Conservative Leadership Change

Having had the pleasure (if that’s what it is) of watching the estimable Count Doctor Professor Michael Ignatieff assume the throne of the Liberal Party of Canada this week, it’s time for Conservatives to turn their heads, while the prorogued Parliament remains quiescent, to a far more important question: who should lead the Conservative Party of Canada going forward?

Let me give you a hint: someone’s who been a former broadcaster, a full professor at Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard, and a respected figure in intellectual circles in the United Kingdom and the United States isn’t going to as easy to pin down and label as a sociologist trained in France. In other words, back alley bullying isn’t the tactic required now.

Stephen Harper Should Stand Down

When it is time to write the history of this first decade of the twenty-first century, Stephen Harper will be remembered for accomplishing something which appeared to be impossible as the 2000s dawned. He restructured and disciplined the former Reform movement by becoming leader of the Canadian Alliance, then reached out and swallowed hard to accept Progressive Conservative requirements for a merger of the two parties. He then defined the new Conservative Party of Canada and, unlike all the years since Sir John A. Macdonald, taught it the virtue of party discipline. He defeated the imperial ambitions of a self-centred, entitlement-theory Paul Martin, first whittling him down to a minority, then booting him out of Government altogether. Most recently, he built on this, and although a majority eluded him, he gained popular vote and seats for the Conservatives, with an absolute majority of 60% across all provinces not named Québec (and including Newfoundland & Labrador, the only province not returning Conservative MPs).

In other words, he’s built a legacy, and one that can continue. Infighting in public is a thing of the past, as are eruptions that are off-message or detrimental to the party’s success.

The very skills that brought him here, however, are the ones that will sink him in the future. As we saw in late November and early December, self-inflicted wounds are now the result. Although he has taken the steps needed to lower the combative temperatures, some of the prices we as a nation will now pay for his misjudgement as to whether he has a majority or a minority (the per-vote funding cut) will lead to billions misallocated, deficits we will have grave difficulty paying back in an economy which at best is neutral for years to come, and an emboldening of the Opposition to demand more, more, more: a high national price to pay to save Harper’s skin.

Good policy, therefore, requires that Stephen Harper follow Stéphane Dion into history’s books, albeit with a much better write-up.

Why a New Leader is Needed

No man — and no leader — is more important than their party and its chances to govern. (This, incidentally, is something Ignatieff, with his waffling around the coalition, seems to understand somewhat, although if he really “got it” he would not have put signature to paper.) This is as true of those who succeed in leading their party to the west side benches of the Commons as those who fail to do so.

Opinions about leaders decline over time. The person who once was new, exciting, different and dynamic later is seen to be covered in warts. We forget that Harper’s journey to where he is today has kept him in the centre of the national stage now for nearly eight full years. Those who like him may stand by him, or may erode away with one incident after another. But few will be persuaded to set aside negative views, now. Those are cast in concrete.

As with Trudeau — happily booted out in 1979 (and unfortunately inflicted on the nation to do far more damage in 1980 thanks to Joe Clark’s inability to even place a phone call to get the votes he needed), and as with Mulroney, despised long before resigning in 1993 — Harper’s day has now passed. He can step down on the top (more or less) of his game, or he can wait to be booted out by the Canadian people. Perhaps not at the next election — right now it is his to lose — but certainly at the one after that.

But what a surprise if his Christmas message to the nation this year was “My friends, it is time that I went. I call upon my party to schedule a leadership campaign, with a vote in early July 2009, at which point I shall step down in favour of my successor.”

Consider this: an Opposition who topples Harper at this point gets him for one more campaign, and one likely to return a Conservative majority if only because such a move would gain him votes. It would be Trudeau 1980 all over again — and they could be sure that the first bill after the Throne Speech following that election would strip away their funding.

Yet, with Harper going, he is no longer the demon. His face can no longer go up during the Two Minutes’ Hate on a daily basis to rally the troops and prepare for Question Period.

Not only that, but, by resigning, Harper need not give away the store for enough abstentions or votes for the Government’s program so that he survives. That would be good for Canada.

Who Are The Conservatives?

Having just completed a policy convention, a leadership race would allow candidates to finish the job of defining Canada’s Conservatives to Canadians. There will be different views put forward: this is a good thing in the context of a leadership race. (Meanwhile, although it is [at this juncture] to be a thinly-attended coronation, let’s not forget that the Liberals do not have a permanent leader officially until the beginning of May.)

