Reform leader Preston Manning could barely keep from grinning.
As he sat in the National Press Theatre April 30, fielding questions from reporters in the first week of the election campaign, he was having a good time.
Manning felt he was off to a fast start in setting the campaign agenda by criticizing Liberal spending promises, putting the Liberals on the defensive over an election call during the Manitoba flood and raising the spectre of Brian Mulroney every time Conservative leader Jean Charest said voters should judge him by what he says he will do, rather than what he supported when in government.
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Then, on April 29, had come the Reform coup. Someone had leaked the Liberal platform to the party and Manning released it, with his own spin on the contents, two days before the Liberals had planned the unveiling.
In Ottawa the next day, a reporter raised the issue of the unauthorized release of the Liberal policy. Wasn’t this the sort of “politics as usual” that Manning has loved to criticize? she asked.
“Politics as usual?” said Manning, a full grin finally breaking out. “I thought what we did yesterday was rather unique.”
It was. The first week of the campaign had several unprecedented moments.
Chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley considered, and finally rejected, a proposal from Manning and others that for the first time in Canadian history, voting be delayed in ridings affected by disaster.
On May 4, Kingsley said the election will go ahead in Manitoba, with special voting arrangements for those affected by the flood.
Meanwhile, as Winnipeg MP Lloyd Axworthy showed up to give the province a $25 million advance on flood damage compensation, other party leaders bumped into each other condemning the Liberals for politicking with the flood.
They insisted their criticisms and pledges not to campaign were not politicking.
The Liberal platform, released by Manning and the next day confirmed by prime minister Jean ChrŽtien in Saskatoon, held no new promises for agriculture, vowed to continue the fight against the deficit and pledged more than $6 billion in new spending, mainly in health care.
The Liberals say when the books are balanced, perhaps in two years, future surpluses will be split evenly between debt reduction and tax cuts on one side and new program spending on the other.
New Democratic Party leader Alexa McDonough released a party platform that included pledges of $400 million in new spending on grain transportation, mainly in supporting short-line railways, an investigation of farm input costs and support for orderly marketing.
Overall, the NDP promised as much as $19 billion in new spending, along with a budget balanced through higher taxes on corporations and high income Canadians and an assumption of higher growth due to lower unemployment.
Conservative leader Charest began his national tour promoting Conservative promises to cut taxes immediately, even before the budget is balanced, to toughen criminal law and to break down interprovincial trade barriers.
A detailed Conservative agriculture policy has been promised within the next several weeks.
