Liberal leadership candidate Martha Hall Findlay told the Star’s editorial board Monday that she may yet emerge victorious from the April 14 vote, despite front-runner Justin Trudeau’s apparently commanding lead in supporters.

Hall Findlay, formerly a businesswoman, lawyer and Liberal trade critic, said a new way of scoring the Liberal contest could allow her to overcome Trudeau, who most expect to win easily.

The Toronto-based candidate also said she’s the only choice among the seven remaining aspirants who has clearly articulated a vision for the party and a means of achieving it.

Here are excerpts from the conversation:

Just to get it out of the way: the feeling is that the air has gone out of this leadership balloon, especially with Marc Garneau jumping out. Now all we hear about is Justin Trudeau. Do you still plan to stay in the race until the end?

Absolutely. I didn’t enter this race because of who else was running or wasn’t running. I entered because I feel very strongly about the future of the country and where the Liberal party needs to go to provide that future. If I win, I’m in a much better position to implement those things and rebuild the party. But you certainly don’t win if you don’t actually start. I’ve committed almost 10 years to this now. There’s no shortage of commitment on my part – to the party and to what I feel is important for the country.

On the 150,000 voters signed up with the Justin Trudeau campaign:

Of the much-vaunted 150,000 supporters, only 30,000 had registered by the deadline. Interesting how the one’s the big story but nobody’s picked up on the other piece. Keep in mind that there were 105,000 registered to vote by the deadline and the Justin campaign had only 30,000. That leaves a big number of people who are not necessarily aligned. And I don’t need to tell you: a week’s a lifetime in politics.

Staying in allows you to continue to argue for your positions and your perspective …

While I’m in, at least there are some positions.

But is there actually a path to victory for you?

I’m not naïve. We’ve run a very pragmatic campaign. Look, I launched in Alberta – we’ve been running a national campaign from the start. I have lived in Alberta, I work part-time in Alberta – but I also did this because the years of neglect by the Liberal party toward Alberta and western Canada has upset me for a long time. The Liberal party has to become a national party once again.

There’s also a pragmatic, strategic reason we’ve been running a national campaign. What a lot of people don’t seem to be registering is that this is 308 ridings – and, for the first time, every riding is worth 100 points. Some ridings have thousands of registered voters – those ridings are worth 100 points each. There are other ridings that have fewer than 50 registered voters – they too are worth 100 points each. And they’re spread out all across the country. So, yes, there absolutely is a path. Do we know that it’s a steep hill to climb? Absolutely, but that’s never deterred me before.

You’ve talked about the Liberal party trying to be everything to everyone. Do you think the leadership race process has changed that? Do you think, no matter who wins, the party has found a new direction?

No. That’s exactly why I’m running. And that’s exactly why it’s so important that we actually have some thorough discussions about where the party needs to go. Because I can’t tell you right now where the party stands on a lot of issues. We can talk principles and values – economic responsibility, social justice. But in the last couple of years, we’ve had people advocating increasing corporate taxes; we’ve had people saying we need to keep them the same because they’re competitive in terms of the OECD; we’ve had people like me who are saying that we need to embrace the global opportunities that are out there. We have free-traders, and we have lots of Liberals who are not. We have all sorts of people across the country that say we need to dismantle supply management; but I have a whole lot of caucus colleagues who are saying “no way” because of their concern about the political fallout.

So, no, the Liberal party has not got its head around this yet – we cannot be all things to all people. As a party, we’ve done a lot of listening over the last few years – for 14 months, my job was to engage with Canadians from across the country, listening to their ideas. Michael Ignatieff did his Big Red Tent listening tour. I learned a great deal from listening. But at some point, Canadians want us to get something done. Leadership is not waiting for someone to tell you what to think or say or do.

So you’re saying that Justin Trudeau is avoiding all those hard choices, and when the Liberal party, if it does, picks him, it won’t have clarified what it stands for?

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If we choose a leader at the end of this process without having a thorough discussion about some of these issues, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. And I worry. We face Stephen Harper, with whom I obviously disagree, but who is very clear about where he stands and is getting things done. And the NDP is also doing a good job of making it clear where they stand. (I disagree with a lot of what they’re saying too.) So if the Liberal party can’t come out of this and say this is where we stand, we’re in trouble.

The Conservatives seem to have the right side of the political spectrum pretty much dominated. It would seem logical for the Liberals to take aim at the New Democrats and secure the progressive left vote in Canada, which is arguably a majority. And yet you’re tacking to the right – trade, energy, etc. …

…Universal daycare and early learning, national affordable housing, environmental sustainability. You can’t peg me. Canadians are looking for something that is post-partisan. Liberals like to say we’re the middle party. But without actually expressing what that means, it sounds like we just can’t decide. I have strong views on a whole lot of issues. Some of them are economic, some of them are definitely pro-business, market-oriented, and some of them are very strongly on the social program side. I don’t actually call myself part of the progressive left, or part of the right. You ask who I’m tacking toward. I’m tacking toward Canadians.

You talked about tackling Liberal policy sacred cows. Can you talk about some of those?

Supply Management is the big one. Supply management has been such a frustrating issue for me. Most of the people in this country want it changed. Mainstream media have all said the same thing. The number of consumer groups, poverty groups, think tanks, economists – it’s extraordinary. And I would venture that most Canadian farmers want this, because supply management affects only one-fifteenth of Canadian farmers.

Other sacred cows?

Things like universal health care. I’m a huge supporter of a universal access, single-tier publically funded health care system. But while we keep our heads in the sand and refuse to talk about this openly, we are losing that very thing. There are too many places in Canada now where people can get better basic health care with a credit card. By not being willing to talk about a greater level of private delivery within the system, we lose something. Part of the problem is that as soon as we politicians say the word “private,” people think we want the American system, insurance-driven HMOs. But no, absolutely not – we need to look at much more innovative and arguably competitive and certainly more efficient ways of delivering our public system. Private clinics are part of that, but not the be all and end all.

On free trade:

When I was the Trade critic, I discovered that there were a lot of Liberals who were quite protectionist. That may be the right answer – I don’t believe that it is – but for us as Liberals, this is a perfect example of the kind of policy debate we need to have. It just doesn’t do to say, “We’ll wait and listen to hear what other people say.” Kim Campbell lost an entire election saying a campaign is no place for policy. It’s essential that in this campaign the Liberal party has these discussions.

Are you in favour of the Northern Gateway pipeline?

No, I haven’t said that. The process has been so bad that I don’t think the gateway has the necessary social licence, which I think is really important. But whether it’s additional access to Vancouver, whether it’s Prince Rupert instead of Kitimat, whether it’s rail through Alaska – those should all be looked at, because I do believe fundamentally that it is important to gain access to the west coast. We need to do it. With the caveat of course that we have to be environmentally sustainable and we have to work with the stakeholders involved.

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