A rchive Date
[ 23-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[How Stockwell blew the election
Exactly where - and when - did the wheels come off the Canadian Alliance bandwagon?
By LINDA WILLIAMSON -- Toronto Sun
November 23, 2000
As premature as it may be, this is not the first (and certainly won't be the last) column to ask where the Canadian Alliance - the great right hope - went wrong in this infuriating, insulting and unnecessary election.
I use the world "wrong" loosely, of course. The Alliance may yet make inroads in Ontario. And they'll win big in the west. But even if we accept that some Ontarians have lied to the pollsters and secretly plan to vote Alliance on Monday, it would have to be a deception greater than the "101 Liberal Lies" (as in the infamous Tory ad) to dislodge Jean Chretien's regime.
For whatever reason - mudslinging, Liberal cunning, Alliance inexperience, media and voter gullibility - we are about to elect for the third time a leader who has a record of not doing what he said he would do, mainly because we fear his untested rival might do something he says he won't do. Specifically, "impose his views" on the public, whatever that means.
Case in point: the story in yesterday's Star about Dr. Henry Morgentaler warning Canadians that Stockwell Day has a "hidden agenda" to ban abortion (based on Day's 1995 comment that abortion is wrong even in cases of rape or incest).
The story duly notes that Day has said he will not impose his pro-life views - that changing the abortion law would take a majority vote in a citizen-led referendum.
It then quotes Prime Minister Jean Chretien saying he, a Catholic, is pro-life too, "but I cannot impose my views on others ... " Yet the message is, Chretien can be trusted; Day cannot.
(We saw a similar double standard earlier in the week with the Chretien bank-lobbying scandal - the one on which the PM's own appointed ethics counsellor has now "cleared" him. By the second day, Chretien had so successfully deflected the heat, it was the Alliance leader who was under attack - for over-eagerly suggesting the PM might be a criminal.)
Still, Day must bear responsibility for allowing this preposterous stuff to stick, particularly the "imposing views" thing, which, judging by everyone I've talked to in this campaign, has taken precedence over every substantive issue.
One Tory friend of mine believes Day blew it the moment he donned that wetsuit. I disagree - he blew it by following up that masterful photo-op with too many other lame photo-ops and not enough discussion of his policies, particularly the one about citizen-led referendums which has aroused so much fear.
NERVOUS, DEFENSIVE
Day lost his footing when a "secret" candidates' briefing book surfaced, proposing rules for such referendums (in fact, as anyone who followed the Alliance leadership race knows, this policy was anything but secret). He got nervous and defensive. When he finally declared he had no intention of holding a referendum on abortion, no one was listening.
By contrast, in a meeting with the Sun's editorial board last week, former Reform leader Preston Manning made the referendum policy crystal clear in a matter of minutes.
First, he stressed, the number of signatures to force a referendum (real ones, not the sign-as-often-as-you-like kind, as on This Hour Has 22 Minutes' whimsical "Doris" Day Web site) would have to be quite high, say half a million, gathered within a proscribed time period. And the referendum proposal would have to be supported by millions of Canadians (50% plus one).
"The abortion issue will not come up," Manning added flatly. Rather, he expects Parliament will eventually have to regulate reproductive technologies, from in-vitro fertilization to cloning, and a referendum there could be useful. That's a far cry from a leader "imposing views" on abortion, isn't it?
But Manning himself (who met with the Sun when Day chose not to) illustrates Day's other big mistake. He hasn't used the strong people around him, whether they're experienced parliamentarians like Manning or backroom geniuses like his other leadership rival from Ontario, Tom Long.
Female Alliance MPs such as the venerable (and popular) Deb Grey, feisty health critic Val Meredith, or HRDC nemesis Diane Ablonczy might have been able to ease the party's gender gap problems - or even mitigate the damage caused by embarrassments like Betty "Asian invasion" Granger. The same goes for the party's many candidates and MPs from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Why hasn't Day showcased them?
The other night, on a CBC "town hall" program, Meredith gamely tried to defend the Alliance's controversial aboriginal policy - a bold, complex proposal for change that has been unfairly summarized as nothing more than a bid to make natives pay taxes. She explained to a dubious audience that the party had consulted widely with native groups on the policy.
Really? Then why didn't Day make that clear? He should have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with those groups when he released his platform - and blasted the Liberals' shameful, do-nothing approach to aboriginal affairs.
That's Day's other big mistake. It's as if he thought he could win on charisma alone, despite sketchy policies, a few too many embarrassing candidates and a few long-ago statements that keep coming back to haunt him.
Didn't he realize that strategy only works for Jean Chretien?
Linda Williamson is the Toronto Sun senior associate editor. She can be reached by e-mail at linda.williamson@tor.sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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