Advice for Canada's Liberals 4: Don't Rush

Original Kitchener, Canada; January 2, 2025

A political culture that has lost its centre is one that is at war against itself, and where folly, doubt, blame, fear, ingratitude, envy, resentment and recklessness prevail.

In comparison to movements that are based on firm ideological convictions -- “truths” that are fact-based, self-evident or revealed in scripture on either end of the traditional political spectrum -- a middling approach can look like one where fuzzy thinking, weak determination and makeshift solutions prevail. The main thread of this series is an enhanced conception of the political centre as the domain of wisdom, courage, humility, gratitude, practicality, equanimity and good will.

This is a spherical rather than a binary view of the political spectrum, in which the farther you go away from the heart of it all, in any direction, the greater the danger to peace, order and a wholesome prosperity.

see also:

Advice for Canada's Liberals 1: Forward, Step by Step

Advice for Canada's Liberals 2: Stand Up for Canada

Advice for Canada’s Liberals 3: Bon Courage; Take Heart

Prospects for the Liberal Party didn’t look bright when I started this series on Canadian Thanksgiving back in October. Since then things seem to have only gotten worse. In a recent social media post, I shared my impression that “there has never been a time in the entire 157 years of their existence that the fortunes of Canada’s only remaining legacy party were as dismal as they appear to be today.”

This was in the wake of Christia Freeland’s abrupt resignation from Justin Trudeau’s cabinet on Monday, December 16. A friend took exception to this assessment. I told him that all I know is what I hear on the radio and read from the papers, usually online, and that if he can find grounds for a more hopeful prognosis for where the party, and with it, the country, are headed, I’m eager to know what they are.

One offering from the papers I pay regular attention to is Ian Austen’s weekly “Canada Letter” for the New York Times, written from Ottawa by a Canadian to help keep U.S. Americans informed about what’s happening up here in the northern part of the continent. According to Mr. Austen, Ms. Freeland’s resignation “created a political wildfire in Ottawa, which has placed Mr. Trudeau’s political future and Liberal Party control in jeopardy.”

Once again Mr. Trudeau is well behind the Conservatives in public opinion — and apparently contemplating his future. Several backbench Liberal members of Parliament are calling on him to quit. … The counterargument is that it’s now too late for Mr. Trudeau to leave. With the life span of the government increasingly uncertain, his departure could put the party in the disastrous position of running a campaign with an interim leader. And a leadership race would keep the media spotlight and scrutiny on the Liberals, rather than the Conservatives and their leader, Pierre Poilievre.”

This struck me as a helpful summary of the situation. From the point of view of someone who is interested in the Liberal Party as a presence that has shaped Canada as a federated nation state from the very beginning, these latest developments are discouraging because it puts almost everyone involved in a bad light:

The Prime Minister comes across as uncertain and inconsiderate, while the former Minister of Finance appears to have lost her cool and deliberately exposed her party as a house that's impossibly divided. All those sitting members who have followed suit by going public with calls for their leader’s resignation seem … well, ungracious, to put it mildly. On the other hand, keeping mum and carrying on as though nothing’s the matter would be irresponsible: The crisis is severe, and the situation is urgent.

With regard to Justin Trudeau’s leadership, the party has three basic choices: 1. go into the 2025 election with the current leader in place; 2. proceed with an interim leader, or 3. choose a new leader. Rushing into a leadership race would, as Austen’s “Canada Letter” says, draw attention away from the main issue Canadians must face in the new year: Pierre Poilievre, his resentment‐mongering messaging, and his disruptive, U.S. Republican-inspired ways and means.

Truckers Convoy, Ottawa Feb 2022, Maksim Sokolov (Maxergon) - wiki commons

Mainstream Canadian public opinion appears to have taken its cue from those truckers who led the siege of Ottawa two years ago, and since then, from the leader of the opposition. The message is simple and blunt: Forget the pandemic, never mind the war in Ukraine, ignore the madness that's overtaken the U.S. of A., just blame it all -- masks, vaccines, supply chain issues, housing crisis, inflation, stagnation, recession -- on Justin Trudeau.

If the Liberals changed leaders at this point they would not only be letting the leader of the opposition set the agenda, they’d also be throwing away what could be a golden opportunity to bring some new life to their organization as a movement. The party’s credibility and viability can’t be restored by simply finding another face to put on those election flyers and posters that they’ll be printing up soon. It’s the movement itself that needs and deserves attention.

