Inside Politics

Liberals spin the upside of down

by Chris Hall Posted: November 9, 2009 1:30 PM Last Updated: November 9, 2009 3:51 PM
Most political pundits agree that one of most interesting story lines out of today's byelections will be how the Liberals do.
Some are suggesting that Michael Ignatieff's candidates will finish third in all of the races.

No one is suggesting the Liberals will win any of the four seats up for grabs -- two of them in Quebec, one in Nova Scotia and the other in B.C.

It's not an encouraging sign for a political party that needs to become more competitive under Ignatieff's leadership.

With that as background, some interesting spin is making the rounds on Parliament Hill, pointing out that the Liberals have no history of winning any of these seats.

To be precise, it's been 30 years since the Liberals won either Hochelaga or Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup in Quebec.

And forty years in the case of New Westminster-Coquitlam in B.C.

In Cumberland-Colchester, the Liberals won only once in the past 50 years -- back in 1993 when the Conservatives were reduced to just two seats under then party leader and now Quebec Liberal Premier, Jean Charest.

The point, obviously, is to pre-explain the results before they're in. It's akin to saying the Liberals shouldn't be expected to do well in ridings where they've never done well.

As my colleague Stephen Puddicombe wrote for Inside Politics last week, Cumberland-Colchester is a Conservative stronghold going right back to the days of Sir Charles Tupper.

But he says it's an open race this time after the popular outgoing MP,  Bill Casey, quit the Conservatives in protest against his government's decision to claw back equalization payments to offset gains in Nova Scotia's offshore oil and gas revenues.

The spin today puts forward a different view.

It says the mere fact that Cumberland-Colchester is in play shows how badly the Conservatives under Stephen Harper have let things slip. And a Conservative loss there will be a disaster for the prime minister.

And the spinners make one more point. They say the only reason these byelections are being held, is because the former MPs -- none of them Liberals -- quit because their futures were brighter somewhere else.