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Curious pre-election tactics in Canada (They ain't doin' squat)
The Toronto Star ^ | 02 May 2004 | Rick Anderson

Posted on 05/04/2004 9:15:20 PM PDT by MegaSilver

Paul Martin and Stephen Harper are a couple of leaders who have a lot going for them. Bright, policy-oriented, known to have interesting ideas on the key issues de jour. Free-minded thinkers who challenged conventional wisdom, reaching beyond the box to blow the odd cobweb from mustier corners of public policy.

Both are fiscally responsible politicians who see balanced budgets as essential foundations of good governance, the absence of which compromises both economic and social progress.

Normally, political leaders with such positive qualities might try to put them on public display in the days before an imminent election call.

But, curiously, neither Harper nor Martin seem inclined to do much of that. Instead, each seems bent on ultra-cautious campaigns, avoiding risk by avoiding meaningful policy ideas, avoiding anything that might give their opponents something to scare people with.

Each appears set to base their election strategy on the other's perceived weaknesses, more so than on their own ideas and qualities. So, instead of a debate leading to a fresh mandate, voters face a four-week exchange of partisan flak aimed at knocking each other down.

The emerging Liberal strategy is reminiscent of two famously awful Liberal campaigns of 1974 and 1980. Back in the heyday of inflation, Pierre Trudeau attacked Tory leader Robert Stanfield's proposed wage and price controls. "Zap, you're frozen" was the mocking rhetoric used to ridicule Stanfield's core economic proposal. Trudeau gained a majority mandate — and promptly introduced wage and price controls.

In 1980, the Liberals dethroned Joe Clark's government despite being headless themselves. Trudeau emerged from retirement to wage a divisive campaign, belittling Clark's energy-conserving fuel tax increases and pitting eastern energy consumers against western producers.

On being re-elected, Trudeau introduced a variety of energy taxes that made Clark's gas levy seem like tax relief by comparison. Trudeau's destructive portrayal of Clark as a "head waiter for the provinces" contributed to western alienation and to the embittered federal-provincial relations that continue to plague Canada.

But shallow as these campaigns were, they were also highly successful, at least in electoral terms.

On other levels, they fuelled cynicism and division, as the Liberals used misleading rhetoric to further their electoral ambitions.

This week, Health Minister Pierre Pettigrew read a surprising statement swallowing previous declarations that acknowledged the role of private providers in the health-care mix. This is called a "clarification," Ottawa-speak for reversing oneself. It was an unconvincing performance but may be a sign of things to come in the Liberal campaign.

About half of Canadian health services have long been provided by private sources: routine blood tests and X-rays, most doctor visits, dentistry, plenty of specialists, prescription drugs, not to mention all kinds of recently delisted services no longer covered by budget-strapped public health insurance.

So the whole public/private health-care discussion already contains significant bits of fantasy. Public health insurance and national access standards are one thing, but almost no one outside public service unions and the NDP think all health care should actually be provided by public sector employees.

Central state planning does for Canadian health what it did for Soviet agriculture: Our health-care lineups and service shortages are the equivalent of developed-world cousins of Soviet bread lines — the inevitable result of top-down state planning and rationing. (Why does the left rarely complain about publicly paid abortions provided through private clinics? But we digress.)

More to the point about the upcoming election campaign, pretty much everyone knows private health providers are part of the solution, provided they meet quality and universal accessibility standards, and that no one is denied necessary services because they can't afford it (as opposed to being denied them now because the state cannot afford to provide them in a timely or cost-effective manner, but we digress again).

It would be surprising to discover that smart people like Prime Minister Martin and Pettigrew did not understand this.

Which leads to the question of whether this is really about the facts of health-care reform, or about getting ready to stick it to Conservative party Leader Harper for stating the obvious: Private medicine is and must be part of the health- care mix.

At the same time, Harper's strategy is also curious. It is not clear why a party that trails its opponents by 10 points does not feel more of a need to establish itself with voters.

Yes, the Liberals are in trouble over the sponsorship scandal. Yes, Martin has yet to look like he connects with voters. That is why the Liberals could enter the campaign at 37 per cent rather than, say, 43 per cent.

But, that's still 10 points more than Harper et al. If you were trailing by that much, wouldn't you be interested in catching voters' attention with fresh ideas, before people get around to mischaracterizing a strangely invisible agenda as a sinister, hidden one?

A curiously vacuous campaign is taking shape, the most curious being that both these leaders are capable of much more.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Canada; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: alqanada; canada; canuckstan; conservativeparty; harper; ohcanada; paulmartin; stephenharper

1 posted on 05/04/2004 9:15:21 PM PDT by MegaSilver
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To: MegaSilver
The Toronto Star is heavily pro-Liberal. Harper is being very wise in keeping his cards close to his vest at this point. Past leaders have not done so and been burned badly because of it. If Martin wants to really know what he will be up against, he has to be man enough to call the election first.
2 posted on 05/04/2004 9:37:41 PM PDT by Grig
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To: Grig
Wil Stephen Harper be Canada's answer to Don Brash, the suddenly very popular NZ National Party leader and looking very likely to win next year's general election?

(News about Brash on FR:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1078710/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1125014/posts

)
3 posted on 05/06/2004 5:50:28 AM PDT by NZerFromHK
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