FFWD Weekly
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Viewpoint by Hamish MacAulay "Stockwell will be the next prime minister." "Stockwell will force the Chretien Liberals into a minority government." In the days since Stockwell Day won the leadership of Canada’s newest party, right-wing pundits have stared into their crystal balls and trotted out heart-warming predictions for the Canadian Alliance’s future. For years, the conservative media has blamed the Reform Party’s failures on Preston Manning and his advisors. Now they have a new party and a new leader. All will be well unless the voters once again turn their back on Canada’s right-wing alternative. When parties, whether right wing or left wing, lose an election, they are caught in a catch-22. There must be a reason for the loss, but that reason can never be the voters’ rejection of the party’s core beliefs or principles. Although that is the most likely explanation for any election loss, a party that accepts such a reason might as well dissolve and form a new party. Instead, the party faithful blame things they cannot control, such as vote splitting or, depending on your political bent, the liberal- or conservative-controlled media (the sanitized, public method of calling voters stupid and ignorant sheep). They also blame the leadership for making the wrong decisions or not looking good enough on television (see the previous reference to voters as sheep). The faith portion of party faithful is a belief that the majority of Canadians share the party’s values and beliefs. Election success, therefore, is only a matter of properly communicating those values to the voters. Once the voters have seen the same light as the party members, they will be compelled to vote for the one true party. For the brave Alliancers, the memories of those days of fear and rejection in the opposition benches are already fading. The poor leadership of the Reform Party has been vanquished. The past election defeats, all due to a failure to properly communicate the party’s values to Eastern voters and, of course, the web of Liberal lies that obscured the truth, are being left behind like an undeserved nightmare. Leadership races create a strange euphoria in party members. What else could explain the excitement of the Progressive Conservatives when they chose Kim Campbell in 1993? You can even put a positive spin on sinking to third place in the polls when it seems like the entire country is watching your party’s every move. The chance to decide your party’s future and being courted by leadership candidates as they dash across the country looking for photo opportunities creates a sense of power and excitement within the party. That excitement coupled with the extensive media coverage is a potent elixir for power-hungry party members, but it is rarely reflected in the general population. They may feel the world is watching now, but as far as CNN is concerned, Canadian diplomats heading to North Korea and a Toronto court ruling stating that spanking children is legal were the only Canadian news fit to report last weekend. Alliancers may not be interested in their place in the world, but there is a hangover for them just around the corner. The excitement of the leadership race will fade, and they will be left to deal with a rookie leader with no national experience leading a party barely three months old. The first order of business will be getting the Stocker elected. If Joe Clark keeps his nerve, that will mean a big, last-man-standing showdown in the West. It would be a leader-versus-leader contest unheard of in Canadian politics, and the fallout would be enormous. The byelection would be deep down nasty and personal – politics the way it is meant to be. It will be a true test for the Alliance’s new leader. The Stocker has never been in an election race – he cut his political teeth in Central Alberta, an area that has voted Tory since Alberta became a province. Conservative candidates simply have to show up with a pulse to get elected. All the signs point to a Stocker victory in such a byelection. Neither side can afford to lose – putting everything you have into selling your vision and principles to the public only to have voters reject your beliefs is a debilitating process. This is especially true for the Reformers or Alliancers because, according to their world, they are more principled than any other party.

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