OTTAWA

O n Parliament Hill the sound of the recession ending is the same as a window closing. If Mark Carney is right – and the Bank of Canada Governor has been wrong before about the early return of boom times – the Liberals missed the most promising opportunity to defeat the Conservatives in spring and are now under pressure to take their next best chance in the fall.

In hindsight, that Liberal moment came and went in late June. With key advisers urging their new main man to seize the twin advantages of rising popularity and a sagging economy, Michael Ignatieff looked in the mirror and blinked.

After less than six months learning the leadership ropes, and with Conservatives negatively framing his public persona, Ignatieff wasn't confident enough of his readiness to force an unpopular summer election. Rather than roll the dice, he rolled over by cutting a transparently face-saving deal to keep Stephen Harper in power longer.

Controversial then, that decision is suddenly much more contentious today. Carney's prediction that growth will return this quarter is also a warning that fortune is again tilting towards the ruling party. "Time for a change" loses much of its appeal when the times are already changing for the better.

Instead of blaming Conservatives for job losses, misjudging the deficit and mismanaging the economy, Liberals would have to fall back on the weaker, more nuanced and less evocative argument that it was the Official Opposition that forced a reluctant government to open the stimulus floodgates.

None of that would matter so much if Liberals hadn't been overly confident Conservatives, with a lot of help from the recession, would defeat themselves. Gripped by the same hubris that convinced the party it could afford Stéphane Dion, Liberals failed to give Canadians reasons to vote for Ignatieff, not simply against Harper.

Foolish as the failure to establish themselves as a compelling alternative now seems, lying low is appealing to Liberals still nursing bitter memories of what happened when Conservatives made Dion and his policies the ballot question. But that doesn't change the urgent new reality confronting the party. Carney has indirectly started the clock ticking for an autumn campaign that Ignatieff and Liberals are still far from ready to contest.

It's rare for any opposition party to be entirely prepared for an election. Even so, Liberals are unusually, and dangerously, distanced from the starting blocks. Ignatieff is still introducing himself to a skeptical electorate, a policy platform promised for spring remains a summer work in progress and there is a yawning vacancy in the leader's office where there should be a tough, seasoned and confidence-inspiring strategist.

Liberals should take cold comfort from the historical footnote that the same sense of drift and ennui preceded the first of Jean Chrétien's three majority victories. In sharp contrast to the party's current situation, Chrétien's political instincts were honed, if not always perfectly sharp, the first and best of the Red Books provided solid platform planks and the supporting cast, including Eddie Goldenberg, Chaviva Hosek and John Rae, was shrewd, smart and focused.

Ignatieff may yet morph from public intellectual to prime minister. Liberals may still find a purpose beyond the return to power. Someone may be found to fill the strategic vacuum in the leader's office. But all of that must now happen at light speed and, if Carney is correct, without the ill wind of hard times at the party's back.





James Travers' column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.