Canada's Liberals brace for potential transition to power

By David Ljunggren and Randall Palmer
OTTAWA/BRAMPTON, Ontario, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Having gone
from third place in the polls to front-runner just days before
Canada's election, Justin Trudeau's center-left Liberals are
bracing for what would be a hectic and painful transition from
the political wilderness to government.
Liberal sources, who asked not to be identified, said on
Friday and earlier this week that the transition team included
close Trudeau aides Gerry Butts, Katie Telford, Cyrus Reporter
and Mike McNair - though official talk of any preparation for
the prime minister's office is forbidden.
"We have to stay focused and any hint of arrogance or
entitlement will be avoided," said a senior party member.
Voted out of office almost 10 years ago and holding just 36
of 308 seats in Parliament heading into the election, the
Liberals would have little more than two weeks to transition to
government if they manage to oust Prime Minister Stephen
Harper's Conservatives on Oct. 19.
"This sets the trajectory of a government. If you get it
wrong, it's difficult to recover," said David Zussman, a former
Liberal official who took part in the transitions after the 1993
and 1997 elections.
Trudeau, the 43-year old telegenic son of former Liberal
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, took over the party in 2013 when
it was in a shamble and quickly turned it into a serious
contender.
According to an e-mail from the Liberal campaign's co-chair
seen by Reuters after it was leaked to the Canadian Press, the
transition team must find cabinet ministers - while trimming the
roster from almost 40 to around 25 - and appoint officials to
key political posts.
Zussman, who wrote a book on transitions and who has talked
to the Liberals and the opposition New Democrats this year, said
Trudeau's aides should have started preparatory work many months
ago and by now would have a thick binder.
"There are a huge number of issues that have to be dealt
with quickly and so clearly the more planning you've done, the
faster you can work through it," he said in a interview.
Other likely members of the transition team, said the
Liberal sources, are former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge,
former top finance ministry bureaucrat Scott Clark as well as
Matthew Mendelsohn of the Mowat Centre, an independent public
policy think-tank.
Dodge said he was not on the team, Clark said he had no idea
who the members were while Mendelsohn did not respond to a
request for comment.
Michael Robinson, who chaired the transition team when Paul
Martin succeeded Jean Chretien as Liberal prime minister in
2003, said the cabinet appointments were a big job.
"It takes 10 days to a couple of weeks to vet those people
so if you want to swear in your cabinet in two or three weeks,
you need to get going right away," he said.
Once the cabinet is sworn in, the new government will focus
on the so-called Speech from the Throne, a list of priorities
that is read out to a new session of Parliament.
"It's relatively simple in this case because you have an
election platform, which is (the basis for) your speech from the
throne," said Robinson.