CKNW Editorial
for October 20, 2000

"I suppose anyone who has followed Canadian Politics for more than a decade knows that it is fraught with cynicism. One example- I was asked by a paper I write for to do an article setting out what we might expect in the coming election from various parties on social issues and matters that impact families. I had to decline because my column would have been one word long-- nothing. Actually I might have squeezed a line or two by saying that the parties with some stated policies have no chance for power and those in the race are too busy wooing the middle class to care.

Why shouldn’t we all be jaded? Jean Chretien is going to the people for the second time in six years. Why? Is there some pressing national issue here? Unless you consider the fall from power of the Liberal Party a calamity and the fact that their poodles in the Press Gallery would, if the Liberals lost, no longer be sipping martinis and munching canapes at Government House there is nary an issue in sight. Oh, I know, Stockwell Day dared Chretien to call an election but what’s he supposed to do … say please oh please sir don’t call an election until we’re a little better prepared?

This is cynicism in the raw. Chretien is calling an election not for the good of the country but for the opportunity to win three majorities, something they tell me has never been done. He’s calling an election because he sees that if he waits Stockwell Day may solidify his support and become an ever increasing challenge. He’s calling an election because deep in the psyche of all Liberals is a divine right to rule. One only has to look at Chretien’s response to the HRDC scandal to see proof of that. Why, he says, it’s just a little matter of government administration … every government has little problems like this, he would have us believe.

If Chretien has his way this will be a barbarians at the gate sort of election. Day and his Alliance are the unholy and unclean trying to batter down the gates of the good ship Liberal and must be stopped at all costs.

There is no doubt that Chretien is a smart politician – it remains to be seen if he’s too smart by half. He was clever to steal the Alliance’s fiscal policy and craft it into a mini-budget delivered by his enemy Paul Martin.

But someday in this land people are going to recognize cynicism and give the cynics the back of their hand. The issue here ought to be and must be reform – real reform. We must recognize that the business about Mount Logan and the taking of the un-elected Brian Tobin into cabinet can only happen where there is no real democracy. There being no real democracy we must fight for it.

This involves more than just rejecting Chretien and his smug party – though that would be pretty pleasurable I admit – but by holding Stockwell Day’s feet to the fire too. We must insist upon flesh for the bones of reform he proposes. We must have a commitment to fixed election days. We must have a commitment to repeal the section of the Elections Act giving party leaders the power to name and un-name candidates. We must have a commitment that parliamentary committees will be selected by caucus and that so will committee chairs. For we must assume that uncommitted, Day would be like every other politician who gains power – he would want to preserve the means by which he got there.

Over the past couple of days I’ve been asked how I can vote for John Reynolds whose brand of right-wing politics I abhor. The answer is I won’t unless his party commits to the reforms I have suggested and others. But the answer also is that I have no alternative but to support him if his party pledges reform and the Liberals don’t. For of all things, I’m a realist and I know that anyone who votes the person not the party doesn’t understand how our system works.

My point is a simple one. Democracy is a wonderful thing – so wonderful that millions have died in its name. So wonderful indeed that Canada ought to try it someday. But it will never get that opportunity as long as this bunch, with bribes and cynicism, is permitted to rule us.