OTTAWA — Calgary senator Dan Hays is the odds-on-favorite to become national Liberal Party president next week.
Barring last-minute entries, he is one of only two running for the presidency at the party convention in Ottawa May 12-15.
Calgary Liberal activist Cynthia Hill is also a candidate.
Hays, a 55-year-old lawyer, businessman and rancher from southern Alberta who is chair of the Senate agriculture committee, has the highest profile, good connections and a national network of party veterans and key government players working for him.
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He is son of a former agriculture minister, the late Harry Hays, and has been in the Senate for a decade. For three decades before, he was a Liberal Party activist and fund-raiser.
Hays said in an interview last week that a Liberal Party president from Alberta would be an important advance for the party as it tries to consolidate the western gains it made in the 1993 election.
Although the majority of Liberal seats are located in Central Canada, the election produced the party’s best western showing since 1968.
“With the party strongest in Ontario and Central Canada, it would make good sense to balance our representation out of the regions by having a president from the regions,” he said.
The last two Liberal presidents have been from Quebec and the last prairie-based president was Manitoba senator Gildas Molgat, elected in 1973.
“When you come from the regions, you have a different point of view and you put a different spin on national issues than you do from Central Canada,” he said. “As president, that western view would be part of all the party discussions.”
Goal to reduce debt
Hays said his first priority as president would be to try to retire the lingering $3 million party debt, a leftover from the difficult days of 1984-90 when the Liberals were in opposition and most corporate dollars were flowing to the Conservatives.
“The debt is a distraction for the party that has to be dealt with,” he said.
But Hays insisted the party is strong and will maintain its western base if it governs well and treats all regions of the country fairly.
“I think the party is in good shape,” he said. “The election result attests to that.”
