CKNW Editorial
for April 24, 2000

There may, and underscore may, be quite a change coming in the federal political landscape. Political vacuums are like all other, they suck in the nearest available thing and there is a political vacuum on the right in Canadian politics in Ontario and Quebec … yes even Quebec. That vacuum is where, until Mulroney threw it away, the Progressive Conservatives sat. Since 1993 the space on the right has been wide open in those two provinces and to some extent in Atlantic Canada as well.

The entry of Tom Long into the race for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance may change all that but again the operative word is "may".

Let’s look at three scenarios. Let us suppose that Long wins and has the Big Blue machine of Ontario behind him. He could well take 75 or more seats in Ontario which, in 1984 and 1988 gave huge majorities to the Tories as they swept the nation. If Long could do that, and retain his seats in Western Canada and at least get a foothold, however tiny in Quebec and Atlantic Canada he would have, if not the government, the largest party. Now this editorial is not about who becomes the government if the Alliance takes Ontario but just about the political landscape. Under this scenario Joe Clark goes from being a walking political corpse to an actual one and the NDP will be sideswiped into virtual oblivion. To all intents and purposes there will be a right wing party, the Alliance and a left wing party, the Liberals. But the Alliance will have this problem – will they have conceded so much to Ontario that the western wing might later break away? That is the big danger for every concession made by the alliance to Ontario is at the expense of votes in BC and Alberta especially.

What if Stockwell Day wins? Well, first off, I don’t think he will. But if he wins and Long is genuine enough about the Alliance to want to see it win, and thus throws that Big Blue machine behind Day, the same thing will happen as happened in scenario except the western provinces might not get quite so antsy since Day is one of us, sort of.

But what about Preston Manning whom I still see as the man to beat? He didn’t get to where he is because he’s made of cotton candy. He’s tough and street smart and although events forced him to take his party national he wouldn’t have done so if he didn’t believe that he had a shot at the title.

I think the Canadian Alliance could still make those inroads into Ontario but only if Tom Long and Stockwell Day not only give the usual sportsmanlike handshake at the end but continue, 100%, their commitment to the new party. And I’m not so sure that they will. Mr Day will want to go back into the Alberta Cabinet, where his seat has been kept warm for him, and Mr Long will have lots of backrooms to attend to.

This is one of the more interesting times in Canadian politics because we could, if the dice all come up right, see a country which, like the United States and the UK, is essentially a two party state with the exception of the Bloc Quebecois. There doesn’t seem to be a place for the NDP in this unless they can somehow make this great anti globalism thing into an issue that will make Canadians vote for them … and I don’t think they can.

This is a hard one to call but there seems to be some real motion in Canadian politics right now. For the first time what was until recently the Reform Party is getting some attention, indeed a lot of it, from the national media. Given the right circumstances we just might have a new country politically within the next year.