How to Fix Canada's Political Parties: The Liberals

The western provinces are where the Liberals can and must grow if they ever hope to form a majority again.

Back in the day, the Liberals could always count on 60 or 70 seats in Quebec. Hell, they could get close to a clean sweep if they said really nasty things about Alberta during the campaign. Then along came Brian Mulroney and the Bloc Quebecois and ... je me souviens.

In the ’90s, the Liberals would run the table in Ontario. Then Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay decided to stop hitting each other on the head with mallets and … those days are gone.

All that remains from those glory days is the Toronto fortress, plus some seats in Montreal, Vancouver, and out East. And Ralph Goodale. Yeah, that's a coalition that might be able to squeak out a win if the Tories put Helena Guergis in their campaign commercials, but it’s not a road back to a Liberal majority.

So my advice to the Liberals is this: head west.

Last election, the Liberals won just seven seats in western Canada and failed to crack 20 per cent of the vote in any of the four western provinces. There were just 17 ridings west of Thunder Bay where they got 25 per cent of the vote. They’re writing off 70 to 80 seats every election in a fast-growing region that will get another dozen seats in a few years.

Look, I’m not a wild-eyed optimist who expects the party to roll to victory in Crowfoot next election. I remember in 2006 when I was campaigning in rural Alberta, I helped a sweet old lady unload groceries from her car – then she dropped an f-bomb on me when I told her I was door-knocking for the Liberals. So, yeah, it’s tough.

But there’s no reason the Liberal party can’t compete in large- and mid-sized cities in the four western provinces. The same types of people who vote Liberal elsewhere – older women, immigrants, well-educated Canadians – all live there.

And if you think westerners are just more conservative in nature, try telling that to the recent NDP governments in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and B.C. Hell, Edmonton is nicknamed “Redmonton” by Albertans.

No, it’s not that the voters aren’t liberal – it’s that the Liberal party has failed them. Long term, the Liberal party needs to win them back.

I don’t have all the solutions. Obviously, part of it is developing policies that connect to people in the West. It’s about paying attention to local issues and responding to them. It’s about investing time and money into the region. And most of all, it’s about building the party from the ground up in the places where it hopes to compete one day. Hire field workers, send MPs there, start knocking on doors.

It will take time. It will take effort. But in the long run, the cities of western Canada are where the Liberals can grow. The road to an eventual majority runs west, and the party needs to start down it now.