How To Save The Liberal Party

6 Solutions To Our Current Crises

There is no guarantee everything will be fine.

Liberals in Canada are often described as arrogant, believers in them being the Natural Governing Party, and therefore indulging the whims of their leaders, and their loudest supporters, more than the country. This arrogance nearly killed the party in 1984, when patronage appointments hamstrung John Turner, and in 2011, when the intellectual genius of the party’s elite led to Michael Ignatieff. The arrogance never left - the first piece I ever wrote for this site recalls the time I heard the LPC described as the Natural Governing Party in June of 2016, mere months after the party was saved - but right now, it’s heightened. And it’s about to do another number on the party.

The threat of Pierre Poilievre is real, even if oft-overstated by the government. He's not a fascist threat, he’s a threat in the same way that every conservative politician in this country is, regardless of party. What Canada needs to come back from its current discontents is not a decade of retrenchment and managerial conservative that dithers, delays, and denies the investments and benefits our country needs, but genuine radicalism. We are broken, in a lot of ways. A health care system that’s disintegrating, a long term care system that’s never been adequately funded that’s about to hit its peak usage, and a housing crisis that’s going to probably take a decade to fix are all huge problems. Denying that is about as in touch as people saying Joe Biden did a hell of a job in the Thursday night debate.

What the Liberal Party always struggles with is understanding how to take criticisms of the country that aren’t criticisms of them. So intertwined in what patriotism means and what Liberal accomplishments represent, the Liberals get uncomfortable when Canada is criticized, (rightly) hearing that criticism as criticism of their government. The truth of the matter is that this Liberal government has been very good to a group of voters, and bad for others. There’s no need to lie about this fact. If you’re 32, bought property in 2017, and have a child or 2, this government is worth tens of thousands a year to you. Between the CCB and the child care deals, this government has materially changed the entire economic equation for young families. That is a legacy worth defending vigorously. If you’re 26, childless, and you don’t own, you’re shit out of luck.

I’m perfectly happy to be childless and voting for this government, but for some reason people think it’s unreasonable for the young to vote for  their own interests. When young Boomers helped elect this government because the Liberals promised to lower the retirement age and the government intermittently throws more cash at them, it’s savvy politics. When the young make clear their priorities, there’s shock that they could be so selfish. There’s been lots written about the way the modern young have been fucked over by an elite captured by the old and their interests, but at the end of the day, the Liberal Party is the cautionary tale for the world. St. Paul’s is but the beginning of the crisis - there is no solution that involves Mark Holland going out in front of the cameras and pretending everything is fine. The government might be dead, but I refuse to accept it is without a fight.

On Tuesday, I laid out the case for a leadership change, a piece that’s not received the pushback I expected. But let’s put the question of leadership aside, because changing the leader and maintaining the course won’t work. So, what does a successful turn for the Liberal Party need, however we define success? Quite a bit. Fortunately, there’s a path for it. There’s a dozen more ideas, but here’s six things the Liberal Party needs to do to right the ship, with or without the incumbent leadership.

Change The Finance Minister

If the main fiscal policy measure of your budget polls pretty well, and the government’s polling is level or slightly down, that’s a pretty big indictment on the Finance Minister. The Capital Gains tax changes have polled above water in a majority of the polls since the budget, and yet the budget has done the sum of fuck and all to reverse the current situation. There is no solution to these problems that doesn’t involve replacing Chrystia Freeland. My preference is for both Trudeau and Freeland to go, but she can’t stay.

What the government needs is a new Finance Minister who doesn’t have the baggage of COVID spending and the post-pandemic inflation. They need someone who can make the case for its redistributive agenda while not coming off as overtly anti-business. They need a new salesperson who has never said the word Disney+ in the context of inflation solutions and the troubles families face. They need someone the country doesn’t hate. Is part of the hatred for her misogynistic? Probably, though it’s not like Trudeau isn’t extremely hated. But it doesn’t matter. The country heard her big idea this year, didn’t dislike it, and yet the Liberal vote keeps flirting with breaking records for lowest in the Trudeau era. There’s no universe where she can stay.

