If someone bought 100,000 pairs of Nike running shoes every year for 100 years, it would cost $1 billion.
That comparison was how Calgary Reform candidate Jason Kenney explained Canada’s national debt and deficit to a group of Girl Guides sitting in on one of his campaign speeches.
Most of these girls can’t vote until 2005 but Kenney’s example got their attention focused on the $600 billion national debt.
“I only need one pair of Nikes,” said one girl. Kenney quickly replied, “maybe you should tell the politicians that.”
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Kenney is running in Calgary Southeast, a riding formerly held by Jan Brown until she crossed the street to Calgary Southwest as a Progressive Conservative against Reform leader Preston Manning.
Kenney said he joined Reform because its stand on fiscal responsibility closely matches the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation philosophy. He is a former president of that organization.
Besides finding Liberal economic policy distasteful, Reform leader Preston Manning said the Liberals can’t win in Alberta because every candidate is tied to the distinct society clause for Quebec.
“When you tie that rock around a Liberal candidate he couldn’t swim across the Elbow River,” said Manning, in reference to the shallow, narrow river in his riding.
But that stance also creates frustration for Reform in its bid to gather national credibility, said political scientist Roger Gibbins, of the University of Calgary. The image lingers that Reform is a regional party with provincial concerns.
“As long as they are seen as a western Canadian party, they are not taken seriously,” said Gibbins.
Nevertheless he expects Reform to sweep Alberta and perhaps win more seats in Ontario.
In southern Alberta the Liberals and Conservatives probably don’t have a hope outside of Calgary, Gibbins said. Within the city, two popular aldermen, Bev Longstaff and David Bronconnier, are Liberal candidates hoping to end that party’s 30-year drought in the south.
He doesn’t see a comeback for Progressive Conservatives because of Reform’s strength in the West and the spectre of former prime minister Brian Mulroney.
“Reform is not easily going to be blown out of western Canada. It is a tough environment for a Conservative revival.”
NDP on the sideline
Tom Flanagan, a University of Calgary political science professor and an original member of Reform who helped formulate party doctrine, sees a three-party race for Alberta. The New Democrats are non-contenders, he said.
The Liberals’ best chances are in Edmonton, where they won four seats in 1993. Liberal fortunes are poor in rural areas because many of the candidates are inappropriate, said Flanagan. For example, incumbent Reformer Myron Thompson is up against lawyer Bryan Mahoney in the rural Wild Rose constituency. Mahoney practices in Calgary and often defends young offenders.
“That’s the sign of a party that is weak on the ground, when you get candidates that are not really appropriate. Sometimes you have to take whoever comes forward,” said Flanagan.
Much to Reform’s satisfaction, the party has lured some ethnic candidates. The new riding of Calgary East has a large population of Chinese, Vietnamese and East Indians. Reform is running Deepak Obhrai, a member of the Sikh community.
“This is a first for Reform having ethnic candidates,” said Flanagan.
