Five Great Canadian Political Comebacks

Michael Ignatieff will have to take a stand and be himself to win over the electorate, just as Chrétien did.

When Michael Ignatieff’s Liberal Express cross-country summer bus tour hit Québec, he spent a day in Shawinigan campaigning with the hometown hero, le petit gars himself, Jean Chrétien. Hopefully during the visit Ignatieff pulled the former Liberal leader aside and asked him for some advice because, when it comes to Liberal comebacks, there’s no better living expert than Jean Chretien.

Today it’s easy to look back on Chrétien as the highly successful Liberal prime minister who exploited a divided right to lead his party to three successive majority governments, helped bring the nation’s finances back from the brink, and dealt a major blow to the Quebec sovereignty movement. The fact is though, before Chrétien was a prime ministerial superstar, he was a fumbling, unconfident, out-of-touch, uncharismatic, unpopular Opposition leader who faced a substantial deficit in the polls and had people within and without the party questioning his ability to do the job.

When he won the party leadership in June of 1990, Chrétien had been out of politics since 1986, and it would take him a number of years to get his game back. It was six months before he won a seat in the House of Commons. His stance on the Meech Lake Accord meant losing MPs and supporters to the fledgling Bloc Québécois, and his shifting positions on key issues didn’t help either.

Over-handling by his advisers and their insistence he use a teleprompter for speeches suppressed the folksy charm that would later be key to Chrétien’s success. In essence, they weren’t letting Chrétien be Chrétien. As Stephen Clarkson writes in The Big Red Machine, “He appeared completely incapable of projecting to the public a Liberal alternative to what many party activists considered to be Brian Mulroney’s implacable neo-conservative agenda…” Sound familiar?

Chrétien’s weakness also encouraged leadership rivals such as Paul Martin and others not to lay down arms, lest their chance come sooner than expected. The caucus was divided; people didn’t know what the party stood for or believed in; the party machinery was in disarray; they couldn’t raise money; and they had been written off by the media. Again, sound familiar?

How did Chretien turn it all around so dramatically, to the point where just a few years later he’d earn a majority government and never look back? It’s easy to say he benefited from Mulroney’s mounting missteps finally cratering the popularity of the Tories, but it was much more than that. Parties defeat themselves, but their rivals don’t win without doing the groundwork. The Liberals ditched the teleprompter and the packaging and gave us Jean unplugged, letting Chrétien be Chrétien. More comfortable in his own skin, he could finally connect with Canadians.

They brought adult supervision to the Office of the Leader of the Opposition, hiring Jean Pelletier to run it and bringing in young talent like Peter Donolo to provide energy and new ideas. The party structure was reorganized and fundraising was made a priority. They held the Aylmer policy conference and cross-country consultations, embracing globalization. Star candidates such as Art Eggleton and Anne McLellan were enlisted. The Liberals courted the female vote, without whom the party can’t win elections, and began recruiting more female candidates.

There was no single silver bullet that secured the Chrétien comeback. It was a lot of hard work in a lot of different areas by a lot of different people, and it was recognizing his strengths and assets and playing to them. But there are many lessons in it that Ignatieff can learn. Arguably he’s already taking many of them to heart, thanks, no doubt, to his decision last fall to bring onboard Donolo who had a front-row seat for Chrétien’s comeback.

The lessons? Don’t try to be something or someone you’re not because the voters can spot a phony, and if you’re uncomfortable with yourself, they will be uncomfortable with you too. The ones that brought you to the leadership aren’t always the ones who can take you to the next step. Organization matters. It takes a strong team. If you don’t stand for something, you stand for nothing. Oh, and tell the nervous nellies to shut it.

This article is part of the series, "Five Great Canadian Political Comebacks." Check out the rest of the essays here.