New Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is
focusing on building a better electoral and financing machine, but I
hope the change in leadership also means a new era of cooperation
and a more civilized debate in the House.
Considering that, according to the statements of the last few
days, Bloc Québecois
Leader Gilles Duceppe and NDP’s
Leader Jack Layton would like to pick up from the same point they
left before Christmas, the only hope that the session will bring is
something new and better from a mellowed Prime Minister Stephen
Harper and a more effective leader of the official
opposition.
From what I’ve
seen up until now, it looks as if Harper and Ignatieff are trying
hard to put aside strong partisan views and put forward the
interests of the country.
A more level-headed debate is what’s
needed considering the seriousness of the economic crisis
we’re
facing and these problems can’t
be resolved either by a minority government or by a fancy coalition
glued together by the desire of replacing a
government.
Most of the attention is being placed on the new Liberal
leader. Of course, it’s
too early to reach any conclusion on his leadership, but from what
I’ve
seen so far, I can say there is already a clear change, and for the
better.
Mind you, it’s
not hard to provide better leadership than Stéphane
Dion’s,
but the signs coming out of the Liberal caucus are
positive.
“Iggy
is providing a real leadership and the meetings are
businesslike,”
one Liberal MP told The
Hill Times this
past week. Another said “Ignatieff
lets the debate go on enough to let the members of the caucus to
express their views, but at the end, he makes the decisions and the
debate moves on without dragging on useless disputes, like in the
past.”
It is also interesting to see how Ignatieff is slowly, but firmly,
changing the organization of the party.
Two weeks ago, he presented his new team for campaign
readiness and the organization for the Liberal Party, while last
week he had the list of his shadow Cabinet.
Clearly, the big changes were in the upper echelon of the
party, while the shadow Cabinet returns to what it was before the
election.
This means the focus of Ignatieff action was to take control
of the party’s
organization, previously in the hands of Dion’s
people (whoever they were), while the organization in the House was
already in his hands.
There won’t
be any major changes this week in the House, where the operations
were already handled by Ignatieff’s
people but things are going to be much better because of the
annoying presence of Dion has been
removed.
Where you will see changes is in the organization of the
party in preparation for the next election.
While Ignatieff has kept the team in the House almost
unchanged and is trying to reflect individual ability but also
geographic, ethnic and gender considerations, in putting together
his party’s
organization he has used only two criteria: ability and
loyalty.
This means that, contrary to Dion who was giving titles but
no power, Ignatieff wants a team of players who really work so he
can move on to being the “salesman”
of his party to Canadians. Furthermore, Ignatieff is giving a lot of
time to fundraising activities.
Is this going to work? Is the Liberal Party really united? A
Liberal strategist told The
Hill Times that
“at
least now we have an organization to count on,”
as for the unity all the attention is on Bob
Rae.
“Up
to now he is saying all the right things,”
said one Liberal MP. On paper, things look good, but the reality
might reserve some surprises.
As for the Conservative side, before expressing any judgment,
it is important to see not just the content of the budget presented
this week by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, but also the way it is
presented and communicated to Canadians.
Despite the big rhetoric of some leaders, there is no much
disagreement of what to do in these economic challenging times.
Considering the urgency of the funds to start new projects, it would
be completely irresponsible to go back to the polls. Also the
replacement of the government with a coalition, it would take a lot
of time, not to mention the political difficulties to put together a
so heterogenic team.
With the Liberals now ready to roll, I believe it’s
still up to the Conservatives to lose it, but it’s
also true that this is their last chance.
