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This isn’t an unfocused sense of déjà vu. I’ve seen this movie before, and I know how it ends.
In the summer of 1982, when I was 20 years old, I was invited to a gathering of senior Liberal Party of Canada members at the Banff School of Fine Arts. At the time, I was a vice-president of both the Manitoba Liberal Party (combined federal and provincial) and the Manitoba Young Liberals.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the party’s poor standing in public opinion polls and possible measures that could be taken to improve the numbers. Western alienation, along with the growing challenge of western separatism, would also be discussed.
The prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, was at the meeting. There were also several cabinet members, Liberal senators and MPs, and many high-level party members. I didn’t regard myself in that latter category. I understood that I was invited, along with a number of other 20-something party members, in order to give a younger perspective on the issues to be discussed.
On the afternoon of the first day, several dozen of us gathered in a large meeting room, sitting at tables arranged in a large square. After we received a detailed briefing about the party’s poor poll numbers, the discussion shifted to possible reasons for the problem.
Many identified the 1981 federal budget as the catalyst for the slide in the polls. The budget had been widely criticized by the media and opposition for failing to address the economic pain that many Canadians were experiencing.
The country was mired in a recession. Inflation was expected to rise to 12 per cent and it was predicted that, for the fourth consecutive year, wages would not increase to keep pace with inflation.
Higher inflation meant higher interest rates. Those rates were making it more difficult for businesses to stay afloat, and were making it harder for individuals to purchase a home, let alone make their mortgage payments.
Canadians were worried about their jobs and economic future, and were sorely disappointed by a budget that had no measures to help them. There was a growing perception, especially in Western Canada, that the government either didn’t understand that people were suffering or didn’t care.
As that frustration grew into anger, the Liberals’ standing in the polls continued to plummet.
Does any of that sound familiar, in today’s context?
During the discussion about the polling numbers and the budget, many took the position that the public, opposition and media were all wrong in their criticism of the budget. Some even suggested that Finance Department bureaucrats who had worked on the budget were trying to sabotage the government, and were in league with the opposition and media. It was a ridiculous assertion, verging on paranoia.
At that point, I suggested that perhaps the government had simply dropped the ball, by delivering a budget that didn’t do enough to address the economic hardship many Canadians were experiencing. I suggested that the government may not have adequately considered voters’ economic anxieties when the budget was being finalized.
To me, it seemed like the obvious explanation.
The room went silent for what seemed like an eternity. I could feel the eyes of several people at the table burning into me, and then a senator started yelling at me. He said that I didn’t know what I was talking about, that things weren’t nearly as bad as the media and opposition were saying, and that the Liberal party knew what was best for Canadians.
It was a humiliating experience, but I believed I was right. Two years later, the Liberal government was crushed by Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives.
Fast forward to 2024, and history is repeating itself. We have the same Liberal party with the same low poll numbers. That’s in large part because a growing number of Canadians don’t believe the Trudeau Liberals comprehend, let alone care about, the range of frustrations and anxieties millions of citizens are currently experiencing.
They see a disconnected Liberal government that arrogantly believes it has a monopoly on good ideas, and that the rest of the country just isn’t as intelligent or virtuous as they are.
It is as if today’s Liberals have learned nothing from their party’s history.
Deveryn Ross is a political commentator living in Brandon.
deverynrossletters@gmail.com
X: @deverynross
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