My advice to Canada’s Liberals is to put the party first, which, as I’ve suggested in previous posts, can be understood as also making Canada the primary consideration. Rather than make any hasty decisions, they should take time to consider what their organization means as a living legacy, and start working on bringing that meaning into line with the needs of the present and the opportunities of the future.

So my suggestion is: Instead of leaving the decision to the prime minister, or to his supporters battling it out with his detractors within the party, why not turn the whole thing over to us, the people of Canada?

They can do that by deciding to settle the leadership question after the election, through a robust collective deliberation process open to participation from any citizen who cares about the outcome and can uphold basic liberal democratic values and principles.

The first step for a Liberal road to recovery is obvious: They must cease their squabbling, immediately. So I’m calling the four Liberal Members of Parliament we elected to represent our region in Ottawa to move quickly, and take the lead in organizing a parley among members of their party who have become disaffected with a view towards sketching out a plan for some kind of reconciliation before Parliament resumes at the end of January.

Woodside National Historic Site in Kitchener, the boyhood home of William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada's tenth and longest-serving Prime Minister.

The intention should be to set a meaningful historical precedent, like one of those conferences that prepared the way for home rule and confederation, and I would like my Canadian home community to play a prominent role in the process. Waterloo, with the lion lying down with the lamb as our emblem, means peace, after all. For this and many other reasons, the ideal setting for this kind of gathering would be right here in Waterloo Country, perhaps in a combination of symbolically significant locations like Woodside National Historic Site, Wilfrid Laurier University, the Walper Hotel, the Old Post Office and the Armoury in Galt, and the various Waterloo Region Museums sites.

But time is of the essence. If meeting in Toronto, Montreal or Ottawa is likely to be more efficient and effective, that’s fine. This will be only a first step in a journey that, done right, should provide ample opportunity for the communities of the Grand River watershed to shine in a way that doesn't diminish the role of any other mid-sized, non-metropolitan city or town from coast to coast to coast.

Step two is to take control of the agenda. For that, those operating under the Liberal red banner will have to reconcile with the orange forces that became such effective allies after the 2022 election. They can start by deciding, together — the greens can be in on this too — what would be the best date for the next federal election for all concerned, especially the Canadian public.

As a voting member of that public, I strongly urge whoever decides (if they can’t find a way to work together, the ball is in Jagmeet Singh’s court) to wait until the president-elect in the revolutionary republic to the south has been in office for at least 100 days. We need to get a better sense of what we’ll be dealing with for the next four years before deciding, as an electorate, what direction to take ourselves.

The way I see it, sometime in June looks like the best choice. It could be in the days leading up to the main “Celebrate Canada” sequence, or sometime between Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21st but before Canada Day 2025. This is in keeping with the suggestion put forward in previous posts that we make Canada itself the deciding issue of the next election – Canada the land, the peoples, and our shared future as a nation state among nations.

Once the date has been set, Liberals and Democrats can start thinking about renewing that spirit of co-operation that has served us all so well. For instance, both parties could agree to go into the election with their current leader at the helm, but also set a date for a leadership convention sometime in the fall.

Trudeau and Singh can each decide whether or not to throw a hat into the ring one more time; so could Elizabeth May. Any Canadian who upholds the principle that governments exist to serve the public good can join a party and help decide whether to go forward with the current leader in place, or choose a new standard bearer.

Others who may be ready to declare their willingness to serve as leader of the Liberals or any party that chooses this route should come forward now, and if possible, find a riding association willing to nominate them as their candidate.

The three parties could also decide to run parallel “re-membering” campaigns, starting immediately, as we head towards the election, with the opportunity to vote for a leader later as an added incentive for joining.

Let’s consider allowing, and sometimes even encouraging, Canadians to join multiple parties. Why not? Private interests are allowed to hedge their bets by donating to more than one candidate. Undecided voters, swing voters, and those of us who, like me, have signed a pledge to vote for the red, green or orange candidate who has the best chance of being elected should be welcome by all.

With ranked ballots, transferable votes or run-off elections likely to become part of the process sooner or later, a gradual blurring of party lines could prove to be the way of the future, hopefully in ways that clarify distinctions rather than melt them away. It's not unity or conformity that we need, but harmony. Such a change in the culture of organized political forces might also prove to be a way of restoring functionality and fairness to the existing system without any major changes.

Once the date for the next election is set, and the membership campaigns are underway, the parties could start thinking about co-operating in order to ensure the best possible result in the next election.

