Jen Gerson: Everything is going well in Liberal-land. Just ask them.

“Everything we’re doing is excellent. Everything we’ve done is excellent. Everything we will do is excellent. Also, did you hear about the speech in Davos?”

By: Jen Gerson

I’m going to start this column by paraphrasing a joke I heard while sipping drinks in an East Coast Kitchen-themed party held in Montreal’s old town after the policy panels had closed for the Liberal convention this weekend.

It was a summary of just about every discussion held on the convention floor: “Everything we’re doing is excellent. Everything we’ve done is excellent. Everything we will do is excellent. Also, did you hear about the speech in Davos?”

Apparently, even the most committed Liberals could only take so much of this, but the person who told it to me wasn’t unhappy to be telling it to me, either.

After all, what’s for him to be unhappy about?

On Monday, the Liberals secured their desperately desired majority government, thanks to byelection wins in Toronto’s University-Rosedale and Scarborough Southwest. Shortly afterward, the Montreal-area riding of Terrebonne also went Liberal — a Carney sweep. It’s a majority with two seats to spare.

This can only be interpreted as the highlight of a several-day political streak that began with the aforementioned convention — touted as the largest in Liberal history — and one of the most spectacular floor crossings in recent memory.

One would be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that this party had managed to turn around a full decade of a nation in decline in only one year of office following the election of Mark Carney. Indeed, the byelection results and consistently positive polling for the party and leader can only give evidence to this turnaround.

“Just one year ago when he first stood before Canadians, the prime minister mentioned that this country would meet the moment. That we would move at a speed and scale not seen in generations,” said François-Philippe Champagne, minister of finance, in a keynote address delivered to a crowd of adoring partisans at the convention on Thursday.

This is the sort of promise that can hinge on what “generations” we’re using as a baseline, but he nonetheless continued.

“Well, my friends. I have good news, because I’m happy to report to all the Liberals that are here tonight, and all the Canadians that are watching at home, that’s exactly what we have done. We’re building the country like never before. I hope you feel it in your heart. I hope you feel it in your communities. I hope you feel it in every part of the country.”

Look, I don’t mean to be a Negative Nelly, here, but the problem is that ... I do not feel as if Canada is building at a size or scale unseen in generations.

It was only one of the moments on the Liberal convention floor that hit me as being radically divorced from, let’s just say, the lived experience of ordinary Canadians. I’ll get to the other shortly.

And, honestly, I am happy to be writing this column on the recovery swing of the hangover, because I, too, want Canada to kill it on the “build stuff and get stronger” file. I think Carney has been broadly correct in his assessment of the rupture of the global world order, and what this country needs to try to do in order to adapt.

When he talks about defence policy, productivity, immigration, economic growth, infrastructure investments, and interprovincial trade, the Liberals are, now, saying all of the right things.

But that’s always been the problem with these guys. They know how to say the right things. At this point, do they honestly expect to be taken on faith?

Where are we with CUMSA, for example, and why does it increasingly look as if the Mexicans are pulling far out into the lead ahead of us on negotiating their own bilateral deal?

I’m genuinely pleased that we’re ahead of our NATO targets to reach defence spending of two per cent of GDP — something the previous prime minister literally bragged about never reaching, but never mind. We’re now apparently on track to hit five percent, which may even give us something like a credible fighting force sometime in the next generation or so.

I would feel even better about this if I had faith that we’d fixed our endemic procurement problems. Moreso if much of this defence spending didn’t read like classic porkbarrel jobs and economics projects more intended to funnel cash to, ahem, favoured ridings than to rebuild a moribund military force crippled by generations of neglect. But, honestly, we’ll take whatever we can get at this point.

Or perhaps we should take the Major Projects Office — the regulatory work-around the Carney government has ginned up to gloss over the fact that the ordinary regulatory structures are so sclerotic and overloaded that major projects largely no longer get built in this country.

This website helpfully informs me that 15 projects have been referred to the MPO to date. Mines, highways, and energy infrastructure will provide 60,000 jobs, and $126 billion in new investment. An interactive map shows a smattering of proposals from around the country.

Let’s dig into one, say, the Darlington New Nuclear Project reactor, for example.

This is a proposal to construct and operate four new reactors in Ontario’s Municipality of Clarington. Great. I love nuclear.

Oh, except, go back into the regulatory filings and you’ll discover that the “Notice of Intent for Submission of Licence to Construct Application” was actually first filed in 2020. The licence to construct a reactor was applied for in 2022, and granted in April 2025. The MPO opened in August of that year, four months later.

