Canada Gears Up for November
WALLER, HAROLD M.
AS MULRONEY STEPS DOWN Canada Gears Up for November BY HAROLD M. WALLER Montreal Prime Minister Brian Mulro-ney's announcement at the end of February that he is retiring from politics has gotten...
...In striving to take advantage of their opportunity to turn things around, the Tories will have to walk a thin line as they appeal to the disaffected...
...On top of all that, Canada has been hit very hard by a lingering recession...
...In fact, some Liberal insiders are wary about following him into an election campaign, though there is not much likelihood of an open revolt and no formal mechanism exists for reviewing his status before the election...
...The Liberals, headed by former Trudeau Cabinet member Jean Chretien, have been coasting for months, trying to protect their big lead in the polls...
...for being too cozy with Quebec's nationalists in pursuit of their electoral support...
...They applaud deregulation, privatization of Crown corporations, and his efforts to control the spending side of the budget...
...Pro-Mulroney economists go so far as to argue that judged in terms of macroeco-nomic performance, he was the most successful Prime Minister since the 1950s...
...At the outset of the race several prominent Cabinet members were mentioned as possible candidates, including Finance Minister Don Mazankowski, External Affairs Minister Barbara Mc-Dougall, Trade Minister Michael Wilson, Employment Minister Bernard Valcourt, and Communications Minister Perrin Beatty...
...To date, Campbell has avoided fleshing out her positions on specific issues...
...That put it way behind the Liberal Party, at the head of the list with nearly 50 per cent...
...Hostility toward Mulroney had been building for quite sometime...
...The NDP appears to be getting lost in the shuffle...
...Alternatively, though the Liberals may have lost their chance for a majority, under certain circumstances they could put together a minority government—especially if Reform hurts the Tories and the BQ does not do too well in Quebec...
...Rather, the new leader will have to affect a different style, perhaps stress a change of emphasis, and claim "I can do it better...
...This did not greatly trouble the Liberals before Mulroney pulled out because he had also lost popularity there...
...If they do well in Quebec it will greatly hamper the Liberals and the PC's in their attempts to win a majority of the 295 seats in the House of Commons...
...By all accounts, the front-runner is Minister of Defense Kim Campbell, who first came to Ottawa in 1988 and served for several years as Minister of Justice...
...the other two will be on the national ballot for the first time, making it difficult topredict their probable impact...
...With three- and four-way races in many constituencies, the only thing that can be said with certainty is that this election year in Canada will definitely not be boring...
...Were Mulroney's initiatives during his eight years in office as bad as the animosity he has aroused suggests...
...They blame him for selling out to the Americans, not merely on free trade but also by weakening foreign investment guidelines and making changes in energy policy...
...Recognizing that the failure of his efforts to have the Constitution ratified and his extreme unpopularity were proving a drag on his Progressive Conservative (PC) Party, Mulroney bowed to the inevitable...
...They expect to appeal to the soft nationalists who voted PC in 1984 and 1988, and to the harder nationalists who have been voting for the Parti Quebecois (PQ) in provincial elections for over 20 years...
...Certainly the media attention she has been receiving, stimulated by the now famous photo of Campbell holding judicial robes in front of her otherwise unclothed upper body, is creating a sense of excitement not seen in this country since Pierre Elliott Trudeau's first national campaign in 1968...
...Out West, their main opposition is the Tories...
...As soon as the results of last October's constitutional referendum were in, it was evident that Mulroney's political future was dim...
...foreign policy...
...The Prime Minister's critics have a laundry list of complaints...
...They had enough trepidation about Mulroney labeling their leader as "yesterday's man...
...The Reform Party, led by Preston Manning, comes out of the West...
...In that event, Chretien would be hard pressed to win enough seats to form even a minority government...
...Should he be chosen, he would become the country's youngest Prime Minister...
...It is still reeling from the problems of its provincial government in Ontario, and is about to lose the distinction of being the only Federal party headed by a woman (Audrey McLaughlin...
...More important, they regard her as the Conservatives' best hope to win the general election...
...for encouraging Quebecers to view the constitutional negotiations in apocalyptic terms...
...The NDP has been on the scene with modest success for decades...
...AS MULRONEY STEPS DOWN Canada Gears Up for November BY HAROLD M. WALLER Montreal Prime Minister Brian Mulro-ney's announcement at the end of February that he is retiring from politics has gotten this election year in Canada off to a quick start...
...In short, Mulroney's resignation has forced everyone to recalculate the election possibilities...
...Large segments of the population were angered by the free trade agreement with the United States, now tentatively expanded to include Mexico...
...Campbell, alawyer from British Columbia, is clearly trying to preserve that connection...
...Reform success would undermine Torysupportina region they have dominated, again hurting their chances of forming a government...
...Nonetheless, Canadians who share Mulroney's moderate conservative outlook present a positive evaluation of him...
...He is now the Minister of the Environment and has had considerable experience for a person of his age, having been in the House of Commons since he was 26...
...But if Campbell succeeds in forging an alliance with powerful Quebec interests, as she seems poised to do, the Liberals could find themselves squeezed between the resurgent Tories and the new separatist Bloc Que-becois (BQ...
...The bottom line for the average voter is that the GST hurts the consumer, jobs are being lost as companies reposition themselves to take advantage of free trade, the controversy over the Constitution and attendant language issues has been divisive, and the recession is taking a heavy toll...
...But he succeeded only in raising Quebec's nationalist consciousness while producing two agreements the voters rejected, Meech Lakein 1987 and Char-lottetown in 1992...