To begin with, the parties can encourage members to vote in accordance with their home community rather than along general party lines. I signed the cooperative voting pledge so that I can deliberate, and vote, with fellow citizens in my riding, rather than deciding alone, in accordance with what I believe, and what I want. My purpose is to vote, if at all possible, as part of a majority, or at least a plurality in my electoral district, not as one of a right-minded few.

cooperateforcanada.ca

This needn’t require taking a neutral or non-partisan stance. A formal association with one or more organized political associations can help me vote responsibly and effectively. As a Liberal who is permitted to also remain a Democrat, a Green or even a true blue, “Loyal She Remains” Ontarian, I can participate in setting platforms and agendas, offer alternative views that can broaden considerations and help build productive alliances.

On my own, unaffiliated, all I can do is choose among packages prepared and promoted for general consumption by remote forces from who knows where, very much like choosing from among the fast food meal deals in the flyers that happen to find their way into my mailbox.

What the Liberals may have to do of necessity this time around – in effect, run a campaign with their entire bench front and centre rather than a leader who may or may not step down or be replaced in the fall – might prove to actually be a better way to do things.

The adjustments to what political parties are and how they operate I’ve proposed so far are relatively minor, but the hope is that they become a step towards a reconfiguration for the political spectrum as it’s been understood for the last 250 years or so.

Janus, Roman God of all beginnings, gates, transitions, time, choices, duality, doorways, passages, and endings - wikipedia

I’ll finish with a postscript on where this series is headed.

Democracy as we’ve come to know it has tended to function as a kind of ritualized warfare around the polarities set during the turn towards the modern, secular, self-determining nation state in the 18th century, which set the pattern of violent revolution and counter-revolution that has played a predominant role ever since.

This configuration often involves separation, as in the Declaration of Independence, but also a corrective unification, as in “We the People … to form a more perfect Union … do ordain and establish … .” A belligerent “Don't Tread on Me” or “Live Free or Die!” demand for independence can bring with it paranoia about taxes, regulations, vaccines, corporations, police, standing armies, foreigners, minorities and government in general. Conversely, unification coupled with centralization can be as oppressive and exploitative internally as landed or maritime imperial expansion can be externally.

Making a ritual out of irreconcilable differences minimizes the death and destruction, and clears the way for the arts of peace – productivity, creation, innovation. But it doesn’t resolve the underlying conflict.

Competition is commonly regarded as a motivating force, but when it gets out of hand, it becomes destructive and obstructive. The way the lines are drawn today is part of the reason it can feel like “the system is broken,” a conclusion that insurgents on both the left and right like to promote and exploit.

If the works really have broken down, they would need to be replaced. It would be time for another revolution -- a total reset. Another, more peaceable, and the way I see it, more Canadian way of looking at it is that we’ve reached a kind of stalemate. The engines of forward movement have become jammed, seized up. With some tuning, lubrication and replenishing the tank with clean, fresh energy, we should be able to get the rig back on the road and start the next leg of the journey. If not, we can still try to rebuild or replace the engine before relegating the whole works to the dustbin of history.

We can look forward to a day when left and right as we know them are reconciled, not through mediation or compromise, which can only delay the reckoning, but by rising above the fray. Conflict has to be transcended rather than settled. True peace is achieved through realization, not negotiation.

Reconciliation can also be served through a grounding process that involves abandoning abstractions and generalizations, and coming down to earth, to actual places with complex histories and living, breathing people, with emphasis on what distinguishes us, and the places we call home, from one another.

After we turn the corner and leave the destruction-reaction cycle behind, there may still be a left and a right of sorts. We may still end up electing majority governments while also keeping a range of oppositional forces on hand to keep things moving. But they will relate to one another like one limb or wing functions in relation to the other to allow locomotion, flight, direction and speed, or like stereoscopic vision and stereophonic hearing allows depth of field, or like the way venous circulation interacts with the arterial to keep the heartbeat going. Instead of contradicting one another, countervailing forces will complete one another.

Keeping things moving will involve more than just tending to the daily affairs that have been relegated to governments in their various spheres: the land, the provinces and the civic home front, on the ground, where we actually live, work, learn, imagine and associate. Those “wicked problems” that face us as we begin the second quarter of the 21st century have very little direct connection with what happens in our parliaments and council chambers, but how we are represented there will be critical for maintaining the delicate balance between limits and possibilities we’ll need to stay the course and fulfill the promise that is Canada.