Demonstrating the openness of the Conservative Party to different views — a healthy debate — in the absence of one in the Liberal Party (already damaged by the coalition manoeuvre) — is a good thing. It opens the door for former PCs that went Liberal to consider returning, and Blue Liberals to take another look at themselves and their opponents. This single set of months would do more to complete the task of institutionalising the Conservatives as a broad-spectrum governing party — one that must earn government and not default into it, but that appeals to a majority of Canadian voters — than anything else I can think of.

All it requires is for the Prime Minister to put strategy above tactics, and the good of the nation and the party ahead of himself.

With two new leaders facing each other in the fall session of Parliament — whether there is an intervening election or not — old battle lines would finally fall away. The next decade in Canada will be tough: let’s prepare for it properly.

So Far, It’s LeBlanc by a Country Mile

As the Liberal leadership race settles into its three-way configuration, the presence of Dominic LeBlanc highlights everything that’s wrong about the candidacies of Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae.

I am not — and don’t intend to become — a member of the Liberal Party. Yes, this is one vote I can cheerfully sit out. But I can say that at this point LeBlanc would have my vote, until and unless he loses it.

The game of “he said … no, he said” that we lived through these past few days, as Ignatieff and Rae (and their many spinmeisters, spokespeople, cling-ons, etc. spun the story) over last Sunday’s Liberal meeting in Mississauga and whether it was to be open or closed to the media has, much like digging through the pile of turds stacked outside a slaughter-house, reminded me of the stench that surrounded these two the last time around. There is, after all, a reason why the Liberal Party did not select either of these candidates, and why there were clear “Anybody But …” initiatives on the floor of the last conclave. Liberal insider politics has been emphatically told to change by the Canadian electorate, and these two power-hungry sexagenarians simply don’t see that the rules of engagement, both with each other and with us, have changed.

(Of course, why should they see it? The mechanics of leader selection still come down to who can mobilize the largest army of arm-twisters and spread the most fear, uncertainty, doubt, guilt and emotion about the other candidates. Two guys who never really had their 2006 machines stand down, and who have the necessary mother’s milk of inside politics — ready cash — mobilized already are likely to steal the show before reform can begin.)

But, hey: isn’t the Trudeau-Chrétien-Rae faction vs the Turner-Martin-Ignatieff faction infinitely interesting? (It’ll keep Don Newman and Mike Duffy happy — every day a scintillating battle to aid and abet their battles for ratings — but I’m not so certain the rest of us, frankly, give a damn.)

Is Dominic LeBlanc the sine qua non of leaders? Who can say — he does bring youth and experience, and doesn’t (so far) seem wrapped up in the old Liberal internecine warfare, the one that said intra-party battles were the real elections and the ones where we vote are just the sideline. This means that he seems, as well, to get the fact that the Liberals made themselves irrelevant, and that it’ll take more than recycled promises, hooks and taxpayer-funded bribes, and business as usual to (in a country where 41% cast a majority vote for “none of the above” by staying home) awaken us to take a look the next time around.

I expect Ignatieff to run away with this — and when he does the Liberals will remain in the wilderness. Oh, they may get more seats: they won’t get a clean victory, and might not even pass the Conservatives. In other words, it is Canada that will remain adrift — and don’t be surprised if the percentage voting “none of the above” rises again. This, I believe, is the real message of the Nanos poll: Liberal and Green gains are vote parking when intentions are asked. Yes, there’s a sense that the Conservatives are anything but (and hence the drop in their heartland — the West). But this isn’t sober second thought about election day that we’re looking at.

Still, it could be. A policy-oriented campaign, a generational change of leader, the said-in-public sense that it’s a long journey to revitalize, not the Liberal “brand”, but Canadian Liberalism: it is LeBlanc who speaks of these things. Then we might well see fewer “none of the aboves”: the only path for any party to grow to a majority.

No, I don’t expect him to win: the Liberal Party never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity, thanks to its core belief in the inevitability of its accession to power, and the spoils thereunto. (Never forget Stéphane-qui?’s first call to action on his own leadership win: it presumed that inevitability, as did Paul Martin’s television broadcast to plead for the job he’d wanted all his life.) The power hungry will not respond to a call for time to rebuild; they will respond to “a winner”.

