal agenda because they know that the majority of Canadians will not vote for a right-wing platform. Conservative commentators like Theo Caldwell have all but admitted in these pages that the Conservatives have taken the guts of the Liberal party for their own.

To regain their relevance, Liberals will have to think beyond their traditional tenets, created in the 1950s and ’60s. These have served Canadians well, but have by now either been fulfilled or passed by. Liberals must decide what it means to be a Liberal in the 21st century, what needs to be achieved in the new financial, industrial and communications fields and what needs to be done to allow citizens to flourish in this new society.

After that awesome task is finished, the Liberal party must figure out how to get those ideas across to Canadians and give them a reason to vote Liberal. Let’s face it: When you ask people in the party why anyone should vote Liberal this time around, you usually get an answer that is neither inspiring nor plausible. It’s the same shopworn “values” stuff that the Liberals tried to sell last time, only to receive their comeuppance. The Liberal party must create a new ethos and convert it into an understandable mantra. The party’s very survival depends on it.

In this call for renewal, I do not mean to dishearten the hard-working people of all ages who are pounding in signs, looking up addresses, sending e-mails and knocking on doors under the Liberal banner. Keep it up, for you are vital to the political process. One must fight on against all odds -- look where it landed Stephen Harper!

But come Oct. 15, the loyal Liberal activists across Canada must think hard and begin the process of recalibrating the party. They are up to the task.


National Post
Stephen LeDrew, a Toronto lawyer and a radio host on CFRB 1010, was president of the Liberal Party of
Canada from 1998 to 2003.

NOTE: I realize that many others have posted this already, but I'm posting it for one of the other aggregators my blog is attached to, where I haven't seen this posted yet.