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### Viewing cable 09OTTAWA324, THE LIBERALS GETTING THEIR GROOVE BACK

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
09OTTAWA324 | 2009-04-29 19:07 | 2011-04-28 00:12 | UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY | Embassy Ottawa

`

    VZCZCXRO2511
    OO RUEHGA RUEHHA RUEHMT RUEHQU RUEHVC
    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

`