But the best thing that could happen to the Conservatives and the NDP, by far, is to have a vibrant Liberal Party to contend with. It would be a dose of reality for both of them.

Worthy of Joe Clark on a Good Day

I have obviously been reading too many Liberal bloggers this week (and, yes, there are quite a few good and sensible ones out there). The optimism for the Liberal Party’s future that they’ve portrayed seems to have infected me somewhat: I was actually beginning to think that a real debate over the future of that party, brought to the table by several leadership candidates other than IggyBob, might set the stage for the Liberals to, à la the Pearson opposition period, truly rethink themselves.

Well, so much for that.

One by one the leadership hopefuls have tumbled. Kennedy, Hall Wilson, Coderre, Manley, McKenna … asked to play, and answering “no thanks, not me, not this time”. The unstated finish to that, of course, is “… not under these rules”. A $90,000 entry fee (and let’s just forget the discount for a successful run of delegate-gathering for a moment, since by definition those who force the policy discussion for the most part won’t be front-runners) and a 10% tithe to the party on monies raised isn’t very attractive when anyone considering the run knows how many riding associations and how many party operatives are already in the hip pockets of IggyBob.

No, it’s not worth a candle — or the debt.

But here’s the thing. Canadians have seen Ignatieff and Rae, thanks to 2006. Surprisingly (to their egos) and unsurprisingly (to the rest of us) they were found wanting. Don’t believe it? Remember the “Anyone But Iggy” and “Anyone But Bob” motifs of the 2006 race? Isn’t that why Dion managed to sneak up the middle: Kennedy’s deal with Dion could drop a group of delegates for the next vote into Dion’s camp, but it was the migration to Dion out of the “Oh God No…” crowds — on either side of the IggyBob juggernauts — that gave the Liberals St-Stéphane.

Now by this point you may think, “ah, he’s pointing out how that kind of race can have a Joe Clark moment, such as in 1976 when Clark came up the middle between the Mulroney and Wagner camps in the PC Leadership. But, no: that’s not the point.

The point is that Ignatieff’s camp and Rae’s camp are set to fight to the finish — to the point where the investment in beating the other guy is so strong that, no matter what the candidate says afterward, the camp carries on the struggle, much like Joe Clark in his second incarnation as Progressive Conservative leader (and we all know how well that turned out). If you’re not buying that the internecine warfare in the Liberal Party will be that bad, just consider what Ignatieff’s supporters continued to do to back him against Dion post-December 2006. Was Ignatieff duplicitous about his loyalties? Probably not: his supporters just weren’t giving up the fight.

Much as with a negotiation where there’s only one issue on the table — anyone who has done this knows how difficult it is to get entrenched views to move without a way to “get a win” for everyone — what is effectively a two-way race (and LeBlanc is unlikely to be much of a challenge to the IggyBob battle, certainly not enough to turn either camp toward considering him as a rival) will be a single issue fight. Can we live with that other guy? The probable answer is “no” — and unity will be further delayed.

Remember, too, Canadians know Iggy and they know Bob, and they weren’t impressed with either one enough to push them over the top the last time. So neither is likely to be an engine of growth for the Liberal Party: at best, a “hold the fort” while the battle continues to rage under the surface.

That, in turn, will further damage the Liberals. The Canadian people — not the media, but voters in almost every demographic slice — are heartily sick of a party who thinks its own internal issues are the nation’s business. For the Liberals to prosper, three things are required: a belief that whomever “wins” in May 2009 actually has the rank and file behind him; a serious non-grab-bag policy rethink that gives a reason to believe in the party; and a winner who can act Prime Ministerial in Opposition.

None of that is on offer with IggyBob. Maybe those Liberals who thought to insult BCers by complaining about the cost of coming to Vancouver were on to something: a regional rump that’s even more Toronto-Ottawa-Montréal (and not much elsewhere) — and that’s the IggyBob promise! — shouldn’t meet elsewhere. After all, the Bloc wouldn’t hold a convention outside of Québec; why should a residue of Liberals do the same?

Unfurl the egos and the hurt feelings, because that’s where the Western World’s most successful power management organization is headed — followed by an on-going whittling away at the edges and a residue power base in just a few places.

PS: Financially, the party is losing with an IggyBob outcome, too: far fewer fees, far fewer new delegates and members … ah, but the battle of the egos really is more important, isn’t it.