FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.
By Nick DevlinSo it wasn't the Boston Tea Party. By Canadian standards, however, the election of 1997 was as close to a butt-kicking as our polite manners would permit.
The Atlantic Liberals went the way of the cod stocks, leaving a shocked looking Jean Chretien holding an empty net. And in Quebec, the fairweather federalists asked the Blocheads, "What have you done for me lately?" The answer left racoon-boy Gilles Duceppe looking even more sour than usual.
Westerners are still pissed off and will stay pissed off. Now, at least, they get to be indignant in nicer digs. Power has shifted palpably from the East to the West. After a century in opposition, at least it's now official.
After Monday night, parliament is left looking like the nation - five distinct parties from five distinct political and social regions. The results are also a harbinger of Canada's future. If the federation is to stay together, it will likely decentralize even further, allowing the provinces to take care of business at home.
Like any sort-of revolution, the election results also have a down side. The lemming-like rush towards regional blocks has the unfortunate effect of indiscriminately filling the benches of parliament with all sorts of hacks, half-wits and hilly-billy bumpkins. In most of Alberta and British Columbia, Reform could have run a four-inch dildo named Sid and still won in a walk. In some ridings they did. Ditto the Liberals in Ontario.
This election also marked the emergence of British Columbia as a powerful political force and not a mere afterthought. As expected, voters in Lotus Land played king-maker for Preston Manning. But more significantly, perhaps, the campaign marked the emergence of the same sort of political savvy in BC which characterized Quebec voting for most of this century. Put simply, the Liberal majority has "Made in BC" stamped on it. Ah, let the pork flow.
Election night also gave us a long list of real ironies (as opposed to the Alanis Morrissette kind).
Canada managed to go simultaneously from three official parties to five - and from three national parties to none.
The Tories ran on the right and won on the left. While Jean Charest's tax-cut rhetoric was reminiscent of Bob Dole, his caucus colleagues are predominantly red Tories sprung from Atlantic disenchantment with the fiscal conservatism of the Paul Martin and the Liberal penny-pinchers. The big question is whether Charest, still the most popular leader personally, will be able to change his line enough to placate the new core of his party without alienating his support outside the Maritimes and looking like a complete hypocrite.
The Liberals in Ottawa are now more right-wing than their Tory counterparts. The government backbenches are filled with Mike Harris Grits. (Surely a species resulting from diabolic genetic experiments in the suburbs of Scarberia).
The NDP learned the arch-capitalistic art of niche-marketing and applied their new-found knowledge to hammer home the message of jobs, jobs, jobs to the disproportionately jobless electorate of the Maritime provinces. By standing alone in staying out of the media-fabricated hype over national unity, the NDP leveraged its way to new life. Vive le capitalism!
Let the games begin.
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