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Liberal Party

The Liberal Party won 103 seats (30.2 percent of total votes) in the 2006 election, which ended twelve consecutive years of Liberal government. The party then slipped further to ninety-six seats. Ontario had been the bedrock of four successive Liberal governments since 1993 and remains the party's primary base of support, accounting for more than fifty percent (53 seats) of the total caucus. The Liberals are a major force in Canada's largest cities, holding all but two of the 22 ridings in the urban core of Toronto, eleven in Montreal, and seven in Vancouver. They are also competitive in Atlantic Canada, where they hold 20 of the region's 32 seats.

However, the party had only a token presence (six seats) nationally outside the Vancouver- Ontario- Montreal- Atlantic Canadian axis, and the party was overwhelmingly urban in character. Its longstanding weakness in western Canada (dating back to the 1970s) was compounded by the collapse of traditional support in Quebec province, which slumped from 36 of 75 ridings in 2000, to 21 in 2004, and finally to 11 in 2006 as a result of a relatively minor corruption case still known as "the sponsorship scandal." Liberal insiders admit that Quebec support will take years to rebuild and will not rebound before the next election.

Nor did the Liberals have the luxury of a secure bastion akin to the Conservatives' dominance of the West; the Liberals' hold on Ontario was under pressure from both the right and the left in urban as well as rural areas. The party's principal challenge was to shore up urban ridings against the NDP in Toronto, Windsor, and Hamilton as well as in Northern Ontario, and against the Conservatives in rural, small-town, and suburban Ontario, especially the commuter belt around Toronto. It must also hold the line against the Bloc in Montreal, and against both the Conservatives and NDP in Winnipeg and Vancouver.

Prospects were brighter in Atlantic Canada, where the party may profit from bitter provincial disputes with the Conservative federal government over natural resource revenues. The Liberal Party continues a process of renewal begun under Dion since December 2006, but remains substantially behind the Conservatives in fundraising, policy development, and election preparedness. Communications also remained a weak link, not only due to Dion's linguistic struggles in English. The party leads among female and urban voters as well as ethnic communities, but lags among the majority of males of all age groups. It has a core base of approximately 28 percent nationally.

The appeal of the Liberal "brand" continued to exceed that of leader Dion, whose personal approval rating sank to a dismal 10 percent in a mid-May 2008 poll, a historic low for any Liberal leader. Eighteen months into the job, Dion remains largely a "blank slate" to most Canadians. In contrast to the Conservatives' focus on PM Harper, Dion touted the collective talents of a "Dream Team" of former leadership candidates and current MPs Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, Ken Dryden, Gerard Kennedy, and Martha Hall-Findlay, as well as senior MPs Ralph Goodale and Scott Brison. Former astronaut Marc Garneau and Justin Trudeau (son of the iconic Liberal former PM Pierre Trudeau) ran as "star" candidates in the next election. However, approximately 20 incumbent Liberal MPs indicated they would not run again.

Dion's leadership pledged to create a "richer, fairer, greener" Canada had few details, and his policy of "whipped abstentions" - or "strategic patience" - to avoid votes in the Commons that would bring down the government left the party's overall policy stance unclear. However, he planned to flesh out a carbon tax plan as the centerpiece of the Liberal election platform over the course of the summer parliamentary recess. According to party insiders, the strategy of this former Environment Minister was to make a bold gesture on a defining issue about which he feels passionately, but some Liberals feared the Conservatives may successfully define it instead as a "tax grab" that voters will not want. Dion's approach appears to be to present this tax -- offset by income and possibly corporate tax cuts -- as part of an economic stimulus package, rather than as a purely environmental issue. The Liberals also reiterated traditional themes of "values," promoting social justice, fighting poverty, making investment in cities and infrastructure, improving health and post-secondary education, and better managing aboriginal affairs.

In the 2015 campaign, the Party's platform stated that "Under Stephen Harper, Canada has dramatically scaled back its involvement in peace operations – a decision that could not come at a worse time. As the number of violent conflicts in the world escalates, demand for international peace operations has never been greater.

"Peace operations are important not only because of the help they provide to millions of people affected by conflicts, but also because they serve Canada’s interests. A more peaceful world is a safer and more prosperous world for Canada, too.

"We will recommit to supporting international peace operations with the United Nations, and will make our specialized capabilities – from mobile medical teams to engineering support to aircraft that can carry supplies and personnel – available on a case-by-case basis....

"We will not buy the F-35 stealth fighter-bomber. We will immediately launch an open and transparent competition to replace the CF-18 fighter aircraft. The primary mission of our fighter aircraft should remain the defence of North America, not stealth first-strike capability. We will reduce the procurement budget for replacing the CF-18s, and will instead purchase one of the many, lower-priced options that better match Canada’s defence needs.

"We will make investing in the Royal Canadian Navy a top priority. By purchasing more affordable alternatives to the F-35s, we will be able to invest in strengthening our Navy, while also meeting the commitments that were made as part of the National Shipbuilding and Procurement Strategy. Unlike Stephen Harper, we will have the funds that we need to build promised icebreakers, supply ships, arctic and offshore patrol ships, surface combatants, and other resources required by the Navy. These investments will ensure that the Royal Canadian Navy is able to operate as a true blue-water maritime force, while also growing our economy and creating jobs."

In 2018 the party resolved to commission a 21st century comprehensive integrated three-Oceans Policy, including environmental protection, economic and social development, scientific research, sovereignty and security. It would implement a strategy to re-establish Canada’s oceanographic research capabilities, including acquiring oceanographic research vessels for the short, medium, and long term. For purposes of security, sovereignty and Arctic community development, it would make full access to telecommunications (internet) capacity a requirement for any trans-Arctic telecommunications cables transiting through Canada’s Arctic waters.