Angry in the Great White North

The analysis of the Liberal collapse in the Quebec by-elections continues. Greg Weston points out that the Liberal political machine in Quebec is out of money, and has been since the Sponsorship Scandal broke:

While there is no question Dion has to shoulder some of the blame for a rusted out political machine -- he is, after all, the party's leader -- there is one problem definitely not of his making.

For years, the big Red Machine in Quebec was fuelled in large part with dirty money that suddenly dried up with the sponsorship scandal.

As various witnesses testified at the Gomery inquiry into the Adscam fiasco, at least $1.7 million was laundered by various means into the coffers of the Quebec wing of the federal Liberal party.

Such was the popularity of the federal Liberal cause in that province that the party evidently had to pay people for everything from executive services to driving voters to the polls on election day.

Much of the cash was funnelled through the Montreal advertising firm Groupaction Inc. that became a kind of laundromat for getting money from phony government contracts into the coffers of the Libs in Quebec.

So what's the alternative to money stolen from taxpayers? For the Liberals, it was massive donations from friends in corporate Canada. But since Jean Chretien turned that source off as a going away present to Paul Martin, the Liberals have had to ask individual Canadians for cash, and that hasn't been going very well:

Still reeling from Monday’s humiliating byelection losses, Liberals are turning their attention to another horror story — their dismal fundraising record.

Party brass met Wednesday with aides to Liberal MPs and senators to brief them on efforts to improve fundraising techniques and increase the party’s haul. The news was not great but not altogether discouraging.

The Conservative party raised more than twice as much as the Liberals in the second quarter of 2007: $3.8 million versus the Grits’ $1.5 million.

During the briefing, staffers were told that the Liberal party, traditionally the most reliant on corporate donations which were banned in 2004, must learn to reap thousands of small donations from grassroots supporters, as the Conservatives do.

According to briefing notes, obtained by The Canadian Press, only 5.6 per cent of Liberal party members have donated so far this year to the party, one of its riding associations or to one of the former leadership candidates, who are struggling to pay off about $3.6 million in cumulative debt.

A lot of people have been looking backward at the Liberal by-election losses in Quebec, and from that we learn some very interesting things:

Stephane Dion spent six months searching for a star candidate to run in the Outremont by-election, a delay some Liberals suggest cost the party a safe seat in Quebec.

Two days after the Liberals' humiliating defeat in the Montreal riding, volunteers and others involved in the campaign talk of interference by Mr. Dion's senior strategists in the last three weeks and of a chaotic election day.

And another campaign official, who asked not to be identified, said that in the past three weeks, Mr. Dion's people in Ottawa began to insert themselves into the campaign strategy. At one point they insisted on the leader coming into the riding to make a controversial announcement. They were able to talk his people out of the announcement.

As well, the campaign worker said that Mr. Dion's people would often call at the last minute to tell them that he wanted to visit the riding. The problem was finding events for him to do in a summer campaign when no one was around.

"... Everybody is involved [from the federal party office and the leader's office] ... and that's the problem ... a lot of chiefs but not a lot of Indians," the worker said.

[Former Liberal MP for Outremont, Jean Lapierre,] said that local organizers, who had helped him win two elections, were excluded from much of the strategy. That was taken over by Mr. Dion's people, including Mr. Lemire, who works for the party in Quebec. Mr. Lemire is an experienced organizer, but he is not from Outremont.

But even as the locals complain that Stephane Dion's participation in the by-election was wrong-footed and badly organized, Stephane Dion insists that there must be more of him in the future:

Federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion acknowledged his leadership has been too low-profile so far, in a candid television interview broadcast last night on Radio-Canada.

"I hesitated to put myself in the foreground of the debate," he said, and repeatedly stressed that he took full responsibility for the party's shutout this week in three Quebec by-elections, including its loss to the NDP in the Liberal bastion of Outremont. He also called the dismal showing of the Liberals in Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean and St-Hyacinthe-Bagot "very worrying."

Now pull it all together:

• The Liberal Party organization in Quebec has collapsed, grinding to a halt when Adscam-sourced funding was cut off
• The Liberal Party has been unable to inspire their own members to donate
• The need for funding from individuals suggests local grassroots efforts to raise cash, but the Liberal Party continues to function as a very centralized organization, much to the frustration of local Liberal groups
• Stephane Dion doesn't get it, arguing that there must be more of him, not less, and not acknowledging the issue of ill-timed and ill-planned interference from his office as a problem at the local level, a problem that has cost the Liberal Party by-elections and funding

The by-elections in Quebec are done. More by-elections will be coming soon in Ontario and British Columbia. It does not seem that the Liberals have quite connected all the dots yet. That'll be a big problem for them, because as long as they seem confused and working at cross-purposes, Liberal Party members will keep their chequebooks closed and by-elections will continue to be nailbiters.

The Liberal Party might still win a general election, of course, even under Stephane Dion. It's not just about who has the most money to spend. But we can only imagine just what will happen to taxmoney entrusted to an impoverished Liberal government.

Check out other entries from the Outremont category
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