After the Liberals were defeated in the federal election of January 2006, there was a sense of renewal in the air. Both Liberals, who had grown tired of the old ways after thirteen years in government under Jean Chrétien and then Paul Martin, and non-Liberals saw a golden opportunity in defeat to give the party a new sense of direction and purpose, to transform it into a party that would reflect small-l liberal values and be well-positioned as one of the main parties in 21st-century Canada.

In those heady days the Liberal Party attracted a considerable number of people who had never been members of the party, or even voted for it, before. I was one of them. In Alberta, building a new movement or political party from scratch is in our blood. The Reform Party, for example, was a product of this passion so typical of Albertans. For me, therefore, it was a great opportunity to be part of a process that would breathe new life into an old and stale party that had long forgotten its roots.

Albertans are often erroneously labelled as conservatives when, in fact, they are small-l liberals in the traditional sense: protecting people’s freedoms and ensuring that every individual can unfold his or her full potential, while keeping government and its reach to a reasonable level and cracking down on those whose excesses of freedom, such as criminal activity, make it impossible for others to enjoy their freedoms. In that sense, and in that sense only, I am a liberal. As far as I am concerned, a party that uses the word “liberal” in its name must live up to those principles.

Hearing a lot of positive voices about renewing and rebuilding the Liberal Party, I was drawn in and became determined to do my share to help the party find its way back, as well as forward, to true liberalism. Some of the initial names bandied about for leadership did, indeed, instil hope that things were moving along in the right direction: Martha Hall Findlay, Gerard Kennedy or Michael Ignatieff. Eventually I plumped for Kennedy and even put myself up as a candidate to run as a delegate for him.

It was then that I noticed the first signs that the powers that be that controlled the reins of the party were not really willing to change their old and outdated ways. On the day delegates were elected, I came across a name on the ballot that should not have been there: one of the party’s top-tier functionaries was running as well, even though as a high-level office holder in the party’s hierarchy, she did not have to – she had already been designated as an ex-officio delegate by virtue of her office and position. This struck me as disingenuous and an attempt to manipulate the process.

Tilting at windmills
Despite receiving a good number of votes, I did not make it on to my riding’s list of delegates. There were complex formulas in place for ensuring that there was a certain number of men and women as well as senior citizens. Regardless, Kennedy’s delegates took the biggest chunk of the votes, so I was pleased. It did not matter to me whether I would go to the convention in Montréal as a delegate myself or not; what was important was that Kennedy had strong support, and he did.

We all know how things turned out on that fateful day of December 2, 2006. Kennedy threw in the towel way too soon and thus paved the way for Stéphane Dion to take the leadership crown. In hindsight, I have to admit that I was wrong about Kennedy. He quickly learned, apparently, to fit in with the old apparatchiks of the party, play by their rules and repeat their established mantra like a “good boy”. In all fairness to Kennedy, though, I believe he was genuine in his determination to bring change to the party at first, but later realized that he was fighting windmills and gave up (or became assimilated).

The same is probably true of Michael Ignatieff, who, based on his books and essays, is probably the closest the party has to a liberal in the classical sense, but he, too, has been sucked into the Old Liberal Party. He may show his true colours again one day if he manages to become party leader, at which point he could set the course and put his imprint on the party, instead of having to chant with the rest of them in unison to hedge his bets for a second leadership bid.

With Dion at the helm, the Liberal Party did not only return to business as usual, without any reform or renewal whatsoever and with more and more of the old stalwarts returning to the “scene of the crime”, but actually moved even further away from true liberalism – culminating today in Dion’s Green Shift plan, which is best described as a wealth-redistribution scheme, according to at least one Liberal MP, that would do any socialist or communist proud. Sorry, but if this a liberal concept, I am the emperor of China.

Obviously many others like me lost interest in the Liberal Party after Dion’s election as leader of the party, which is why, among other reasons, the party has had an extremely hard time attracting donations. People, including a large number of Liberals, took one look at the new party leader and decided to use their hard-earned money for worthier causes. Dion is doubtless a nice person, albeit one with an outdated ideology, but an effective politician or prime minister he is not, nor will he ever be.

The Liberals had a wonderful chance to build something new and better, but let it slip through their hands. The old apparatchiks in the party have prevailed, an ineffectual leader has been elected, and the party continues to be the same Old Liberal Party to this day. Meanwhile, Stephen Harper stole a march on them by positioning his own Conservative Party in the very place on the political spectrum that would normally be reserved for a small-l liberal party – this is why Stephen Harper will get my vote on October 14. So while the Conservative Party is not deserving of, or true to, its name, neither is the Liberal Party, but it does work out in the Conservatives’ favour.

In Alberta, the provincial Liberals may be able to succeed where the federal party failed so miserably. Equipped with a “New Liberal” platform, the next leader of the provincial party could stand a very good chance of creating a truly liberal party in the mould of John Locke or Thomas Jefferson. But in Canadian politics, many hopes are regularly dashed, which would explain the ever diminishing voter turnout, so only time will tell if Alberta’s Liberals are up to the task. I will keep my fingers crossed.