Sarkar.
Retiring Scarborough-Rouge River MP Derek Lee talks with Liberal candidate for the riding Rana Sarkar on federal election night in May. The riding, long held by the Liberals, was won by the NDP in the May federal election.
Staff file photo/DAN PEARCE
Federal Liberals can take Scarborough back, and the rest of the country, by welcoming new Liberals, especially young people, former Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps said this week.
Copps, returning to politics after a seven-year respite, is contending for the presidency of the party.
Next Tuesday, Nov. 22, she'll speak in Scarborough, where party faithful were shocked in May to lose four of six ridings in an area which had elected no one but Liberals since 1993.
To come back from its worst-ever national showing, Copps said the party has to open up its membership and talk about how it needs to change.
The former Hamilton MP said she'd stop the practice of leaders appointing candidates. Even sitting MPs, she said, should have to stand for nomination against possible rivals.
"That's a basic tenant of democracy."
If nominations can't be contested, Copps said, "new people don't feel there's a place (for them) in the party and so you don't recruit."
Copps said a merger with New Democrats was unwise because it would set up a United States-style two-party landscape where "people are pushed further to the extremes" of left and right.
She acknowledged in Scarborough and elsewhere, Conservatives and New Democrats had cut into a key Liberal base, new Canadians, partly because the NDP outperformed Liberals on university campuses, notably in Quebec, and because Liberals (unlike the Tories) lacked a strategy for ethnic media.
"We are remiss in not communicating," Copps said.
Provincial Liberals kept all six Scarborough seats last month, a result that gave local federal supporters hope a recovery is underway.
The party still has a strong local base of supporters but many "stood away" during the spring campaign - which saw two Tories and two New Democrats elected - thinking their Liberal candidates would win anyhow, said Mano Kanagamany, vice president of the Scarborough-Rouge River Federal Liberal Association.
A supporter for 27 years, Kanagamany said many who started volunteering for the party in the 1980s are still active, but some who joined during the Paul Martin era were "not real die-hard Liberals" and didn't stay involved long.
"We like to have new blood in the party, but the problem is loyalty," he said.
New Democrat MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan said during the campaign people in Scarborough-Rouge River told her "they didn't feel they mattered" to politicians there and "nobody was listening" to their concerns. Her local work as a volunteer speaking about public transit and civic engagement likely helped the NDP capture what was considered one of the Liberal's safest seats, she said.
"People felt the connection to me because I was already an advocate."
Still, Kanagamany, whose group hosts the two-hour "An Evening With Sheila" event at the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto next week believes the riding can return to the Liberal fold in four years.
As president, Copps, a "people person" capable of raising funds the party needs, will help get the job done, he said.
Besides Scarborough-Guildwood MP John McKay and retired Scarborough-Rouge River MP Derek Lee, Copps already has support from defeated MPs John Cannis (Scarborough Centre), Michelle Simson (Scarborough Southwest) and Dan McTeague (Pickering-Scarborough East), said Kanagamany, who predicted Copps supporters will dominate selection of delegates in Scarborough ridings this month.
Though he said he's adopted a "neutral stance" on candidates for the presidency, Scarborough-Agincourt MP Jim Karygiannis, the only local incumbent besides McKay to survive the May election, said Copps can't help the party reach new supporters.
Copps "has a name" many people recognize, said Karygiannis, Liberal critic on multicultural issues, but to rebuild, the party must separate from its past.
"Sheila was yesterday, and we need to move on," he said this week.
Karygiannis said connecting with new Canadian communities has to be done one coffee or one restaurant visit at a time, but he is convinced Scarborough can be retaken by the federal Liberals in 2015.
"It's ours to win," he said. "It can't get any worse. The only thing it can do is get better."
The Nov. 22 event with Copps is free and starts at 6:30 p.m.