CKNW Editorial
for April 25, 2001

Stockwell Day has been a catastrophe for the Alliance Party. I had bad vibes about him when he first appeared on my show as he sought the leadership of the new party. He was utterly unprepared. Now I'm not saying that anyone should prepare before going on my show - I'm just saying that when I was a politician I always prepared as well as I could before going on with Jack Webster or Gary Bannerman. It just made sense. A lot of people are listening.

The second sign of Day's legs of clay came with the opening salvo in the election campaign. While half a dozen Prime Ministers in my time have been Roman Catholics - and presumably against abortion - never until November 2000 do I recall it being an election issue a leader was tabbed with. Within 24 hours Day was not only on the abortion issue he was on it big time.

Now, I admit that the national media got him into a box. They skillfully and unfairly tied Day's antipathy towards abortion to Ted White's private members' bill on referenda and, bingo! according to the media, Stockwell Day and the Alliance were proposing a referendum on abortion. That they were doing no such thing was lost on the public thanks to careful exploitation by the Liberals of a false linkage provided by the Alliance hating eastern media.

But the point is that the Alliance had to see this coming. Sitting down before the election they had to prepare ... and preparation would have shown them that abortion was a hot button item the Liberals would be slavering to raise.

The campaign was terrible. It was unorganized to put it most charitably and instead of the Liberals having to react, and defend their record, they were on the offensive the entire time.

Since the election the Alliance - and this is leadership - have been outshone and badly outshone by a Tory party with a fraction of their size. Joe Clark has not only been re-invented he has been revitalized. I spoke to him for awhile before he went on Bill Good's show on Monday - the fact that he hailed me and is speaking to me indicates something - and he looked like the Joe Clark of old. Not that that was any hell, mind you, but he has fire in his eye and his belly again. Day allowed this to happen. The optics of letting John Reynolds handle the Rahim Jaffer mess were awful ... Day is the leader and should have been seen leading.

Now we see prominent members of the Alliance team quitting the shadow cabinet to sit as backbenchers. The question is, what to do?

It is irrelevant that some Alliance members could never accept the ascension of Day over Preston Manning. However true that may be, it has no bearing on what solution must be found. The only question is whether or not Mr Day must be replaced in the immediate future.

The hard part is facing the taunts of the Liberals across the floor. That is another irrelevance. A new leader gets a fresh start and all taunts will be forgotten.I thoroughly agree with a caller yesterday from Victoria who said that the caucus ought to determine the leader. What that lacks in democracy it more than makes up for in practicality. In an American style system where the leader, once president, doesn't have a caucus to keep happy, the selection of the leader at large makes sense. And that is merely one of the many reasons I support a republican style system. But we don't live under such a system. Our leader must lead a caucus united against the foe. To do that, he must be responsible to the caucus.

The best example I can think of was the 1991 demise of Margaret Thatcher who was surgically removed as leader and John Major was installed. He went on to win the next election.

I don't think that Stockwell Day is temperamentally suited to parliament. He has no experience with a bear pit, a nest of adders if you will, having served his entire political life in a one party state. Moreover his idealism gets in the way of the reality that is our system.

The Alliance has two options - wait until the next opportunity arises in a couple of years or do it now. If they wait, the scabs of the wounds will be picked off every day. It will be even worse than it was for Joe Clark in 1983. And that message should not be lost on the Alliance - the Tories changed leaders and won the next election.

Indeed, whether or not the Alliance can find a way to get the execution, funeral and coronation process over with in quick time will determine whether or not they will be the force to be reckoned with so many people earnestly hope will be the case at the next federal election.