Recently, the rather novel argument was advanced in these pages that Michael Ignatieff’s historic defeat in 2011 was the fault of Paul Martin.

This peculiar assertion made no allowance for any of the obvious strategic failures of the 2011 Liberal campaign. It overlooked the cavernous changes that have taken hold of both Canadian politics and the Liberal party since 2003.

Most important of all, it offered no concrete suggestions as to how the party might claw its way from the prison of third place or reconnect with Canadians in a persuasive and lasting fashion. It was the rather sad echo of old warhorses waging old wars.

Still, it may have inadvertently helped to point the way toward an important insight: It’s time for the Liberal party to get over itself. Rear view recriminations will do exactly nothing to help renew and revitalize the party. Canadians could not be less interested. Old scores will simply have to go unsettled in service to the larger and more urgent project of bringing Liberals together and reigniting their sense of purpose.

A detailed perspective on the approach, tools and tactics required to achieve this enormous objective will be found in the upcoming June edition of Policy Options. However, three key principles offer a sound preview of the way forward.

First, generational change is a categorical imperative. Although the party has undergone multiple leadership changes in the past decade, it has avoided the sort of thunderous revolution that all organizations require from time to time if they are to survive and sincerely renew their salience. The Liberal party must become the vehicle of a welcomed youthful insurrection. Of course, that will eventually include its selection of a new leader. But before that, generational change must also define its choice of a new party executive and its selection of issues and ideas. Liberals must remake their party as a tool to challenge the status quo — and that effort starts at home.

Second, membership must be grown explosively. The functional gaps that leave the Liberal party so vulnerable to extinction — a lack of on-the-ground organization, weak fundraising, a disaffected and disinterested base — are all remedied by the same single solution: new and more members. With the selection of its next permanent leader delayed, the party will need to consider unorthodox incentives to attract people to its fold. It must be innovative, bold and unpretentious in its efforts to make it easy for Canadians to join. And they must be offered a good reason to remain.

Third, a clear identity must be forged. For years, the Liberal party has offered a pastiche of specific, not-particularly well sold policies and a wheelbarrow full of rhetoric borrowed from its own history. In the fallow garden of its own identity, a striking disconnect has grown between the party’s self-image and its public image.

Sadly, in the eyes of Canadians, it is no longer necessarily the party of medicare or national unity or open immigration or balanced finances. Liberal authority over all those issue-sets has been eroded and undermined. It must now choose what it stands for and it must communicate that position aggressively, relentlessly and in constant contrast to its political opponents. Particularly the NDP, which it must supplant as official opposition in 2015 if it hopes to avoid the graveyard.

Finally, if Liberals are to succeed in the far from automatic enterprise of survival, they must reconcile themselves to contemporary realities. There can be no hint of continued hubris. There can be no time wasted on old fights and deceased divisions. There must be a commitment to work in unity over the long haul.

And it must begin immediately.

Scott Reid was senior adviser and director of communications to former prime minister Paul Martin.