Liberals must embrace bold ideas to survive

Here is the difficulty, if you’re a Liberal leadership aspirant gearing up for a yearlong campaign: Your party desperately requires new ideas and bold thinking, if not a top-to-bottom re-imagination. You know this.

But the party’s most ardent supporters — the diehards who are still cutting cheques after three successive electoral defeats, each more demoralizing than the last — are not, as a group, particularly keen on re-invention. They think the long-gun registry was a good idea. They believe Canadian soldiers are best used as peacekeepers, not peacemakers. They like the sound of a national child care program. And they would never send a UN food rapporteur unceremoniously packing back to Belgium, his ears ringing with “get off my land” braggadocio. Hardcore Liberals don’t just disagree with the Harper government. They’re embarrassed by it.

Polling tell us these folks tend to be older, professional, university educated and relatively affluent. Though planted in their own distinct political culture, they are not, at root, ideologically much different from New Democrats. Hence, the risk: If you forge a new path, say things that sound different either in tone or in content from what recent Liberal leaders have said, you may lose them. Then you’d be truly doomed. It’s true. It’s also a cop-out. Even if we assume the Liberal party’s hands are tied, somewhat, by the conservative (in the sense of change-averse) nature of its most loyal followers, there are areas of policy where the party could carve out a saleable niche, offering solutions to problems that neither the New Democrats nor the Tories are tackling. Several of the biggest do not require revolutionary change. They require common sense, plain speech and a willingness to listen to ordinary people. Liberals could begin speaking truth on the following:

Education: This is provincial jurisdiction — but the constitutional guarantees that provide for separate schools in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan, as well as the statutes that provide the same in the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut, are federal. Separate schools in Ontario, under the microscope because of the furor over provincially mandated “gay-straight alliances” in Catholic schools, increasingly look like an anachronism. More importantly, most parents with children in public schools will agree it’s time to bring back the failing grade and negative consequences for bad behaviour. Meritocracy is a liberal, and Liberal, idea.

Food: Amid the chest-pounding over the recent sojourn in Canada of UN Food Rapporteur Olivier de Schutter — which he exacerbated, it must be said, by crafting a report slanted with Eurocratic, statist assumptions — it was lost somehow that Canada does not have a national food policy. We need one. As an economic unit, the family farm is history. A new generation of small farmers is struggling to make a go of it with organics, local food and direct-to-market initiatives. Supply management in dairy and poultry is long overdue for a rethink. Liberals could do this.

Energy: This is tricky. Party president Mike Crawley is himself a former wind-power executive. Nevertheless, there’s fertile ground here, for the simple reason that the wind industry becomes deeply unpopular in any neighbourhood in which turbines are built in quantity. The time is ripe for a frank review of our realistic energy options — including nuclear, natural gas, hydro, clean coal, solar and wind. What are the true costs and benefits of each, including their effects on the environment, and on people? Alberta Premier Alison Redford says we need a national approach. She’s right. Unlike New Democrats, Liberals do not think development for profit is bad. Unlike the Conservatives, they do not think environmentalists wear horns. They could lead this discussion.

Health care: If the Conservatives can’t or won’t lead a national conversation about the future of medicare, then the Liberals should. New Democrats will be reluctant to consider any option that does not involve greater spending and higher taxes. Conservatives will be leery of being perceived as ideological dismantlers of medicare. For them, this is as dangerous a conversation as the one about abortion.

But the Liberals could delve into the various reform options, including introducing more home care, increasing the numbers of nurse practitioners versus doctors, expanding the role of unconventional medicine and, yes, introducing more private enterprise, where doing so makes sense and does not impinge on universality.

There are more such areas of federal policy — many more. Finding the openings is not rocket science. Arguably, the Grits have no choice but to make the effort and be bold, rather than just run on the same old stuff. It’s the only way they’ll get attention.

We’ll find out, sooner rather than later, whether they’re up to the challenge.