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DE RUEHOT #0324/01 1191936
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 291936Z APR 09
FM AMEMBASSY OTTAWA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 9373
INFO RUCNCAN/ALL CANADIAN POSTS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 OTTAWA 000324 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV CA
SUBJECT: THE LIBERALS GETTING THEIR GROOVE BACK 
 
REF:  08 OTTAWA 1543 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: Since December, interim federal Liberal Party 
leader Michael Ignatieff has set in motion changes to overhaul 
fundraising, to centralize administration, to restore confidence, 
and to rebuild the party's claim to be Canada's "natural governing 
party."  The biennial Liberal Convention in Vancouver beginning on 
April 30 will formally confirm him as leader.  Without any of the 
usual leadership race glamor, the event may live down to predictions 
of a "Seinfeld Convention" about nothing, but the behind-the-scenes 
focus will be on making the party battle-ready for a federal 
election, likely within the next ten months.  The test for Ignatieff 
in coming months will be whether he can define appealing policy 
prescriptions -- especially on the economy -- that differ 
substantially from the Conservatives and are at the same time easy 
to explain to the electorate.  End summary. 
 
BACK ON COURSE 
-------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) Federal Liberals will convene in Vancouver from April 30 to 
May 3 formally to ratify Michael Ignatieff as leader, to boost 
morale, to hone election techniques, and to approve proposed reforms 
to party organization.  Since Stephane Dion's hurried departure in 
December (reftel), Ignatieff has largely expunged his predecessor's 
legacy -- especially support for an unpopular coalition with the New 
Democratic Party, as well as Dion's signature "Green Shift" policy. 
He has begun to steer the party back to the political center, 
recruited new staff, and reached out to experienced players from 
three back-to-back Liberal majority governments in the 1990s.  In 
April, newly-appointed National Director of the Liberal Party Rocco 
Rossi described the aim of the upcoming convention as primarily to 
demonstrate that Liberals are "back on course" and are "people who 
have their act together, who can govern themselves and, therefore 
are earning the right to govern."  As a down payment on that 
promise, he forecast that the Liberal Party would retire its 
remaining October 2008 election debt by the end of May. 
 
¶3. (SBU) In order philosophically to move on, the Liberal Party will 
open the convention with a traditional tribute, of sorts, to Dion, 
although many were startled to learn that the party had engaged the 
same videographer who produced the now infamous out-of-focus film in 
December that accelerated Dion's resignation.  Organizers will even 
hold a fundraising reception to pay off Dion's remaining debt from 
his 2006 leadership race, which stood at C$200,000 as of December 
¶31.  Nine other 2006 leadership candidates also still owe money from 
that race, but Ignatieff and foreign affairs critic Bob Rae have 
paid off their own loans. 
 
FOCUS ON THE NUTS AND BOLTS 
--------------------------- 
 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Liberal Party sources and media have predicted that 
between 1,500 and 3,000 delegates would gather in Vancouver, far 
fewer than those eligible to attend.  Delegates will have some 
opportunity to air policy ideas, but the focus will be on election 
readiness, feel-good team-building, and organization, or as one 
senior party official described it, on "plumbing, and engine-room 
stuff."  The hardware reportedly includes new voter database 
software purchased from the Obama presidential campaign.  To make 
maximum use of this technology, the Liberal Party is taking steps to 
centralize administration, fundraising, membership lists, and 
election preparation to help it better to compete with the 
Conservative's proven voter tracking and fund-raising machine.  The 
organizational changes, which will face a formal vote by convention 
delegates, would effectively end the Liberal Party's traditional 
Qdelegates, would effectively end the Liberal Party's traditional 
structure as a loosely federated body of provincial and territorial 
associations.  In the past, provincial wings have jealously guarded 
their membership and donor lists, as well as their autonomy, and 
resisted efforts at centralization. 
 
¶5.  (U) Ignatieff will also push delegates to approve a one-member, 
one-vote system for electing future party leaders in place of the 
present delegate system, despite the failure of a similar proposal 
at the 2006 convention.  The reform's supporters argue the mechanism 
is cheaper and more democratic, if less politically flashy. 
 
PUTTING TOGETHER THE TEAM 
------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (U) On Parliament Hill, Ignatieff has restructured his own 
Opposition Leader's Office (OLO) and the separate Liberal Research 
Bureau (responsible for Question Period research, strategy, and 
running the Liberal "War Room" during elections) in order to unify 
operations, election preparation, and communications.  In addition 
to Principal Secretary Ian Davey and acting Chief of Staff Paul Zed, 
Ignatieff has hired Don Guy, an experienced strategist and former 
Chief of Staff to Ontario Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty, as 
campaign director.  Chretien-era Liberal insider and Toronto 
political consultant Warren Kinsella (whose mockery of then-Canadian 
 
OTTAWA 00000324  002 OF 003 
 
 
Alliance leader Stockwell Day in the 2000 federal election was 
partly credited for a Liberal victory) will reportedly return to run 
the Liberal War Room in the next election.  New National Director 
Rossi comes from a highly successful fundraising stint at the Heart 
and Stroke Foundation.  Insiders expect the convention to acclaim a 
second Ignatieff confidante, Toronto lawyer Alfred Apps, as new 
National President, in charge of party administration. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) In March, Ignatieff recruited former party whip and 
four-term Liberal MP Karen Redman as a senior aide in his office to 
work on tactics, logistics, and election readiness.  Redman replaced 
veteran Liberal Chretien-era cabinet minister Don Boudria, who had 
stepped in temporarily to help out in December. 
 
