Liberals Make Little Progress

The results of the Liberal leadership French debate did little to clarify matters in Quebec. While it is entirely likely that disaffected Liberals who voted for Harper out of distate for the Chretien/Martin Liberal Party scandals will go back to the Party in the next election (largely predicted for this summer), it is unclear what ground the Liberals are making in Quebec. That the Liberals are looking to re-invent themselves is clear, Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff, the two front-runners, are Party outsiders with little connections at the Federal level. They were also the only two candidates who are reported to have been comfortable speaking in French. Unfortunately for the Liberal Party, neither of these two gentlemen have much to offer Quebec on the surface. Rae is tainted by his history of being premier of the largest Anglophone province in Canada, while Ignatieff's Trudeauist vision of Canada as a unitary concept does not seem to hold much room for Quebec as a distinct society. If the Liberals want to guarantee electroal victory they're next leader will need to make up ground at the expense of the Bloc Quebecois.