The Liberals' insulting pitch to Green leader

THE DRAFT MIKE CAMPAIGN HAS UPSET OTHER LIBERALS. — KELLY McPARLAND

Ontario's Liberal party, which is not technically the same as the federal version though they do cross-pollinate a lot, is looking for a saviour.

A band of former electees are after Mike Schreiner, who heads the one-seat Green party, to jump ship and join the slightly larger Liberal caucus. The idea is that he could then run for leader and somehow rescue the moribund Liberals from their state of electoral insignificance.

The Liberals were a mighty force for 15 years under former premiers Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne, but so profoundly wore out their welcome that they found themselves reduced to just seven seats in a 124-seat legislature in 2018, and just eight in the succeeding vote last June.

Neither result was good enough to garner official party status or the sort of funding they need to keep the lights on. The people behind the “Draft Mike” campaign — DraftMike.ca being the actual name of the website launched to promote the plan — evidently see no one in existing ranks adequate to revive the glory years.

The spectacle of a bunch of party members rushing around in search of a camera-ready figurehead they can trot around the province as the next coming of Liberal hegemony is just one aspect of the project that strikes others as failing to pass the smell test.

The fact that a number of the 40 signatories on an open letter are senior party members with well-known names and resumés that include high office in past governments can only feed assertions that the Liberals are a party with no fixed convictions other than an unshakable belief in their right to hold power.

Rather than develop policies, attract talented people and craft a solid platform, they'd rather beat the bushes for an off-the-rack frontman who can dazzle the shallow end of the voting pool before anyone catches on.

It's wholly understandable that those heading the search would fix on Schreiner, who as Green leader has had moderate success in raising the profile of his party and comes across as knowledgeable, capable and serious-minded. A profile published prior to the June 2022 election described him as “likable, sharp and down-to-earth,” which no one was saying about the Liberal leader of the day, former Wynne cabinet minister Steven Del Duca.

Though the Green vote still comes in at less than six per cent, it's doubled since Schreiner's first outing as leader in 2014, and Greens have enjoyed growing stature in the legislature — and the media coverage to go with it — since Schreiner became its first-ever elected member four years later. He can also lay claim to the party's first legislative success, a bill imposing fines on vehicles parked in electric charging stations unless they're actually using the charger.

Though Schreiner has often proven more effective than the Liberals or New Democrats at unsettling Premier Doug Ford's Progressive Conservative majority in the legislature, Ford made a point of complimenting him over his performance in the 2022 campaign's leadership debate, once again the first to include a Green leader.

So who better to lead the Liberal party than someone who's not an actual Liberal?

Apart from painting the Liberal party once again as a power-seeking machine of adjustable principles, the Draft Mike campaign has upset other Liberals who were diligently struggling to rebuild from below.

Though no one has come forward to offer themselves as leader, several are reportedly thinking about it. One of those, federal Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, dismissed the Schreiner bid as political gimmickry, “aiming to find a path toward winning before we really put the hard work in.”

Well of course it is. That's the whole point, and one with a long history in a party that has often shown a weakness for flashy figures who are able to attract some quick attention. Erskine-Smith has an excellent window on that at the federal level, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power largely on personal charisma and a glamorous background, but whose eroding standing with Canadian voters is stirring real angst within the party.

Trudeau is accused of having failed to develop a surefire replacement to take over at his eventual departure. When a party lacks an identity beyond its leader, his or her retirement leaves it flopping around, gasping for oxygen. Not that Liberals are sorry they picked Trudeau: they got seven years of power out of him, didn't they? Plenty of politicians would happily accept that, even if it entailed the danger of leaving a smoking mess behind when they finally take their leave.

It's noteworthy that many of the names on the Draft Mike list identify themselves as “long-time Liberals,” former candidates and even a former leader. Their remedy — sleek, slippery and cynical — certainly smacks of oldtime Liberalism.

It's no compliment to Schreiner if they view him as one of them, the sort of person who, after devoting a decade or more to building and strengthening a party he believes in, would throw it all over for a chance to lead a discredited alternative that's been roundly thrashed twice in a row and is after him largely because they think they can't do any better from within.

It's also no credit to him that, after declaring no interest in the job, he now says he'll have to consider it. Malleable convictions? Perhaps he's already part way to a Liberal career after all.

THEIR REMEDY ... SMACKS OF OLD-TIME LIBERALISM.