Generational Renewal In The PMO

On Wednesday, I fired off a semi-serious, semi-snarky tweet about the Pharma and Dental care policies, and whether or not anybody had actually benefited from them yet. It was an asshole tweet, I’m not denying it. But I also didn’t know that 200k people had already received dental care under the government’s scheme. Clearly someone in the PMO saw the tweet, because that 200k figure was on Trudeau’s Twitter account within 20 minutes.

Now, make fun of me all you want for not knowing it, I can take it. But it’s not a good thing that someone who supports this government, is a member of the Liberal Party, and covers politics regularly didn’t know that fact. Plainly, if I didn’t know that, I can guarantee you there are plenty of people who don’t know it. Chastise the media all you want, and it’s warranted, but the existence of Postmedia is a known known - it’s an obstacle you just have to deal with. This government is stuck, with a mentality that reflects 2015 much more than it does 2024. 

There is a group of people who did strategy, communications, and digital for Nate Erskine-Smith, a candidate who went from being expected to do nothing of consequence to less than a thousand votes away from the Ontario leadership. These people were so good at their jobs they not only got Nate to 47% of the vote and a third ballot, they also got Bonnie Crombie to completely change her housing policy by totally shifting the Overton Window. Given what Poilievre has done in dictating the political agenda, learning from those who managed to upend the Ontario race and using that wealth of intellectual capacity in some capacity would do wonders.

This government needs to be far more aggressive with their messaging. They need to start taking a page out of the Doug Ford playbook and spend some government money on ads about how many people have gotten dental care through this government. Why is there not a cheering senior talking about how much better their health is now that their teeth aren’t rotting and they aren’t in pain on TV every time you see a commercial? Compared to the Government Of Ontario ads I see, that is downright non-partisan.

I don't have all the answers on how exactly to fix the comms problems, but I do know that I just saw a political masterclass of a campaign by a lot of people whose Liberalism runs deep. The government should use them. 

Own Immigration Cuts

The government needs to cut immigration, and they’re talking about cuts to immigration, but Marc Miller can’t seem to decide on a daily or weekly basis whether he wants to be an immigration restrictionist or a bleeding heart liberal. The government has refused to be seen to be restrictionist, even as they seem to consider significant curtailments. They’re not getting the credit for any of their announcements because they’re refusing to publicize them. They’re ashamed of them, which means the public is still punishing you for being too pro-immigration.

The cuts are coming; own them. Say you got it wrong to let so many people in so quickly, say that immigrants aren’t to blame for the housing crisis but governmental decisions that didn’t build enough for so long, and say that until there’s an abundance of housing they’re going to reduce the numbers. This is the only answer the public will hear. So that’s the answer the government has to give. I know that cheering for cuts to immigration is antithetical to much of my readership, but the cuts are coming. We can either act ashamed of them or embrace them. 

Focus On The Costs Of Climate Change

One of the reasons the Tories have been able to win the fight on carbon pricing is because they’ve been able to make the fight about climate and affordability solely about the cost of gas and food. What's been missing is not just another explainer on how rebates work, but a fight about the other costs of climate change - the costs of natural disasters, of remediation, of mitigation, and of our humanity. The cost to fight all these things is hugely significant, but it is also costing us as people. Summer days that should be spent in the sun, on a beach or a golf course, are now spent inside because of forest fire smoke or intense heat. 

Instead of having cabinet ministers mock the summer road trip in the house, maybe point out that the bigger risk to the family vacation is getting to Toronto or Montreal and finding a city that’s essentially shut down to the elements. Or have the Liberal MP whose seat represents Whistler point out that if the climate crisis isn’t taken seriously we’re going to ruin one of our biggest tourist draws west of the Rockies in the winter. Frame that as an attack on the family vacation and the average middle class Canadian who just wants to take their family on a good old fashioned Canadian vacation and elevate Poilievre’s lack of plan for climate action at the same time. 

