Leading The Lemmings

It's disappointing to listen to the federal Liberals these days. With the exception of Joyce Murray and Martin Cauchon, they're all saying the same thing. Their chorus confirms that they have learned nothing over the last decade. They insist on being Harper-lite.

Michael Ignatieff tried that and it didn't work out well. Stephane Dion had a radical program. But he was a poor salesman -- particularly in English Canada. Their candidates this time around are more fluent in both languages. But their policies are thread bare. Paul Adams wrote earlier this week:

Forget the market crisis of 2008 that plunged the world into economic turmoil. Forget the inequality and insecurity that is gutting the middle classes. Forget the fact that climate change, building slowly but inexorably, is on a completely different time scale from that of the executive pay and bonuses which are the embodiment of short-term economic thinking.

Essentially, the Liberals have ignored the lessons of the Great Recession -- and they have turned a blind eye to climate change. Worse still, they refuse to acknowledge that the two crises are joined at the hip. Solutions to both crises will require an active and committed federal government, which goes beyond what Adams calls "rights liberalism" -- abortion rights, perhaps the right to smoke marijuana. Unfortunately,

What this economically-conservative/socially-liberal formula jettisons is the legacy of the Liberal party from William Lyon Mackenzie King through Paul Martin of providing security to ordinary Canadians using the power of the state: pensions, medicare and unemployment insurance.

That  vision was last expressed in the Kelowna Accord, which the Harperites trashed. Those who wonder why Theresa Spence was camped out on Victoria Island should read their history -- their recent history. Unfortunately, most of the party's candidates haven't done that.

They are in a race to lead the lemmings.

Doing The Corporate Dance

The Liberal Party's traditional strategy of campaigning from the left and governing from the right led the late Rene Levesque to conclude that the party was "the biggest whorehouse in the world." Now, Paul Adams writes, the party seems to be campaigning from the right:

Martha Hall Findlay calls for an end to supply management.

Marc Garneau wants to open up telecommunications to foreign investment.

And most important — because he appears to be an almost prohibitive front-runner — Justin Trudeau has tried to outflank the Harper Conservatives in welcoming offshore money to the oilpatch. His website has many repetitions of his “pro-growth” mantra, but almost no mention of climate change. He has even gone to Calgary to trash his father’s National Energy Program.

The Liberals have always had close ties to Bay Street. But Adams correctly notes that, until recently, they effectively bridged the gulf between right and left:

The Liberals built their 20th century dynasty by bridging the divide between left and right. The party’s left-leaning social policies took the party where the votes were, but its right wing was also key. No other party in the world was as successful at the straddle — and there were many others that tried.

Now their strategy seems to be to sell themselves as "new and improved" versions of Stephen Harper. In fact, that was Michael Ignatieff's sales pitch -- and it landed the  party in third place. You'd think that performance would have caused some real soul searching among Liberals.That exercise has yet to take place.

And there is already one party that does the corporate dance better than they do.