In other words, guys, we’re six years in and we haven’t actually built anything yet.

I’m not done. Building a nuclear reactor is only half the battle. In March, the operator applied for the license to operate the plant. “The application for a licence to operate is subject to a decision by the Commission following a public hearing, to be announced at a later date.”

Tick, tock.

I’m glad to see things moving along. But, is this anyone’s idea of building “at a speed and scale not seen in generations”?

At present, these are still just dots on a map, my guys.

You cannot brag about everything the Carney government has accomplished if all he’s done is shift the rudder of the ship of state. The buttons and levers still need to connect to something. The trajectory has not yet moved appreciably.

I do understand that a party convention is more about emotions than facts. It’s important to get the party faithful riled up and excited about the future. Sometimes, however, it’s also crucial to touch base with consensus reality. Some acknowledgement of past failures once in a while might offer a touch of confidence to the not-so-faithful that said failures were, in fact, learning opportunities rather than mistakes this country is doomed to repeat in perpetuity.

Spending any time inside any partisan reality cone tends to fill me with a sense of pervasive dread, for this very reason.

Which brings us back to the convention floor, and the other moment that made all political watchers wonder if the complimentary coffee had been spiked; when cabinet member Evan Solomon took to the stage for the unexpected welcome of newly minted Liberal MP Marilyn Gladu. His face did not crack. Not even a single bit.

Marilyn. Gladu.

The Sarnia MP best known for supporting the Trucker Convoy and a kooky sense of self expression that once had her take to the Conservative convention stage dressed as the grim reaper. The Liberals on the floor stood up and cheered.

Marilyn. Gladu.

Whose floor crossing was welcomed by the Campaign Life Coalition, who said it represented a “long-overdue softening of the party’s exclusion of Canadians who don’t support Canada’s abortion on demand status quo.” The Liberal party, to be clear. Gladu praised the Liberal prime minister with a genuine smile, no trace of shame or guilt at all.

I understand this latest floor crossing will elicit all the predictable umbrage about democratic betrayal, but, come on — there isn’t a single Conservative MP or operative in this country who isn’t giggling about this one.

Marilyn. Gladu.

The Liberals have secured the majority we all knew they were going to get without subjecting the Conservatives to another punishing election they’d lose. This is a blessing for everyone, and they know it.

I’m even going so far as to note that Gladu will be good for the Liberals. They got smug, insular, and superior under Trudeau and, frankly, Gladu is a good and proper punishment for their sins. The bubble of the Anointed Ones needs a puncture now and again.

The Liberals are at their best when they break their worst promises. And when they cease to pretend that they’re anything other than a ruthlessly pragmatic political machine that exists to cater to whatever whims are necessary to secure a lasting power.

The purity of this mission must be respected.

The last thing worth noting about all of this is that Gladu’s crossing seems to be eliciting some small but genuine degree of remorse from within the Conservative ranks. Perhaps only a Gladu could have done this. Sometimes politics isn’t about ideology, or policy, but rather about people — who they are, what they need, and what we owe to each other as fellow humans.

One thing I noted when Gladu took to the convention stage, grinning ear to ear and wearing a cardigan of dapper Liberal red, was that this was a woman who looked like a plant who had just been watered for the first time in years.

When was the last time the leader of the Conservative party spoke to Gladu? Took her out for a beer? Made her feel important and part of a team?
It seems from afar that all she seemed to require was a little kindness and now, I suspect, the Liberals will discover that there is no zealot like the convert.

As I’ve now attended both the Liberal and the Conservative conventions, I’ll offer one observation about both. Remember that in both cases, these are major events in which the parties’ most faithful donors and volunteers schedule vacation time and spend thousands of dollars to attend.

The CPC held its convention in downtown Calgary, and they didn’t offer their delegates even the common courtesy of complimentary cookies or coffee. Attendees had to either head to the lobby to purchase their caffeine kick, or they could buy overpriced beef on a bun from a stand in the corner. Most delegates seemed to simply shrug and head off site to eat.

By comparison, believe me when I tell you that the Liberal convention had free cookies and coffee.

It’s a minor thing, but it’s not a minor point. Look beyond the perk and try to understand what I’m saying here, and what this comparison tells us about how these parties actually treat their people. And this goes some way toward explaining why Marilyn Gladu — Marilyn. Gladu. — hit the post-convention party circuit like a woman newly in love.

Say what you will about the Liberals, and about their capacity to execute. They do know how to make people feel good.

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