Living in a time warp
Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 12:44PM I get a sense of déjà vu attending this convention. Much of what I see my old party (the PC Party) went through in the 1990s. Delegates reminisce about old victories and dream about bigger and better things to come. Few acknowledge the mistakes that were made were due to a systemic failure, but there is always someone else to blame. The leader wasn’t the right person at that time, Canadians didn’t understand them, the media was against them and my favourite — Canadians weren’t thinking right when they elected the Conservatives.
The time warp continued when Interim Leader Bob Rae gave a good speech and the buzz changed to maybe he should be leader after all. Of course, Rae is a good speaker. He comes from the old school where politicians were expected to be good public speakers. He passed public speaking 101 and he doesn’t need to read from carefully scripted notes. Not unlike our then leader Joe Clark.
Premier McGuinty came to the convention and gave a great speech. Now folks are discussing maybe he should be seeking the leadership — perhaps he can save the party and renew it. Similar to what happened when Bernard Lord came to our convention and gave one of the most inspiring speeches delegates had heard in a long time. He gave a great speech, but it didn’t save our party. Nor for that matter did he seek the leadership.
Back then we also had plenty of policy sessions and even an introduction to the latest technology that would put us on the cutting edge of political organizing. All pretty similar to what I am seeing here. We had an active youth wing that wanted to take back the party or support those who wanted to return control to the members and take it away from the insiders many felt were running the party.
Looking at a room full of delegates and I could easily see them fitting into a 1990s convention. A show of hands clearly indicates the membership strength comes from one province — Ontario. There is only a smattering from other provinces. Yet the illusion is maintained that it is a strong party from coast to coast. Much the same as we did even though the majority of our elected members came from Atlantic Canada.
Everyone here has been careful to avoid any discussion of the dreaded “M” word. The topic of merger with the NDP is carefully avoided and nowhere is there a session on the agenda to discuss this option. Back in the 1990s, we thought merger with the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance was simply out of the question, there were too many differences, or so we thought at the time.
They say those who ignore history will continue to make the same mistakes, it remains to be seen if this convention will lead to a renewal of the Liberal Party, but so far I am not impressed.
Ipolitics.ca has excellent coverage of Convention 2012. Be sure to check out their coverage at
Reader Comments (1)
And I bet all those from Ontario were from TO or Ottawa.