Can Liberals make the old new again?
In politics — as opposed to journalism — plagiarism is a virtue, not a vice. In Canada, the practice of putting one’s stamp on material borrowed from a rival’s policy handbook has a long and, in many instances, noble history.
For a recent illustration, think back to Stephen Harper’s 2006 decision to take ownership of the Bloc Québécois’ nation resolution.
In so doing, the prime minister jettisoned two decades of Reform party rhetoric overnight. But he also robbed the Quebec sovereignty movement of one of its most effective hotbutton issues.
In their glory days as Canada’s natural governing party, the Liberals were masters at the art of appropriating some of the stronger ideas of their opposition critics.
Medicare and the clarity act on Quebec secession are only two of the many shiny objects that were plucked from an opposition nest to be turned into crown jewels of the legacy of a Liberal prime minister.
The Liberals’ past record as the magpies of federal politics may account for their current failure to formulate policies that truly distinguish their brand.
For the record, the most striking pronouncement to come out of the latest Liberal convention brainstorming was a bid to legalize marijuana.
What is certain is there are plenty of policies out there that are just begging to be borrowed. Some actually build on the foundation of Pierre Trudeau’s legacy.
Take electoral reform — a battle horse of the federal NDP that is not seeing a lot of action these days.
Rather than count on a new episode of Trudeaumania to restore their party’s national presence, the Liberals could do worse than take over the cause of a more proportional electoral system.
Not only would such a reform offer the Liberal party its best chance to reconnect with representation from Western Canada in this lifetime, but it would also act as a powerful counterweight to the gravitational forces of regionalism.
Counterbalancing those forces used to be a Liberal mission.
Take, then, the concept of a just society that Justin Trudeau’s father introduced in the national conversation in the ’ 60s.
With the gap between rich and poor getting wider by the decade, the holes in the country’s once ambitious social safety net rather than its frayed meshes increasingly define it.
At the same time, fiscal and constitutional realities make a return to the days of wall-to-wall national social programs neither likely nor desirable.
Those realities do not preclude the Liberals making a guaranteed national income system their signature social policy.
As a bonus, that’s a concept the Conservative attack dogs might break their teeth on.
One of their own, Tory Senator Hugh Segal, is one of the most vocal advocates of a reform that would see a patchwork of welfare measures replaced with a universal barrier against abject poverty.
It is mostly in the margins that political branding is most effective these days and the Conservatives have proven particularly adept on that front.
In the process, they have turned their party into a monarchist vehicle.
But who speaks for the growing legions of Canadians who have no British roots and no inclination to see their country as a natural part of the anglophile compact that so recently spearheaded the misguided war on Iraq?
It is hard to think of a stance that would go a longer way to reconnect the federal Liberals with Quebec and with many of the constituencies that make up the New Canada than the offer of a strong post- monarchy vision of the country.
There was a time when the Liberals would rather fight for groundbreaking ideas — including some of their own, like the Official Languages Act, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the Iraq war — than fudge them.
Over the past decade, that combative spirit has largely been replaced by a defensive nostalgia.
If the Liberals have come to be equated with a bland slate, it is not for lack of provocative material but for an apparently crippling fear of committing bold words to the party’s policy page.