CKNW Editorial
for June 17, 1999

The federal Liberal Party is whistling past the graveyard as the Tories capture two provinces, Ontario where the constituency boundaries match the federal ones, and New Brunswick. In Ontario the Tories won despite the best efforts of the Angus Reid pollsters to tell us that the Liberals were winning. But then somehow Angus Reid polls always seem to bounce over the margin for error whenever the Liberal Party is involved.

The inability of the right to get together in key Ontario means that the Liberals could well squeak back in. But there is more than one scenario involved here.

Voters are not stupid. They know that they split the vote back in ’97 and allowed the Liberals to win 100 Ontario seats. I don’t think that will happen again. It could just happen that in the next election there are 50-60 Tories, all in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, 50-60 Reformers including one or two from Ontario plus 60 Bloc Quebecois meaning not only a split parliament but one which is split pretty evenly between four parties. The natural conclusion to come to is that the Tories and the Reformers would make a deal and take over the government but think about that a moment. These two parties have a fundamental philosophical difference – and it’s a greater difference than exists between the Liberals and the Tories. It is on the constitutional question. And in fact, on this crucial issue the Tories and the Liberals are in agreement.

So let us suppose that the next election breaks down as follows:

60 Tories, 70 Reformers, 70 Bloc Quebecois, 80 Liberals and 20 NDP. Who forms the government?

The first possibility is a coalition of the Tories and the Reformers with an understanding that the Bloc will support it. This is workable except for one thing – while Brian Mulroney had no problem working with separatists, Joe Clark would. He would have a very hard time dealing with the Bloc – after all, in 1979 he couldn’t deal with Real Caouette and the Creditistes and they weren’t separatists – that cost him his government.

Assuming that the Reformers would not join with the Liberals and even if they do make a deal with the Bloc the numbers will not be enough there remains one logical combination – the Liberals and the Tories with backing from the 20 NDP. Staggering though this is to imagine, it makes some sense when you think of it. The two parties have already made one deal concerning Quebec – the switch by Jean Charest from Tory to Liberal. Moreover, the Liberals have never been too fussy who they make love with as long as power is the end result.

Joe Clark imagines himself Captain Canada and would be easily talked into a deal with the Grits. Besides, he would make it seem as if he had performed the political comeback of the century and he’d be close to right. Depending upon the size of the caucuses, he could even be Prime Minister again – indeed, even if the Tories were the smaller party it might be in the Liberals interest to have Joe lead while they sort out their own leadership question, it being a given that Jean Chretien would be a goner.

Politics is a funny game. The reason that what I’ve just said sounds so incredible is that we’ve never been in a situation where the Commons is fractured. New Zealand has and proved that politics does indeed make the strangest of bedfellows.

I don’t say that this will all happen – I just say that one should not assume automatically that the Tories and Reformers would necessarily make common cause in order to form a government. If Joe Clark does wind up with 50 seats or so in a minority government situation he has another option to joining up with Reform and Preston Manning would be wise not to forget it.