Liberals gather to plot course
Liberals gathered in Montreal Friday for a conference aimed at reinvigorating the party.
More than 50 speakers are set to speak at the Canada at 150 conference, which has been billed as a "thinkfest" for the party, an opportunity to step back and discuss long-term strategy and ideas.
"[We're going to] kick open the windows and the doors and let in some fresh air, some ideas," event organizer Mauril Bélanger said.
The conference will focus on five broad themes, Bélanger said: jobs of the future, families, the digital economy, Canada's place in the world, and the environment and energy.
"We're going to be dealing this weekend with what comes next," Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said in opening remarks as the conference kicked off. "This weekend is a time for reflection, a time to provoke, a time to debate. That is what we seek to obtain," he said.
The event comes at a time when the party is dealing with internal strife. Leader Michael Ignatieff apologized this week for an embarrassing gaffe that saw Parliament defeat a Liberal-led maternal-health bill after multiple Liberal MPs failed to show up for the vote and some in fact voted against it.
An EKOS poll released exclusively to CBC News this week suggests that if an election were held today, the Liberals would only receive 27.7 per cent of votes, compared to 33.3 per cent for the Conservatives.
Dozens of speakers are scheduled to address the conference, including former prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. The majority of Liberal MPs will not be attending the conference, as organizers want the focus to be on big-picture ideas and not bogged down by political discussions.
"We're not going to have a platform at the end of the weekend," Bélanger said
At a similar conference in Kingston in 1960, the building blocks of programs such as the Canada Pension Plan and national health care emerged. Organizers hope similar strides can be made at this conference, which is loosely supposed to map out a vision of Canada on its 150th birthday in 2017.
After opening the conference on Friday, Ignatieff is scheduled to close the conference with a keynote address on Sunday.