The Young Liberals party in Ottawa // photo by Andrew Reeves

When the life of the party throws a big bash, you attend. In Ottawa, on the weekend of January 13th, the life of the party is unequivocally the Young Liberals. They have descended upon the capital in droves for the Liberal Convention. Of the 3,000 registered delegates here, more than a third are under 26. They have come to think big, to hoop and holler, to cheer strategists, to vote for policy wonks, to eat cold pizza, but most of all to listen to Bob Rae call them the future leaders of the party. They badly want Rae’s platitudes to be right. After the Liberals were shellacked in the May 2011 election, everyone anticipated a period of defeat-induced malaise. But to surprise of many, the Liberals have come out swinging—and none more so than the party’s youth.

Earlier in the day, I met one delegate on the escalator who told me he was 16, but had trekked to Ottawa from Southern Ontario to vote for the behind-the-scenes strategist that would be the party president. “It’s important to be involved in all aspects of the party,” he told me as we stepped off the escalator. I asked him if he thought it was typical for a high school student to show up at a non-leadership convention. He laughed. “There probably aren’t a lot of high school students here,” he told me. “I know a few. But—“ switching back into campaign mode—“Mike Crawley [a party presidential candidate] is great at getting out the youth vote.”

This enthusiasm wasn’t atypical. All weekend, the youth wing oscillates between worshiping yesterday’s leaders and treating the party as theirs for the taking. They are giddy at the thought of being tomorrow’s leaders (with an overconfidence that borders on the arrogance that left the national party with 34 seats.) They talk of connecting with Canadians. They talk of grassroots fundraising but include the Laurier Club and private parties for $1,200 donators. They talk of endless possibilities. “There is a certain amount of generational change happening in the Party,” says Sam Lavoie, president of the Young Liberals. “Young people want to take a bigger role. We are willing to push the envelope, and we have the numbers and the willpower to flex our muscles when it’s needed.”

All this is why I find myself at Ottawa’s National Convention Centre at 10:45 p.m. on a Saturday, sweetly cajoling the security guard on duty to let me in on the basis of my media badge, hoping to see what these young Liberals were like when they let their hair down. Beyond the doors of the historic building, I can hear the pounding beat of muffled bass—club noise. Really, the event is for card-carrying Liberals. The guard can tell I’m not one of them, but thanks to the noise, confusion, and my powerful sense of persuasion, I’m ushered through the doors, and allowed a rare glimpse of how these “leaders of the future” behave when they allow themselves to relax and stray off message.

It is bizarre and awkward, in the way that quasi-political events can be when you introduce R. Kelly music and halter-tops. And to my surprise, there were halter-tops. While most of the young men milled about in the first suit their parents had bought them, acting the high-rolling political figure they one day aspire to be, some of the women swayed through the room as they would at any nightclub, likely in clothes their parents might not have known they packed. Young men and women, far from home, mostly underage, all flirting shamelessly and dancing the same way, regardless of the colour of their wristband.

It’s hard to reconcile the Young Liberals I had witnessed during the policy debates on the convention floor and the Young Liberals hell bent on making the most of a rare night with friends and colleagues (and no parental authority) in our nation’s capital. I try not to be the stranger by the door who keeps looking at his phone between bouts of scribbling on his notepad, but it’s difficult because unlike the rest of them, I have not drank the Liberal kool-aid—

and I’m not there to dance. I begin live-tweeting the event, covertly snapping pictures and posting them online with pithy taglines like “Every Day They’re Liberalin’” when Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO came on. Some taglines were a lot better—most a lot worse.

To his credit, Bob Rae is in attendance, chatting easily in an off-hand way—as easily as one can shouting over music—with Young Liberals keen to experience what the centre of power (of the third party) feels like. The party really arrives, however, as it so often does with the Liberals: in the form of a Trudeau. Justin Trudeau doesn’t so much enter the room as the room parts to make way for him. Well, it seems that way, at least, before a bevy of young women cocoon him for giddy laughs and snapshots with his famous father’s smile. The cult of the leader appears alive and well in the Liberal Party.

It would be easy to make fun of the Young Liberals of Canada, especially after seeing them in action at the convention. This weekend demonstrated that despite some of them being too young to even know what governing feels like, there remains an underlying arrogance to their view of the Liberals as the ‘natural government party’ of Canada. They take it for granted that 3,000 Liberals came to a non-leadership convention—after all, why wouldn’t they come? Every tempered step forward is counteracted by intense navel gazing. And against their better judgement, they cannot let this strange mixture of timidity and arrogance go.

Their challenge, when the music fades and they fly away home, is how best to translate this momentum, this great sense of pride they have in being Liberal, into workable politics once again. Perspective is crucial. Yes, two thirds of the resolutions debated at the convention were put forward by the Young Liberals and yes, over half were adopted—but this assumes the resolutions they put forward were the most pressing concerns of Canadians.

But were they? These young Liberals are cutting their political teeth at a time when it is unfashionable to be a Liberal. The Young Liberals are becoming a force to be reckoned with within the Liberal Party, but is their youth, energy and enthusiasm enough to keep the party on-track towards political relevance? Can they escape the confines of the past that—more often than not—seem to chain their feet together? Can the Young Liberals save the Liberal Party of Canada?

I don’t believe so. But these are questions and debates for another day. Here, on the dance floor in our frozen capital, they could forget the dire political straights their party is in and just enjoy themselves. While Trudeau entertains his adoring fans, Mr. Rae has somehow been convinced to join the growing party on the dance floor. I watch as the former Premier of Ontario, now interim Liberal Party leader Bob Rae, gets his groove on to “Club Can’t Handle Me” by Flo Rida. Trudeau spots the good times being had and, never one to turn down a party, escorted his cadre of female fans to the floor to tag Rae off the dance floor.

Rae looks relieved. I finish my drink and bundle up to face the cold night outside.