The centre rises

Liberal Leader Bob Rae with local party organizer Ian Batt at a fundraising event in Belleville last Thursday evening.

Bob Rae sets the table for the Liberal leadership race

Bob Rae says he senses a hunger among Canadians for better ideas—a desire to shed the fear and worry that has gripped this nation for the past five years.

“A lot of people who don’t want to go to the two extremes,” said Rae. “That is something we have to offer as Liberals.”

The federal Liberal leader was in Belleville last week to speak to the party faithful. His tenure as interim leader will end next April when Liberals choose a new leader. On the day Rae was in Belleville, news broke that Justin Trudeau would enter the race for leader. Rae figures many more will join the race. He sees this as a good thing.

“The leadership race will have a positive impact on party membership,” said Rae. “We are already seeing our numbers grow.”

Wherever he goes, Rae says, he encounters anxiety about the future.

“A community like this one used to have a lot of industrial jobs that paid a good wage and a pension,” explained Rae. “The kids would come home from a good school and they would feel life was getting better. We don’t have that same level of confidence these days.”

He says that as that anxiety grows some are attracted to the extreme solutions offered by the Conservatives on one side and the NDP on the other end of the political spectrum.

“Something is happening in our economy that is worrying people. It is not the bottom falling out of the economy, it is the middle falling out of the economy. In every spurt of renewal and revival we’ve always been led by ordinary people working in the economy—a strong middle class.”

His prescription is a return to the centre and a focus on restoring confidence to the middle class.

“The way the Liberal party succeeds is to develop a series of practical ideas about how we do that. The Conservatives make the mistake that if the economy creates profits, those profits will be shared. The NDP make the mistake of taking prosperity for granted and focusing on how they will divide it up. The fact is you can’t divide up prosperity if it isn’t there. You can’t divide the cake unless you make the cake in the first place.”

Rae believes hopeful, ambitious and workable ideas will bring Canadians back to the centre and to the Liberal party. “I really think new leadership of the party is going to have to bring some really creative ideas together about how we are going to create growth, how it will be sustainable and how it is going to be widely and deeply shared,” said Rae.

And about his legacy?

Rae was appointed interim leader after the party’s worst defeat since before Confederation. He accepted the challenge with his eyes wide open. He has set about rebuilding the party’s coffers and spirits through countless events such as his appearance in Belleville.

“It has been a time of reconstruction and transition,” said Rae. “It was something that had to be done. If people remember me as Bob the Builder that is fine.”