{"id":19124,"date":"2013-02-22T00:01:32","date_gmt":"2013-02-22T05:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=19124"},"modified":"2013-05-15T10:12:37","modified_gmt":"2013-05-15T15:12:37","slug":"andrew-coyne-liberals-still-trying-to-avoid-serious-reforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/02\/22\/andrew-coyne-liberals-still-trying-to-avoid-serious-reforms\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Coyne: Liberals still trying to avoid serious reforms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Coyne<\/a> tries to explain why the Liberal Party of Canada increasingly looks like it will embrace Justin Trudeau as its new saviour<\/del> leader.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it was an impossible thing to expect. Perhaps it was even unfair. To demand that the Liberal Party of Canada, after a century and more as the party of power, should reinvent itself as a party of ideas; that it should, after a string of ever-worse election results culminating in the worst thumping in its history, ask itself some searching questions, including whether Canada still needed a Liberal Party, and if so on what basis \u2014 perhaps it was all too much to ask.<\/p>\n

Because, on the evidence, the party isn\u2019t capable of it. Or perhaps it simply doesn\u2019t want to. Either it does not believe such a process is necessary. Or it does, but can\u2019t bear it. Whatever may be the case, nearly two years after that catastrophic election, the party shows no interest in reinventing itself, still less in any healthy existential introspection. The policy conference that was to be the occasion for this came and went; the months that followed were similarly void.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

Because the party seems determined to give itself to Justin Trudeau, come what may. Now, it is true that Trudeau has himself offered up a policy morsel or two. He favours liberalizing the drug laws and accepting takeovers by foreign state-owned enterprises in the oil sands. He opposes tightening Quebec\u2019s language laws and boutique corporate tax credits. He was for the long-gun registry, but is against bringing it back.<\/p>\n

But beyond that? He has his father\u2019s views on the Quebec question, without doubt. But the only broad statement of his economic policy we have is his unswerving devotion to \u201cthe middle class.\u201d And while the same criticism could be made of the other candidates \u2014 a grab bag of positions does not add up to a philosophy, still less a raison d\u2019etre for the party \u2014 only Trudeau has made a virtue of his opacity. To take more forthright positions now, he argues, would prejudge the sorts of grassroots consultations he intends to hold \u2014 after he is leader. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Coyne tries to explain why the Liberal Party of Canada increasingly looks like it will embrace Justin Trudeau as its new saviour leader. Perhaps it was an impossible thing to expect. Perhaps it was even unfair. To demand that the Liberal Party of Canada, after a century and more as the party of power, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,28,53],"tags":[119,887,572,908,113,118],"class_list":["post-19124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-media","category-politics","tag-drugs","tag-justintrudeau","tag-leadership","tag-liberalparty","tag-quebec","tag-taxes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-4Ys","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19124"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20282,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19124\/revisions\/20282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}