7 -13 December 2000
Issue No.511
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 7 -13 December 2000 Issue No.511 |
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Lord over a divided house
By Marc MunroCanadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has won a third straight majority government. The prime minister was triumphant that his governing Liberal Party had "managed to elect members of parliament across Canada." Most significantly, he noted, it was the first time since the 1980 sovereignty referendum that the Liberal Party had gained a majority in Québec.
This victory was very much a personal vindication of the prime minister's leadership. No one, apart from Chrétien, wanted an autumn campaign. The government still had more than a year and a half remaining in its mandate and, despite their high showing in the polls, there was a growing feeling among Liberals that Chrétien had become a liability. From the back rooms, the distinct sound of knives being honed was becoming audible. Many government members saw Finance Minister Paul Martin as their best hope for job security. Chrétien, however, dismissed the concerns of these "nervous Nellies" and coyly prepared for a snap election.
With no pressing issues, the 27 November election quickly became a plebiscite on personality. It was a bitter campaign, fought mostly with insults and innuendo. At the outset, Stockwell Day, leader of the Canadian Alliance, warned voters against a third majority because: "Any time somebody accumulates that much power, we know that it tends to have a corrupting influence." Later, in a televised debate, Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark questioned the prime minister's motives for renewing his mandate. "The only reason you called this federal election was to prevent Paul Martin from getting your job," he suggested.
Prior to the debates, the election had been seen as a two-pony race. The Canadian Alliance was founded earlier this year as a grand experiment to transform the Alberta-based Reform Party from a western protest movement into an inclusive national organisation. The goal was to cast the 133-year-old Conservative Party into the dustbin of history and end the small "c" conservative vote from splitting in central Canada. Consequently, once on the campaign stump, Chrétien ignored all other parties and aimed directly at the Alliance.
Leading up to the debates, the prime minister consistently warned that the new Alliance had a scary right-wing "hidden agenda" that would cut apart the social welfare safety net. In response, Day made the grave mistake of attempting to prove a negative by denying the existence of any hidden agenda. This was greatly complicated when one of his senior advisers remarked to reporters that there should be a role for the private sector in the national public health care system. Day stated that this was not official policy. However, no matter how strongly he denied it, Day was haunted by the charge that he would implement a "two-tier" medical system -- one for the rich and one for the poor. During the debates, frustration led him to hold up a crudely scribbled placard that read: "No Two-Tier Health Care" and demand that Chrétien call him a liar if he could prove otherwise. This odd desperate spectacle, which Conservative leader Clark dismissed as the antics of a game show host, reinforced a growing suspicion that Day was a political light-weight.
The wobbling Alliance campaign fell into outright farce once a television satirist took up the Alliance proposal for mandatory referenda on any petition capable of garnering the support of three per cent of voters. Chrétien had worried that this would foster divisive debates about capital punishment and abortion. The satirical petition, however, merely held that Canadians would be much happier if Stockwell Day changed his first name to Doris. The comedy turned vicious after it was reported that Day, an evangelical Christian, held creationist views. Soon thereafter, a Liberal strategist gleefully played with a stuffed toy dinosaur during a television interview, mocking Day's conviction that humans existed as contemporaries of the great lizards.
Just prior to the ballot, with nothing to lose, Day took the gloves off. He seized on a report that Chrétien had personally lobbied the president of a state-run bank in order to obtain financing for a hotel in his constituency. Since Chrétien had himself once owned the inn, Day alleged that there were strong implications of criminal activity. Chrétien vehemently denied the charge and referred the matter to an ethics commissioner, who absolved him of wrongdoing.
In order to deflect attention from this whiff of scandal, Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan once again raised the spectre of an Alliance hidden agenda. She condemned the party as the representation of "holocaust deniers, prominent bigots and racists". While Day was outraged, the credibility of the Alliance was deeply wounded when one of its candidates warned of an "Asian invasion" in a speech to university students. At the end of the campaign, the Alliance wagon completely lost its wheels and the deathwatch on the Conservatives was lifted. However, in order to ensure that Clark's star did not rise too high, Chrétien marked him for attack. While in Atlantic Canada, he noted that he much preferred Easterners to Westerners like Clark and Day. Chuckles ensued and Chrétien said: "I'm joking." More laughs, to which he responded in a deadpan tone to even greater laughter: "No I'm serious." West of Ontario, no one was amused.
Despite these careless remarks, Chrétien still managed to win nationwide support on election day, claiming seats in every province, albeit only one in Alberta. In his victory speech, Chrétien lamented; "We are at the end of a hard-fought campaign, a campaign that, frankly, was often too negative and far too personal. The Canadian people now expect all of us to carry out our responsibilities in accordance with the long-standing Canadian values of tolerance, openness, civility, generosity and inclusion."
In his concession speech, Day said the prime minister had "earned the right and trust" of the voters to govern. In light of Chrétien's comments about the West, the inability of the Alliance to win conservative support in central Canada is being interpreted as a general rebuke of the Western bid to gain admittance to the halls of power. For Canadian unity, it is bitterly ironic that just as the Québec sovereignty movement seems to be losing steam, Western alienation has been inflamed.
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