If the Liberal convention in Montreal this weekend is prologue to the 2015 federal election, Canadians are going to be hearing a lot about “hope and change” and “sunny ways” over the next year and a half.Justin Trudeau's Liberals signalled loudly and often at their convention in Montreal last weekend that they are determined to present themselves to Canadians as polar opposites to Stephen Harper's Conservatives on virtually everything, from governing style to policies and platform.If Harper enjoys being Mr. Nasty, Trudeau is going to be Mr. Nice.  The opportunities for Trudeau to draw sharp and lasting contrasts are everywhere, from Harper's determination to treat the opposition as if they are illegitimate to his barely-concealed scorn for provincial premiers to his ferocious antipathy to everyone and everything who dares challenge or stand in his way.Trudeau will be drawing from both U.S. President Barack Obama's 2008 "hope and change" campaign thanks to ongoing advice from Mitch Stewart who was Obama's battleground-states director, and from Canada's first French Canadian Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier's famous "Sunny Ways" speech to highlight the contrast.In fact, the Liberal convention kicked off with a video sketch that featured Laurier's speech about Aesop's Fable of the Sun and the Wind to describe his approach to winning in politics.Aesop tells the story of the sun and the wind arguing over who was more powerful based on which one could convince the traveller to shed his coat. The wind proceeds to try to blow the coat away. But the harder the wind blows, the tighter the traveller bundles himself inside the coat. The sun decides to do the opposite and shine brightly and warmly on the traveller. The sun soon succeeds in getting the traveller to remove his coat, winning the contest.Laurier first used the fable in Morrisburg, Ont. on Oct. 8, 1895 to criticize the federal Conservative government for its dogged determination to maintain Manitoba's bilingual school system despite the fierce objection of Manitoba's Liberal government.“Well, sir,” said Laurier, “the government are very windy. They have blown and raged and threatened, but the more they have threatened and raged and blown the more that man (Manitoba Liberal Premier Thomas) Greenway has stuck to his coat. It it were in my power, I would try the sunny way. I would approach this man Greenway with the sunny way of patriotism, asking hin to be just and to be fair, asking him to be fair to the minority in order that we may have peace among all the creeds and races which it has pleased God to bring upon this corner of our common country.”Harper's Conservatives have indeed “blown and raged and threatened,”  but all that is happening is that  voter fatigue with the Conservatives' ongoing  Hobbesian-style “war of all against all' politics is continuing to build.Perhaps the message from Canadians is beginning to sink in and alarm the Langevin Block. A week before the convention, the Toronto Star obtained documents from the Prime Minister's Office outlining what it called “a carefully orchestrated campaign to disrupt Liberal communications, highlight disunity in the ranks and question Trudeau's leadership ability.”The objectives, according to the Star, were summed up in three words: “drive, disrupt, disunity;” and orchestrate a “Conservative voice” in all stories coming out of the convention.  Perhaps cooler heads prevailed. Or the whole episode was just a trick to knock the Liberals off their game. In any event, neither scheme materialized.The Liberal lead in the polls, while slim, has now lasted almost a full year. Canada's creaky, anachronistic first-past-the-post electoral system has been having trouble producing  fair and accurate election outcomes ever since the five-party universe downloaded itself on Canadians in the last two decades.Now, thanks to the outrageously-named “Fair” Elections Act currently being frog-marched through parliament with no amendments, Canadians may never know if the government they elect in 2015 will even be legitimate – no matter its colour.But there are some reasons for optimism. There is a sense the Nasty Party, as the Conservatives are now named in some quarters, is running low on steam and out of public favour. And the Liberal convention produced more than just a few signs that the Liberals – driven back to third place in Parliament as a result of more than a decade of leadership woes, backbiting and ruinous internal divisions – are finally getting their act together.After flirting with conservative-lite policies under Michael Ignatieff, the Liberals under Justin Trudeau have gone back to the future, to the days of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. Rank and file party members remember – and want to see re-enacted – their erstwhile national strategies on child-care, housing, homelessness, energy, water, mental health and youth employment, all nixed by the Conservatives once they took power.Delegates also debated reinstating the Kelowna Accord for aboriginal people, the long form census,  gun control and restoring funding for women's advocacy groups. They voted for a new department of climate change and a secretary of state for water policy and also approved a pilot project on a guaranteed annual income.Such Big Government ideas are anathema to the reigning Conservative government – and indeed, to a large minority of Canadians. But the signs are still all there that Canada's historic traditions of activist government remain constant and strong in this predominantly centre-left nation.Frances Russell was born in Winnipeg and graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and political science. A journalist since 1962, she has covered and commented on politics in Manitoba, Ontario, B.C. and Ottawa, working for The Winnipeg Tribune, United Press International, The Globe and Mail, The Vancouver Sun and The Winnipeg Free Press as well as freelanced for The Toronto Star, The Edmonton Journal, CBC Radio and TV and Time Magazine.She is the author of two award-winning books on Manitoba history: Mistehay Sakahegan – The Great Lake: The Beauty and the Treachery of Lake Winnipeg and The Canadian Crucible – Manitoba's Role in Canada's Great Divide. Both won the Manitoba Historical Society Award for popular history.She is married with one son and two grandsons and lives in Winnipeg.