CKNW Editorial
for July 10, 2000

I think everyone had a feeling of sadness as they heard Preston Manning make his gracious speech at Saturday’s convention. Here was a man who had achieved the remarkable … indeed almost the impossible. How well I remember the 1988 election when at my suggestion a convention I was helping put on a political debate for invited. At my suggestion, Mr Manning to share the platform with the three candidates from the then old line parties. He didn’t wow the audience but he impressed everyone with both his sincerity and his toughness which was thinly veiled by a natural shyness. He didn’t win any seats and in the event was personally beaten by Joe Clark – who wouldn’t dare go up against him now – but he did go on to build, in nine years, a party that went from nothing to the official opposition. Moreover, it is a party, which in its new incarnation as the Canadian Alliance, now has a realistic shot at government.

Preston Manning did this not only against all odds, but often against his own party and always against the Central Canadian media. Every kook like Doug Collins saw Reform as a place where they could spout their racist venom and Manning, who clearly abhorred such thoughts, fought them back and almost won. I say almost, because it a perverse sort of way, it was his suggestion, through surrogates, that Stockwell Day might be anti-Semitic that cost him support in this, always his strongest province.

But that wasn’t Preston Manning – not the real Preston Manning and we who have got to know him recognize that.

Preston Manning, because he didn’t look and sound like a politician – he was really born to be a politician in the forties before TV – was mocked by the Ottawa Press Gallery and never given half a break by the Ontario media. But this, I think and again in a perverse sort of way, is Preston Manning’s legacy to the party. He was seen, right across Canada, through the campaign and the voting days, as the sincere, bright and dedicated man he was. I think there is a bit of a sense of shame in the air as people, having seen Mr Manning up close, now understand that he never was given a fair shot by the media … an d because of this are now, perhaps, prepared to pay more attention to his successor.

Never in my memory has a man built up a party and in an attempt to broaden its range offered his own leadership as the prize. This is an extraordinary bit of political history we have just witnessed.

What will happen now?

There will be some sniping which the press will wheedle out of unhappy Alliance MPs. But they will pull together because that’s the way the game is played under our system. Unlike the American system which tolerates a goodly amount of dissension within party ranks, our system that demands party unity … and that will happen.

But here let me go out on a limb. Stockwell Day will lead the Alliance to an upset, probably minority government, win in the next federal election. He will sweep Western Canada – not a single lickspittle with the exception of Ted McWhinney and possibly David Anderson (both of whom may retire) will win their seat. He will take 50 seats in Ontario and perhaps a couple in Atlantic Canada and may even surprise with one or two out of Quebec.

I think there will be some surprises in Atlantic Canada as they realize that the Tories, under Joe Who? are dead in the water … if they don’t realize that now they soon will when they see and compare Mr Clark with Mr Day.

What if Paul Martin is the Liberal leader? He could well by the 2000 version of John Turner. I don’t think it matters who leads the Liberals.

And I make the further prediction that right up until the last two weeks in the campaign the polls will show the Liberals ahead.

Why do I think Mr Day and the Alliance will win?

Because Canadians across the land are tired of the old line, pork barrel politics and they are sick of a system that deprives all but Central Canadian MPs of a say in what goes on. Whether Mr Day will change things, should he win, is debatable. But I believe people will want to give him a chance.

I don’t believe Stockwell Day has Mr Manning’s brains nor breadth of experience – but he has something else … though he’s bright enough and, unlike Mr Manning, has actually been in a government. Public appeal … and he has that necessary charisma if you will. As Kim Campbell once said, Charisma without substance is a dangerous thing and that’s true … except there is substance to Mr Day.

Tighten your seat belts, friends, for the first time since 1984 or perhaps even 1968, federal politics is going to be fun to watch in this country.