Ottawa Sun
Published: Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Springboard can fall flat

With the Canada150 "ideas" conference from this past weekend now concluded, the focus for federal Liberals returns to the present foibles and future fortunes of their Leader, Michael Ignatieff.

Specifically, can he actually use this event as a springboard to craft an election platform to challenge the Conservatives this fall or next spring?

Unlike my Tory friends who understandably took every opportunity with their media interventions to try to illustrate the differences between themselves and the Grits on files like a carbon tax or corporate tax relief, I will give credit where credit is due: The Liberals had the courage to invite a bunch of respected speakers into their proverbial tent without preconditions on content to let 'er rip.

And rip they sure did, from former diplomat Bob Fowler lambasting both the Tories and Liberals on foreign policy to the former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge rightfully pleading for an "adult conversation" on health care and retirement security, to this region's own 18-year-old Ryan Hreljac making his plea for greater access to safe drinking water in the developing world.

WORTHY EXERCISE

CEOs, respected academics, NGO leaders, former bureaucrats, economists and labour leaders were amongst some 50-plus speakers of all partisan stripes (or no stripe whatsoever) who eloquently spoke to their issues in an attempt to shape future Liberal party policy.

In addition, the conference went virtual with satellite locations around the country and online blogging and commentary. While I will never be mistaken for a card-carrying Liberal, it was a worthy exercise.

For the Conservatives (or any government for that matter), the fact that they hold political power with a plan -- the throne speech and Budget 2010 -- to govern means they couldn't stage a conference such as Canada150 while holding office lest it be predictably and childishly framed by their political foes as a repudiation of their own agenda.

If Ignatieff swings for the fences and holds the Conservatives to account on their ambition for jobs for the future, deficit reduction targets and also incorporates the best and most relevant ideas arising out of the Canada150 exercise into a coherent and compelling election platform, then he can put the Liberals back on a competitive footing against the Tories in the next election.

However, if he shies away from the big issues such as health care, retirement income security, our economic prospects vis-a-vis the rest of the world and his party continues to chase the trivial headlines of the day as the Liberals' present question period strategy clearly reveals, then the elite and foreign halls of Harvard will beckon him shortly after the next election.

Finally, on a tactical level, what the Liberals did accomplish this past weekend was to take a definitive and deliberate step to bleed votes from the NDP and try to push Jack Layton down to support levels near 10%. Ignatieff's closing remarks on Sunday committed his party to scrapping future Conservative corporate tax rate cuts which are slated to drop to 15% by 2017; this will no doubt appeal to left-of-centre voters including NDP partisans.

This courting of the left by the Ignatieff Liberals should be watched over the months to come. In this sense Canada150 was the first salvo in the next federal election campaign.