i just...

when did the liberal party embrace nafta? point me to the moment. don't say 1993; that's dishonest. it was always a brutal cost-benefit analysis, and borne out of necessity.

so, what do you expect the liberal party to say to the millions of people that have been voting liberal since the 80s? are they going to pull the clintonian "our views have evolved"? good luck with that one. do you hear that giant sucking sound? it's your poll numbers crashing.

i think that, perhaps, a part of the disconnect is that trudeau has surrounded himself with these obama sycophants that think that canadian liberals are just northern democrats. if obama supported nafta, then the liberals should too, right? but, these people are completely out of touch with reality. canadian liberals are not democrats, have never been democrats and do not want to be democrats - and trudeau may very well find himself with a caucus revolt if he tries to drag the party in that direction. the liberal party of canada has it's own history and it's own traditions. one would not think it necessary to explain that to justin trudeau.

the right way for the government to think about this issue is to pick it up where they left it off in 1993. the reality is that nothing has changed - views have not evolved, concerns have not dwindled, correct analyses have not become incorrect. the end of history did not fundamentally alter the laws of arithmetic. but, if the party is insistent on this realignment, it is going to need to do the following things:

1) it will need to explain to liberal voters when it embraced nafta.
2) it will need to explain to liberal voters why it embraced nafta.
3) it will need to convince liberal voters that they are correct to embrace nafta.

if the party fails at any one of these tasks, a political realignment will take hold in canada, with the liberals shifting to the right of the conservatives. given that canada leans left 3-1 or 4-1, this is going to flip the conservatives and liberals: the conservatives will become the new governing party.