Candidates for Liberal leadership race debate over election platforms

Liberals in Alberta are dealing with new and old challenges this fall as the provincial political party seeks to revitalize its image with voters through a change in leadership and—in the eyes of some members of the party—a necessary re-branding.

The three contenders for the leadership—Dave Taylor, David Swann and Mo Elsalhy—have detailed plans for reinvesting in postsecondary education that focus in on an issue they each believe to be one of the necessary policy planks in reconnecting with the youth of the province.

“This government tends to see education as an expense, and seeking to have always the lowest possible tax levels we don’t have a sustainable and committed fund expanding the spaces in education, and keeping tuition low, and making housing affordable,” Swann said.

“So our approach would be to make all that more affordable and see the longer term view as opposed to the short-term, which is maybe not seeing education as an investment, which it should be,” he further added.

As the party looks towards external restructuring, it also looks to expand its internal position, where views in the party clash over what strategy should be taken in regaining public support in Alberta.

Taylor bluntly swats aside the suggestion that the Liberals require an urgent name change, after their disastrous showing in the last provincial election.

This is in contrast to some in the party who believe that the “Liberal” name was partially responsible for the party going from 16 to just 9 seats in a Legislature with 83 representatives in total.

“If we just go and change our name and we don’t deal with any of the other sort of issues that go into determining how people perceive us, then we’ll be on the doorstep in 2012 and people will be saying ‘you know, you’re really a Liberal. You just changed the name to try and pull the wool over people’s eyes and we still don’t like you,’ ” he said.

Swann, the other contender who currently holds a seat in the legislature, may disagree with Taylor’s complete rejection of a name change, but he seems to agree that it’s not the catch-all solution the party is looking for.

“If we decide to change the name it will be a decision based on changes in the party. It won’t be simply a name change for the sake of trying to put on a different face,” Swann explained.

As for the “changes in the party,” he thinks it must be open to more diversity.

“A greater commitment in this party [is needed] to include young people, women, and ethnic minorities, so the party truly reflects that changes that are happening in Alberta,” he added.

The third challenger for the bid is Mo Elsalhy, a candidate who is both young and an ethnic minority. The one candidate who is currently absent from the legislature, Elsalhy was a casualty of the last election, losing his seat to Progressive Conservative MLA David Xiao.

He believes that the Liberals may have been too arrogant in their performance last election and need to win back the trust of the common people.

“We are the underdog, and we have to campaign as the underdog. We have to tell people that we are on their side, and that they should be on ours. In 2008, we accepted the myth or the idea that we were a government-in-waiting. And we started to campaign as such,” Elsalhy explained.

While the three challengers find some common ground on postsecondary issues, they each believe their individual leadership qualities will give them an edge over the competition.

Elsalhy trumps his youth and his “un-jaded enthusiasm.” Swann and Taylor argue that their age and experience actually gives them a better outlook. And between the two older candidates, Taylor believes that he is more of a centrist while Swann leans a little too far to the left.

“I think that the party will be seen by the voters to be more of a left-of-centre party rather than a centrist or a centre-left party, with David [Swann] at the helm. And that’s a problem in my view because you know the Liberals and the New Democrats; they appear to people to be fighting it out for second place,” Taylor stated.

In order to vote in the leadership race, a student must buy a $5 youth membership by 7 November and send in a mail-in ballot. The new leader will be announced on 13 December.