Dirty politics north of the border.

Convincing victory sharpens political divisions

Americans might have found the endless recounts, court challenges, and chad debates of their election rather tiresome. But for most Canadians, Jean Chretien's repeated electoral successes have become equally tiresome.

In the fall, after serving only two-thirds of a five-year term, Chretien announced he was going to the polls. Why the rush? Was Canada facing another national unity crisis? No. Was the economy tanking, requiring a renewed mandate? No. Were the Liberals dodging scandals, with the prime minister facing not only an internal leadership challenge (from the younger and talented finance minister Paul Martin) but also a new and more charismatic conservative opposition leader? Well actually, yes.

In the previous two elections, Canadian conservative voters watched in dismay as the Liberals drove up the middle of a split right-wing vote to victory. After the last election, a unite-the-right movement attempted to merge the western-based populist Reform Party with disenchanted members of the Progressive Conservative Party, which draws most of its support from central and eastern Canada. This new amalgam -- the Canadian Alliance -- was headed up by federal newcomer Stockwell Day, a former treasurer of Alberta. It was hoped this new political force could counter the repeated Liberal success in grabbing victories because of a split in the opposition vote.

Faced with a future opposition that looked to get stronger with experience, Chretien chose to seize the initiative while the Alliance was at its weakest. Fewer than three-and-a-half months after the fledgling party chose its new leader, the Liberal war machine kicked into action with the prime minister's visit to the governor-general's residence to deliver the election writ.

What followed was one of the dirtiest election campaigns ever to sully Canada's political landscape. And the main victim of the Liberals' smear tactics was Day, whose inexperience on the national stage, along with a rookie campaign team, ensured the smears stuck.

Highlights included:

* Stigmatize the Alliance as the enemy of "Canadian values." Television ads (which the Liberals eventually had to revise so they would slightly resemble reality) suggested Day would destroy the country's beloved universal health care system. Featuring man-in-the-street interviews, "experts" explained that Day, as Alberta's former treasurer, had been a party to the province's health care reform bill, which was destined to create "two-tier" health care. What exactly two-tier health care is was never explained, but voters were led to believe it was very bad.

* Scare Canadians with Day's Christian beliefs. Day, wrongly I think, stated at the outset of the campaign that he would not be glad-handing voters on Sundays and would instead be spending time at home with his family and going to church. This set the stage for a CBC documentary that included an interview with a man who claimed Day believes the world is 6,000 years old and that humans walked the earth with dinosaurs. The creationism debate is not a new one for Americans, but it's one Canadians have not often encountered. Day defended the right to his beliefs, and he and others argued they had no bearing on public policy But in a stroke of political brilliance, Warren Kinsella, the Liberals' pitbull strategist, went on national television armed with a plush Barney the Dinosaur and chuckled that "The Flintstones" was "not a documentary" Debate over.

* Convince Canadians that the Alliance had a "hidden agenda." At a critical point in the campaign, the media obtained the Alliance candidates' briefing book, which contained an old Reform party policy: any petition signed by 3% of eligible voters would result in a referendum question on the ballot at the next election. The Liberals distorted this to suggest Day would preside over referendums that would result in abortion being outlawed, homosexuals discriminated against, and capital punishment reinstated. Inexplicably, the Alliance leader failed in his defense of direct democracy, one of the party's most popular planks.

* Paint the Alliance as a bunch of racists. At a Liberal rally, no less than the immigration minister stood up before a crowd of Toronto voters and lashed out viciously at the Alliance: "Their supporters are Holocaust deniers, prominent bigots, and racists." While it's true one pro-Day rally had been organized by lawyer Doug Christie, who had represented Holocaust deniers in the past, the immigration minister failed to mention Day had immediately distanced himself from Christie and the Alliance had revoked his membership.

The above are only a few examples of how low this campaign could go. What was particularly frustrating, however, was that these nasty attacks were met by Day's "agenda of respect" -- a strategy that left the Alliance continuously on the defensive.

Even when the Alliance was practically handed Chretien's head on a platter -- the revelation that he had, despite earlier denials, lobbied the president of a Crown agency to lend money to a constituent who had a poor business record and was a convicted criminal -- the Opposition party fumbled it, by going too far. Sure, this prime minister had led a government that couldn't account for a billion dollars in wasted economic development funds. And, sure, this prime minister's own business dealings had raised ethical questions. But calling for a criminal investigation was surely something best left up to the police to decide.

On November 27, Jean Chretien was returned with an even bigger mandate -- a third back-to-back majority, something not accomplished since William Lyon Mackenzie King more than half a century ago.

The Alliance increased its popular vote, but was unsuccessful in tapping into vote-rich Ontario, thereby gaining only six additional seats. The other opposition parties -- the Conservatives, New Democrats, and separatist Bloc Quebecois -- all saw their numbers decline. The most troubling legacy of the 2000 election, however, will not be the gutter tactics or crass political manipulations that delivered the victory to Chretien. The vote this time split dramatically along regional lines, with the Alliance sweeping the West and the Liberals easily holding Ontario and gaining votes in Quebec. Many in the West felt the Liberals' attacks on Day amounted to a rejection of Westerners.

After the tightest election in its history, the United States now appears to be engaged in an earnest exercise in bipartisanship. In Canada, however, a convincing victory for the incumbent has actually sharpened the nation's political divisions.

NCEW member Natasha Hassan is op-ed editor of the National Post in Don Mills, Ontario.