Attack The Bloc On Independence

In the Majority Parliament, the Bloc had an internal crisis. After splitting and being put back together, they ended up coalescing around a strategy of making themselves not the defenders of the PQ, but of the Quebec government, whoever they were. When Francois Legault was riding high, the Bloc served as their Ottawa guarantors, a way of signaling a support for Quebec in their never-ending pissing contest against Ottawa. Now, Legault is in the shits, the PQ is in first, and the concept of an independent Quebec is back in the headlines. And it’s time for the Liberals to reorient Quebec politics back to its old foundation.

By raising the salience of independence and by framing it as a federalist/separatist fight, the Liberals achieve two things - it wedges the Tories and it ties the Bloc back to the PQ. The Tory wedge is simple - the Conservatives want to be the inheritors of the old Mario Dumont declinist tradition, where soft federalists and soft nationalists could come together in spite of the constitutional question. It’s how the CAQ won in 2018. Reanimate the constitutional question and now it’s harder for federalists who dislike Justin Trudeau and this Liberal government to vote Tory on the south shore or in Laval and risk a Bloc win.

The other reason it helps the Liberals is by tying the Bloc to a political party that’s going to have to piece together a platform for government from 4th place in the National Assembly. By tying the Bloc to the PQ through independence, it doesn’t give the Bloc an out if in 15 months the CAQ are back in front in the polls and this PQ surge ends up a funny blip by the time the election rolls around. (I’m not doubting the PQ would probably win a plurality of seats if the election was today, but it’s not, and Quebec is famously volatile.)

A Quebec fightback is a way to eliminate any risk of coming behind the Bloc or the NDP in seats. Getting back to 30% there puts a floor on the damage the party can sustain, and there’s an opening. Take it. 

Own The Record In Full

The best thing Dalton McGuinty ever did was accept that there was no path forward politically for his government that didn’t start with accepting that he had not been perfect. The McGuinty campaign of 2011 accepted at its roots the idea that they were imperfect, a sense of humility that made it easier for Dalton (and campaigners, and cabinet ministers, and pundits) to make the case for the good parts of the record. It was easier to get the province to listen to “we’ve made record investments in schools and hospitals, vote for me” after admitting there were things they should have done differently.

You occasionally see Trudeau say that they could have done some individual thing differently, but there’s never been a sort of bloodletting of the record in full that could enable the country to feel like it’s been heard. This is a government that talks about listening more than it shows it listening. Why Trudeau hasn’t let himself do a televised town hall in Toronto letting himself get beat up (proverbially, not literally) is beyond me. Trudeau is better in person than in front of reporters, and if he’s going to stay as leader at least for now the party should put him in a position to show that he’s listening and show that he gets it.

There’s been no gesture to the opposition, even if entirely contrived. Even entirely contrived gestures work - Boris Johnson somehow got an election majority through working class Britain, despite being as proper Tory toff as it comes. Accepting the thing that everybody knows about you and meeting the public where they are is what works, not trying to tell everyone they’re wrong for thinking what they do of you.

Trudeau, or whoever the next leader is, needs to own the mistakes of the record to celebrate the successes of it. There have been genuinely transformative things this government does. I often thank my lucky stars this government was in office during COVID, because an alternative where we don’t have a massive fiscal response could be horrifying. I’m under no illusions they were perfect then, but I’m not sure why anyone should pretend they were. The instinct to refuse to admit any flaw is toxic, and killing the party. It’s high time to admit the record is good, but imperfect, and let the electorate know that we aren’t blind to the problems.

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None of these ideas will elevate the Liberals back to 160 seats. Anybody who thinks there is any path back before the next election is probably either in denial or trying to pass off an ideological vision as a solution. I’m not here to pass my preferences into law. I want the party I love to live to fight another day after the 2025 election.

This is a roadmap for the Liberal Party in the wake of St. Paul’s. These are 6 things the government can do that seem likely to make things better. It’s a path forward for a party that desperately needs one. Let’s hope they take note.