¶8. (SBU) The inner circle is supported by what one Liberal staffer 
approvingly described as a "very young, but very smart, and highly 
energized" staff in the OLO.  When Parliament is in session, 
Ignatieff meets each morning with a newly-created 12 member Strategy 
and Tactics Committee, or so-called "Kitchen Cabinet," made up of 
experienced MPs (including former British Columbia premier Ujjal 
Dosanjh, House Leader Ralph Goodale, and defence critic Denis 
Coderre) and chaired by Ontario MP Albina Guarnieri, an organizer 
for then-PM Paul Martin.  The Committee reviews strategy for 
Question Period, monitors issues, and liaises with caucus.  The 
Committee has been notable for its deliberately low-profile and 
absence of leaks, as well as its effort to be "inclusive" of caucus, 
which had often complained of being kept in the dark by Dion's 
advisors. 
 
LOOKING AHEAD 
------------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Ignatieff has apparently imposed greater discipline within 
caucus, notably improving caucus confidentiality.  In March, the 
party announced that it would protect all its 77 incumbent MPs from 
nomination challenges as candidates in the next election, as long as 
individual MPs could show by June 2009 that their riding [district] 
associations had at least 400 members as well as 40 party donors who 
donate C$10 or more on a monthly basis. 
 
¶10. (SBU) The leader has also appointed renewal and policy platform 
committees to replenish the party's policy book.  The party has 
solicited grassroots input in online forums such as the new Liberal 
members-only website "EnFamille," and there is a separate process 
for caucus members to channel policy proposals.  According to 
Liberal MPs tasked with program development, however, the leader is 
ultimately responsible for the content of the election platform. 
Ignatieff had pledged to hold a "Thinker's Conference" early in his 
tenure as leader to bring together Liberals and academics to 
brainstorm ideas for policy and election strategy on the model of a 
seminal 1960 Liberal Party conference.  Liberal MPs have privately 
confirmed that these plans are still on track for the summer or 
fall; Ignatieff deliberately chose to wait until after his formal 
ratification as leader rather than holding these strategic 
discussions during his "interim" phase. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Arguing that they need to hold their cards close to their 
chest to avoid the other parties "stealing" their ideas, the leader 
and Liberal MPs have delineated only a few "broad strokes" 
priorities, such as "nation-building/national unity," citizenship, 
"social coherence," social justice, and "national values" as the 
basis for their platform in the next election.  Ignatieff has urged 
Canadians, notably in his latest book -- "True Patriot Love," a 
story of his maternal ancestors and their contributions to Canada -- 
to "think big" about the country.  However, apart from promoting the 
Qto "think big" about the country.  However, apart from promoting the 
construction of a high-speed rail link between Quebec City and 
Windsor, Ontario, arguing for changes to loosen eligibility for 
Employment Insurance, and promising that no Canadians would be "left 
out" under a Liberal government, he has remained vague on details or 
other policy priorities.  The Conservatives have thus far held off 
from the kind of attack ads they successfully deployed against Dion, 
but they have taunted him repeatedly for his offhand comment that 
Canadians eventually would have to face higher taxes to pay for 
current deficit spending on stimulus packages. 
 
AHEAD IN THE POLLS, JUST 
------------------------ 
 
¶12. (SBU) As Liberals head into their convention, they do so ahead 
in the polls.  In an April 23 Harris-Decima poll, the Liberals edged 
in front of the Conservatives at 32 pct to the Conservatives' 29 pct 
nationally, largely based on gains in the key battleground provinces 
of Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia, the collapse of 
Conservative support in Quebec, and strong support among female 
voters.  A series of polls since March have confirmed the upward 
trend, reportedly prompting more hawkish Liberals to press Ignatieff 
to trigger an election as early as June.  Liberal MPs Denis Coderre 
and Bob Rae have told PolMinCouns separately that they would support 
an election "the sooner the better."  Other Liberal MPs, however, 
predict an early 2010 election.  In exchange for passing the 2009 
Conservative budget, the Liberals had demanded economic "report 
 
OTTAWA 00000324  003 OF 003 
 
 
cards" no later than June and December, on which they could 
potentially base confidence motions in early summer or late fall to 
force a federal election.  The 2010 budget in February/March 2010 
would be the next logical trigger. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶13. (SBU) In the last four months, Ignatieff has had the luxury of a 
prolonged political and media honeymoon in which to begin to reshape 
the Liberal Party.  Most Liberals seem happy with the changes; one 
staffer noted with relief that "the professionals are back in 
charge."  Liberals are upbeat after three years of tough times, even 
though their margin in the polls is still slim.  Although the media 
focus at the convention may prove to be "All Ignatieff, All the 
Time," delegates (many of whom will shoulder their own costs in 
Vancouver) appear motivated.  Nonetheless, the real test for 
Ignatieff in coming months will be whether he can maintain party 
spirit, continue to push through needed reforms, and define 
appealing policy prescriptions -- especially on the economy -- that 
differ substantially from the Conservatives and are at the same time 
easy to explain to the electorate. 
BREESE