...At the minimum, he is laying a strong foundation for another crack at the party's top job down the road...
...The attention to Quebec sensibilities by a potential PC leader from Western Canada is an indication of how far the party has advanced over the last two decades...
...Quebec has become a big problem for the Liberal Party, too...
...On the revenue side, they are pleased about lower marginal income tax rates, particularly for individuals with high incomes, and the adoption of the GST, which is supposed to encourage exports...
...The BQ, led by Mulroney's erstwhile pal Lucien Bouchard, hopes the separatist vote in Quebec will be substantial enough to make it the leading party in the province...
...All declined to run, strengthening the impression that party insiders decided Campbell ought to be the candidate...
...The prospects for the general election are difficult to sort out at this early stage...
...But there is a lot of dissatisfaction for the Reformers to tap...
...The question of who might end up forming the government and under what conditions has been perplexing observers for a while...
...Now they must rethink their entire campaign strategy...
...Whether or not Mulroney's approach is vindicated by historians, it is plain that a significant majority of the people did not want him anymore...
...and for pursuing domestic policies that departed from traditional Canadian patterns deemed to be in the national interest...
...The Liberals' wide margin in the polls is sure to shrink as the Conservative situation is clarified...
...The three remaining contenders for the leadership are relatively unknown backbenchers: Patrick Boyer of Toronto, Jim Edwards of Edmonton, Alberta, and Garth Turner of Halton-Peel, Ontario...
...and by the compromising of the principle of universality in the case of social programs like old age pensions and family allowances...
...Unemployment is hovering around 11 per cent...
...The combination of back-room dealing and media hyping could derail Campbell, but most observers think she will be very hard to stop...
...Others question the wisdom of having two consecutive leaders from Quebec...
...for aligning himself too closely with U.S...
...Even though inflation is down to levels undreamed of 20 years ago, the slowdown in economic activity has been extremely painful, especially for those who are out of work or whose businesses have failed...
...Since the five leadership aspirants are in the Cabinet or at least in the Conservative caucus, it would be implausible for any one of them to try to repudiate the government's record...
...For six years he had focused much of his energy on putting together a package of amendments that would induce all the provinces, and especially Quebec, to finally sign the document "patriated" from Britain in 1982...
...in comparison with Campbell he could well be seen as "the '70s man...
...In Canada that is the profile of what is called a Red Tory...
...Harold M. Waller, a frequent contributor to The New Leader, is professor of political science and Associate Dean of Arts at McGill University...
...Interestingly, many commentators believe that with a fresh face at their helm the Tories may yet be able to form the next government...
...Early this year the PC's rating in the polls dropped below 20 per cent...
...Quebec's own candidate is Jean J. Charest, at 34 some 12 years younger than Campbell...
...She has established a reputation as an energetic, ambitious politician and combines traditional conservative economic views with a progressive stance on a number of social issues...
...But his relative youth is seen by some as a handicap...
...Apparently she would like to hold her fire until she is able to choose the times and places for carefully thought out policy pronouncements aimed at the Liberals, rather than spar with her fellow Tories...
...If chosen, she would be the country's first female Prime Minister...
...Campbell has moved quickly to line up support in Quebec, a province that is vital if the Tories are to have a chance in the general election...
...They also approve of the closer relations with the U.S., and contend that Canada will benefit in the future from being forced to meet the competition that free trade will bring...
...It is a sort of populist protest movement that provides a means for Westerners to express their alienation from a political system dominated by Central Canada (i.e., Quebec and Ontario...
...Judging from the polls, its fortunes seem to be declining and are likely to be diminished further if Vancouver's Campbell heads the PC list...
...by the Goods and Services Tax (GST), a value added tariff similar to those introduced in Europe and to the one that apparently was a big factor in the recent Australian election...
...They would have much preferred to run against Mulroney...
...Now there is a real chance that the Tories could recover under Campbell and win a majority government...
...Because Chretien has a strong federalist orientation that was somewhat fashionable during the Trudeau era yet is clearly out of favor in today's Quebec, he is not very popular in his home province...
...Mulroney could not help coming to the conclusion that unless he stepped down, the PC would almost certainly suffer an ignominious defeat in the general election...
...There has been a fair amount of murmuring about the quality of Chretien's leadership, especially after his recent promises to repeal the GST and reverse the free trade agreement without offering alternative policies...
...Whatever one's view of his policies, there is no denying that despite very strong election victories in 1984 and 1988, Mulroney's stock had plunged...
...Mulroney made the PC into a truly national party by giving it a base in his native Quebec...
...Bouchard and several other disgruntled Tories left the PC a few years ago to form the BQ...
...At least five parties are expected to win seats in the House of Commons: the PC, the Liberals, the leftish New Democratic Party (NDP), the BQ, and the Reform Party...
...The victor will become Prime Minister and lead the party into a general election in the fall, probably by November at the latest...
...In doing so he triggered a liveli-er-than-anticipated leadership contest that will be decided next month at a PC convention in Ottawa...
...Although the ratification problem was left over from the previous Liberal government, his commitment of a great deal of his personal prestige to resolving it enabled pundits to intensify their criticism of him...
...The answer depends on whom you speak to...
...Undeterred, Charest has waged a spirited campaign and has been most impressive in a series of television debates...
...The NDP would be available for coalition duties, while the BQ and Reform seem slated to be spoilers—but they could sneak in as junior coalition partners if the election outcome is sufficiently bizarre...
Vol. 76 • May 1993 • No. 6
