OTTAWA – The latest poll numbers show the Liberal Party needs a saviour, and soon, but the man some are looking to for leadership says his time has not yet come.
“My decision was taken a year ago,” said Liberal MP Justin Trudeau in an interview with Global News. “I have to be a good father before I can be a good leader.”
Speculation about Trudeau’s career aspirations are fuelled in part by the Liberal leadership legacy left by his own father, the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau, as well as the younger statesman’s own charisma and growing notoriety.
Global News sat down with the 40-year-old father of two to discuss his party’s future and his role in it.
“The amount of time I already spend away from my kids just being a simple MP is about at the limit, so I’m not going to be running for leadership this time,” said Trudeau, who represents Montreal’s riding of Papineau.
Still, the Liberals need to find someone for the job left vacant after Michael Ignatieff led the party to a historic defeat last May, and the latest polling numbers show it better be sooner rather than later.
Support for the Liberal Party has barely budged since their drubbing in the last election, according to the newest poll released by Ipsos-Reid on Monday.
The Liberals remain at 19 per cent while the Conservatives and the NDP battle it out for top spot at 37 per cent and 34 per cent respectively.
The polling firm attributes the suppressed support to uncertainty surrounding the future of the Liberal leadership – a future that won’t be determined until the spring of 2013.
And while he may not be the next Liberal saviour, Trudeau has some ideas about how the party can win back some of its wandering disciples.
Trudeau’s advice: win back the centre and show why that middle ground is the best way forward on key issues like the economy.
“Let’s connect with actual Canadians to get them to pay a little more attention and make a positive choice,” he said.
Despite recent polls, Trudeau argues most Canadian voters are centrist and that the left-leaning NDP and right-leaning Conservatives have both been encroaching into the centre to win their support.
That movement, he says, has caused Canadian politics to become polarized as people vote against parties, instead of for them.
“It couldn’t be a better opportunity for the Liberal Party,” Trudeau said. “The Liberal Party needs to be a party you vote for because you want to build a country, because you want to strengthen the economy, because you want to do the types of things that can allow us to dream again as a country.”
Trudeau said getting people to buy into that dream will have to go beyond Parliament – where the Conservative government’s contempt for Parliament has led people to tune out – to community centres and main streets.
“If we are going to address the kinds of challenges we are facing, we need to have people participating not just through our ideas, but through their actions and mobilization.”
The Liberals have also started looking beyond the party to connect through a new class of followers, called supporters. Unlike party members, supporters will not pay a membership fee, but will be allowed to vote for the next leader.
Winning back voters, and future elections, will require the Liberals to convince Canadians that the middle ground is the best way forward, especially when it comes to key policy areas like the economy, where the poll shows Harper enjoys a 56 per cent approval rating.
The Conservatives have managed to wrest the reputation of good economic managers from the hands of the Liberal Party – a party who under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin managed to deliver consistent surpluses after cutting expenditures and balancing the budget in 1998.
Trudeau said the Conservatives won their reputation by convincing people taking care of the rich and big business will mean the economy does well.
“Between the NDP who want the rich to get poorer and the Conservatives who want the rich to get richer, we are actually focused on giving everyone a chance,” he said.
Just what that means in terms of economic policy remains fuzzy, but Trudeau offered some explanation, saying a strong economy is one where everyone has to participate and for that to happen there needs to be adequate funding for health care, education and social security.
“The Liberals have always been the ones who have been very, very conscious of balancing social prosperity and a strong economy and we are going to get back to that when we get to power,” he said.
But the latest poll suggests the road back to power for the Liberals may be a long one.
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