Should Justin Trudeau stay or go? Why is Hillary Clinton coming to Ottawa?

And three more thing Liberals are talking about this week

Whither the Liberal Party of Canada?  It’s a question many people are asking, both inside and outside the party. As Liberals prepare to gather in Ottawa for their national convention May 4 through 6, there is a sense of a party at a crossroads, if not in crisis. Every week brings fresh drama, whether it’s inaction on foreign interference, the cost of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s latest vacation, or his brother Sacha testifying about shady donations to the family’s eponymous foundation.  With the opposition Conservatives leading in voter intention, pollsters are even testing the waters on the idea of a formal Liberal-NDP alliance to keep a lock on power.

So what’s on the minds of delegates, veterans and the party at large? I spoke to six savvy Liberals, three on the record and three on background. They include former advisors, political staff, fundraisers, candidates, and campaign operatives. What emerged was a picture of cautious optimism, tempered by the increasingly toxic nature of politics over the last few years.

1.      What do Liberals want out of their 2023 convention?

First and foremost, connection. “It’s like watching someone come out of anesthesia,” said senior long-time Liberal Bob Lavigne. “Everyone I’ve spoken to is very keen to reconnect and find out where people are at. We've been in power for seven and a half years and for almost half of that, time has been frozen. People have not been able to take the pulse of other people. They don't know what the feel is, so I think that's what's going to happen first: to get back in touch with other people and figure out what's going on.”

Will attendees focus on policy? This is, after all, a policy convention.  The answers are mixed. One former Liberal organizer said she’s hoping to see “smart people speaking about smart policies. We have huge challenges to deal with as a country. We need to rally our provinces to a united approach on climate change. Per capita, Canadians consume more energy than the Americans…We should be the number one choice for decarbonised barrels of oil which, like it or not, the world will continue to consume well after 2050.”

Another of my interviewees ventured on background that the most interesting part of the weekend wasn’t policy, but the contest for the Liberal party presidency. The leading contender, Sachit Mehra, is not one of the people who helped bring Trudeau to power in 2015. Would a changing of the guard at the internal level have ramifications for the party at the leadership level? That brings us to the hot question on everybody’s mind:

2.      Should Trudeau stay or should he go?

This is where things get interesting. Opinion on this topic was divided, with