Cast your eyes skyward and you might see, high above like an eagle, a vulture circling, waiting to feast from the walking corpse the Liberal Party of Canada has become.
Bedraggled and bedecked in the ornaments of the past, oozing the decrepit slogans of yesteryear from a haggard orifice, a gruesome spectre trudges grimly onward through the desert landscape of Canadian politics, surrounded by the mocking stares of virile-looking Conservatives gargling in the taste of moderate popularity like a fine wine. Staggering, but with a repulsive vigour when approached by the more gullible elements of the electorate, this creature prys open his soiled bag of tricks to reveal a tired retinue of unpopular policies, deflated buzz phrases, weathered Red Books and moldy pamphlets about the virtues of something called a “Green Shift.” A hideous odour then wallops one in the face if they get too close — the stink of death.
How the once-mighty have fallen. The party that still claims to be the only feasible alternative to the Conservatives now stumbles from one collection of mishaps and mistakes to another, spurting out some often contradictory jargon along the way just enough to confuse the average voter who thought they might actually be zeroing in on what the party now stands for.
The Liberal Party has had a bit of rough run of it of late, to be fair. Having shed themselves of their limp-fisted leader Stephane Dion, aka The Wet Noodle, the beneficiary of that spectacular Stockwell Day-like downfall has been Michael Ignatieff. And so far Ignatieff isn’t about to have Beatle-sized crowds of screaming and cheering youth following him everywhere he goes like some latter-day Pierre Trudeau. In fact, the man who at the time of his ascension was viewed as the shining path to redemption has flickered and sputtered like a moth around a light bulb. With the life of this Parliament obviously (the vultures are circling atop Parliament Hill as well) winding down, Ignatieff needs to show himself to be more than the professorial facade he’s already offered the nation, or the Liberal Party had better ready itself for another gutter-circling campaign into the unknown.
The party itself isn’t helping any. We’ve come a long way from the glory days of Trudeau, Chretien and King, when the Liberal Party seemed to be a great colossus that bestrode the map of Canada, grinding her political opponents into the dust under a hob-nailed boot. They might need to get simpler to get their point (whatever that happens to be... I’d like to know myself) across to Canadians.
King had the right idea back in 1935, when facing the dreaded minions of Bennett’s Conservative juggernaut during another time of economic uncertainty. King simply campaigned on the slogan of “King or Chaos,” promised little, did less and won handily. Today’s Liberal Party seems to be quivering in their boots at every Conservative proclamation, ineffectually protesting until the cows come home, but without the backbone to defeat a minority government that has essentially antagonized and goaded them at every turn. It’s a pathetic display of political impotence. Stephen Harper isn’t really afraid of the Opposition — and I’m not sure I would be either. It’s the Opposition that is too afraid of what Joe six-pack might think about them forcing another election. We’ve reached an interesting crossroads in the history of our democracy — an electorate that has become so apathetic towards the actions of their own government they become angered when their elected representatives in the Opposition even threaten the Conservatives with defeat in the House, because that might mean, evil of evils, they might actually have to rip themselves away from Grey’s Anatomy for a half hour of their lives and vote in a federal election.
No wonder the Liberal Party has trouble raising any money. Who sinks a dollar into an organization that is starting to give new meaning to the word incompetent? I remember the Young Liberals when I was in university... shining, beaming young faces alive with a Buddha-Zen confidence in the ultimate purity of truth that was the Liberal Party of Canada. I’ve never been much for people that are totally convinced of their own righteousness at the expense of even their common sense. But where are these young disciples now? What happened to the Liberal powerhouse of politics I once knew? Where are the firebrands? Where are the Trudeaus, the Chretiens, the Kings?
Not that I care that much about the party. If the Liberals want to keep digging their own graves with their own campaign placards, far be it from me to try to intervene. I would just as soon see the Greens or the NDP step into the widening rift the Liberals seem be creating with each passing day. But Canadian voters aren’t really the politically-adventurous type, for the most part. So, that leaves it up to the Liberals — and of late that appears to be almost the only thing they have going for them.
The alternative, of course, is a majority embrace of the Conservative Party. I know I live in the midst of a Conservative ocean out here, but there must be others who don’t view this as a really excellent proposition. For reasons perhaps best left unsaid, it tends to smack of that “convinced of their own righteousness” idea again, along with spectres of mandatory spontaneous celebrations and Five Year Plans — conservatively, of course. And while sometimes I’m sure that Harper is convinced that he is the Great Leader — I’m not sure that everybody else is convinced.
This is what democracies are all about, right? Let your ballot do the talking. But the Liberals and Michael Ignatieff aren’t exactly off to an auspicious start during this past month’s mock campaign trail, in which Ignatieff is trying to “get in touch with the people” as a dry run for an election. Day one resulted in a broken down bus, something that doubled as a perfect metaphor for the state of the Liberal Party’s fortunes right now.
They had better come up with something better than an aging intellectual with a paunch to pin their hopes to if they want to improve their fortunes in an upcoming election.
And so, the creature from the red lagoon keeps trudging onward, abhorrent in the sight of all it encounters.