Michael Ignatieff, Canada's Liberal leader talks to students of Western Canada High School at one of his stops in Calgary, Monday, April 6, 2009. (Sun Media/Stuart Dryden)

OTTAWA -- The federal Liberal party is scooping up donations like a turbo-charged back-hoe and its national director says it will soon clear its $2-million debt.

Rocco Rossi told Sun Media yesterday the party likely will escape from the red by the time of the Liberal biennial convention in Vancouver later this month "or shortly thereafter." As well, he said first-quarter fundraising for 2009 was "significantly better" than the same period in 2008, though he could not provide numbers.

SUCKED IN MILLIONS

Under former leader Stephane Dion, the Liberals raised a dismal $846,000 in the first quarter of last year. For all of 2008, they drew $5.9 million. Meanwhile, the Conservatives sucked in $21.9 million.

Rossi called the fundraising gap "a fundamental threat to democracy" because it meant the Grits couldn't pay to get their message out properly.

Recruited by current leader Michael Ignatieff after four successful years as CEO of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the outspoken Rossi said his party must rapidly reform its fundraising techniques.

"The Conservatives have been much more adept at adapting themselves to the new fundraising environment, and the Liberals didn't," he said. While past rules permitted large corporate or individual donations to a party, the current limit is $1,100 per individual.

'TOO SUCCESSFUL'

"We were too successful in the old system at both corporate and large gifts, and when you're successful at something, you build systems around that and when that changes, it becomes very hard."

The Tories, by contrast, benefited from their marriage to the Reform party with its grassroots traditions "of passing the hat in church basements," he said.

One skill Rossi says the Liberals shouldn't perfect is attack advertising.

"I think if the (Barack) Obama experience taught us anything, it's that people are looking for hope. People are not looking for games and I think it's particularly heightened by the economic crisis."

CHRISTINA.SPENCER@SUNMEDIA.CA