A Federal Election in 2000?

The general consensus is that - short of an ice storm or other natural disaster – Canadians will be heading to the polls in late November. However, if you had asked me as recently as a week ago I would have said that – all evidence to the contrary – the Liberals would wait until Spring to call an election. True, there are several good reasons for the Liberals to call the election now. (aside from the fact that Prime Minister Chretien has been itching to go to the polls for some time). For one thing, it gives the Canadian Alliance Party less time to prepare. For another, there are concerns that in 2001 we may see the demise of the Progressive Conservative Party. With the PC’s gone, those votes would likely go to the Alliance. Finally, cynical as it may sound, the Liberals want to make use of the passionate outpouring of emotion that arose following the death of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. They wish to be seen as carrying on Trudeau’s legacy of a just society and a strong central government. (Of course, Chretien almost blew it by trying to rename Mt. Logan after the recently deceased Prime Minister, but that’s another story).

Still, one has to question why the Liberals would call an election now, barely three-and-a-half years into their mandate. In many ways it is perplexing. For one thing, voters have a history of punishing leaders who call early elections for no good reason, as former Ontario Premier David Peterson found out to his detriment in 1990.

Furthermore, there is understandable friction behind the scenes between the Chretien and Martin camps. The Prime Minister’s influence in persuading Newfoundland Premier Brian Tobin to resign the premiership and return to federal politics can hardly have helped matters. While Chretien had good reason for doing so – with virtually no support in the west and the possibility of the Alliance making gains in Ontario, the Liberals need to win back at least some of those nineteen Atlantic Canada seats – it is clear that Tobin is returning to federal politics in order to pursue his dream of becoming Prime Minister. This can hardly be reassuring to Finance Minister and future leadership hopeful Paul Martin and his long-suffering supporters. In fact, I have to agree with Steven Harper that, when you add in the return of Brian Tobin, this whole election exercise seems to be more an act against Paul Martin than anything else. But whatever the Prime Minister’s motives, the divisions within caucus mean that the unity and organization between groups that is important in running a campaign will not be there.

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