Liberals shouldn't rest in afterglow

OTTAWA -- Canadian Liberals gathered in Ottawa over the weekend for the first time since being reduced to a rump party in Parliament last May.

The biggest question on the table was whether the party has a future.

Canadian historian Peter C. Newman even wrote a book about it. A book that was supposed to be about Michael Ignatieff's ascent to the prime minister's job instead became titled When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada after Ignatieff led the party to its worst showing ever.

Delegates arrived in Ottawa for the convention knowing the Liberals are at a make-or-break stage of life. You name the problem, the Liberals have it in spades: declining membership, four consecutive election declines, internal wars, fundraising struggles.

So some were surprised by the energy of the delegates, the enthusiasm and optimism that abounded.

The weekend was not perfect. Technical glitches delayed proceedings and old wounds bubbled to the surface in some of the debate.

But overall, the delegates left Ottawa Sunday with the feeling their party is crawling back to life.

There were 3,300 delegates, more than either the Conservatives (2,000) or the NDP (1,500) had at their respective conventions last spring. There were 30,000 visits to the Liberal website, which webcast the entire convention from start to finish. There were 4,000 comments in the live online chat and 7,500 tweets.

"This is the most encouraged that I have been since May," wrote one party supporter in the online live chat.

Even Newman seemed ready to admit perhaps his verdict was a little too hasty, reportedly telling convention co-chairman and former MP Bonnie Crombie that he's "now a believer in reincarnation."

But there is a danger inherent in the weekend's success.

A danger that Liberals feel so good about what went down, they'll sit back on their laurels and say, "See, we told you so. We've still got it."

A danger that instead of really understanding all the party has to do to come back, the Liberals will once again be content to just wait for the sitting government to run its course and assume that, of course, when voters tire of the Conservatives, they will come back to the Liberal fold.

It's just not that easy. And it's that kind of complacency that landed the party in this position in the first place.

Sure, getting 3,300 people to travel to Ottawa in the dead of winter is a feat.

But getting seasoned party members to come together in the face of extinction is one thing; getting millions of Canadians to join the cause is wholly another.

On Friday night, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty delivered a charismatic stump speech to open the convention with some sage words of advice. He reminded Liberals that when he became Ontario Liberal leader in 1996, the party had won just one election in the last 53 years.

"We were not seen as a winner. We sure as heck didn't feel like a winner. Old-school advice said just wait for the government to defeat itself. It seemed to me we had done enough waiting."

McGuinty's performance in the 1999 election was so weak that many Ontario Liberals tried to dump him. They failed, and he learned from the mistakes. The Ontario party changed its constitution and went back to the basics of building the party at its roots. Old grudges created by leadership contests had to be cast aside. Riding associations had to be restored.

In 2003, they pushed the Progressive Conservatives out of office. But it took time, it took money, and it took a lot of hard work.

Across the country, particularly in Western Canada, federal Liberal riding associations are running on empty. The Conservatives are outdoing the Liberals on fundraising more than two dollars to one.

As they did in Ontario, the federal Liberals need to go back on the ground, drive membership and interest locally. They need to raise the cash to challenge the attacks even Conservative MPs will readily admit are going to come as soon as the Liberals choose their new leader. (Word has it the Conservatives already have a swath of anti-Bob Rae ads ready to roll if Rae were to become the permanent rather than just interim leader.)

But the only way to do that is for the 3,300 true believers in Ottawa this weekend to go home and get others to join the cause.

"Go forth from this place, and for heaven's sake, multiply," Rae said at the close of the convention.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 16, 2012 A5