After Liberal MPs who were defeated, re-elected and newly elected gathered in Ottawa for their last caucus meeting Feb. 1, outgoing leader Paul Martin told reporters MPs had not spent time agonizing over what went wrong in the election.
“It was a very upbeat caucus meeting and people feel very good,” he told a Feb. 2 news conference in answer to a question about recriminations within the party over the election loss. “And I’m not sure that the examinations which inevitably take place within the party are going to be anything like some of the examinations that you’re referring to.”
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But several Liberals who attended the closed caucus meeting said Martin did refer specifically to one of the Liberal failings – its inability to elect rural MPs west of Atlantic Canada.
“The prime minister brought it up himself,” said one MP. “He said we obviously have work to do in rural Canada.”
On Jan. 23, the party that elected more than two score rural MPs in 1993 was reduced to a handful in Atlantic Canada and one lonely survivor in rural Ontario – Huron County MP Paul Steckle, who won by hundreds of votes rather than the thousands that have marked his victories since 1993.
Alberta Liberal senator and rancher Dan Hays, newly appointed Liberal leader in the Senate, said in an interview rural decline in support for the Liberals has been in progress for decades. As the party tries to rebuild, it must try to find a way to reconnect to rural voters.
“It is something I’m interested in and plan to pursue within the party,” said Hays, appointed to the Senate 21 years ago by outgoing prime minister Pierre Trudeau partly in recognition of the fact that the Liberals cannot elect an MP in rural Alberta.
Hays said he discussed the issue “at length” Feb. 1 with defeated agriculture minister Andy Mitchell.
“It is a huge issue for us and some of it, but not all, relates to the state of agriculture right now. I have some views on what must be done but it would be premature to get into them now.”
For his part, Mitchell said the steady decline in rural Liberal seats does not mean there is no rural support for the Liberal party. On Feb. 3 after a recount, it was confirmed that Mitchell lost the rural Ontario seat he held for more than 12 years by 28 votes.
“That will be a discussion for the future when it can be analyzed but let’s not forget that millions of people voted for the Liberal party in rural Canada,” he said in a Feb. 1 interview.
“It may not have translated into seats but there is a lot of support for the Liberals and the ideals of liberalism out there in rural Canada. I think there will be an opportunity in the weeks and months ahead to reflect on what took place during the election campaign and indeed what took place over the last years, but the reality is that there are a lot of people from rural Canada who have supported and continue to support the Liberal party and we need to build upon that base.”
Prince Edward Island Liberal Wayne Easter, a former farm leader who was re-elected for the fifth time with more than 50 percent of the vote, said Feb. 2 the party cannot afford to write off rural Canada and to become increasingly the party of urban Canada.
“We have to find a way to reconnect with rural Canada and I don’t know if the party understands that yet,” he said in an interview from Halifax on the trip back to the riding.
Easter has been highly critical of the last Liberal campaign and in particular the decision to announce a ban on handguns in response to Toronto shootings.
“I don’t think they had any idea of the impact that had in rural ridings,” said Easter.
