Rae goes looking for missing Liberal voters

Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae is on a cross-country tour in a quest to rebuild the party.

Considering the disastrous results of the last election, it could be a long trip.

Since the 2004 federal election under Paul Martin, the Liberal Party has lost about 2.2 million votes - despite the fact that nearly 1.2 million more Canadians cast a ballot this past May than they did seven years ago.

You can read the rest of the article on The Huffington Post Canada website here.

The piece had been written before yesterday's momentous news, otherwise I might have chosen a different topic. It was a very sad thing when Jack Layton first emerged for his press conference, as the transformation from the last time we saw him has been extreme. There were rumours concerning what the announcement was about, but it became obvious as soon as he appeared.

He seems confident that he will be back for the September return to Parliament, and let's all hope that this is not just the confidence of someone putting on a brave face. Best wishes to Mr. Layton and his family - if he is as dogged in fighting the cancer as he has been a politician, then he has every chance of recovery.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I will be presenting the new Manitoba projection model tomorrow.