OTTAWA: The once dominant Liberal Party, which has ruled Canada longer than any other, is now in such trouble that it faces both a big defeat in the Oct 14 election and questions about its long-term future.

The prospect is humiliating for a party once dubbed the Red Machine for its organizational skills, strong brand and a message that the Liberals were best placed both to run Canada and to fend off the threat of Quebec separatists.

But the party now seems to have more problems than strengths, with issues stemming from a patronage scandal in French-speaking Quebec which brought down their government in early 2006 after more than 12 years in power and which still crimps their support in the province.

The party compounded its fate by electing former academic Stephane Dion as its leader, bringing in a Quebecer who is both unpopular in his home province and hard to understand outside it because of his heavily accented English.

To make matters worse the party is short of money, and poorly organized in key parts of the country.

Leading party figures grumble ever more indiscreetly about Dion, who is focusing on a call for a carbon tax at a time when many people are worried about the US financial crisis.

That translates into opinion polls which give the Liberals around 25 per cent public support, their lowest for more than a century. The Conservatives poll around 38 per cent.

“It could be quite possible that Stephane Dion is hitting a negative tipping point in Liberal support,” said Nik Nanos of polling firm Nanos Research.

“It is the brand that has sustained their numbers (in the past)... What we’re seeing now is that they’re moving into territory where it’s a brand problem.”

Experts admit that strong Liberal selling points in past elections – the focus on a strong centralizing government and pride in slaying a big budget deficit – are fading.

The Liberals were traditionally a big tent movement with support on the right and the left and policies that appealed to both wings. But Dion has moved the party to the left, where there are already three other opposition parties.

His focus on the proposed carbon tax and major new social programmes allowed Prime Minister Stephen Harper to portray him as a spendthrift and to muscle in on the political centre.

The Conservatives, who relied on a large number of small donors, were largely unaffected. Yet the Liberals have had little success building a similar

network.—Reuters