“A SMALL number of hotel rooms are available in Davidson and Moose Jaw for accredited media on a first-come, first-serve basis.”
It was not the most auspicious way to try to attract media coverage for the first federal-provincial meeting organized by prime minister-in-waiting Paul Martin.
On Nov. 16, as a sideshow to the Grey Cup game in Regina, newly crowned Liberal leader Paul Martin will have a session with whichever provincial premiers show up.
Although he won’t yet be a first minister himself, Martin will want images of the friendly sort-of first ministers meeting spread throughout Canada.
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That means attracting reporters and in over-booked Regina, that means sending them miles away. Perhaps the overflow will be billeted with Regina Liberals.
The amazing thing about this latest slapstick twist on the road to changing Liberal leaders and prime ministers is that it does not seem all that out of the ordinary.
There is more than a hint of Lewis Carroll and his Alice-in-Wonderland world in federal politics these days.
No doubt, the country that has been roiled by political upheaval for the past 20 years (a record Tory majority in 1984 followed nine years later by the party’s almost total collapse, for starters) is on the cusp of tremendous change.
Martin becomes prime minister in the winter with a promise that if he does not heal the rift between Ottawa and Western Canada during his tenure, he will consider his prime ministership a failure.
It is highly likely there will be a brand new conservative party contesting the election with a leader who has never fought a national campaign. It is likely the Progressive Conservative party, which traces its ancestry to John Macdonald and the founding of Canada, will miss its first election since 1867.
And an energized New Democratic Party with leader Jack Layton is expected to be more competitive than it has been in more than 15 years.
However, the gestation period is creating some political weirdness the likes of which hasn’t been seen for decades.
Consider the Liberals. In just three weeks, and for the first time in more than half a century, the prime minister (Jean Chrétien) will not be leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Commons (Martin).
If there is a crisis between November and February that actually requires a decisive national leader, will all eyes turn to the prime minister or the Liberal leader?
There is now in Ottawa what the opposition derisively calls a “parallel government” and it is true that the majority of MPs Chrétien needs to approve his final legislative package actually support the prime minister’s arch-rival.
On the other hand, the opposition can’t laugh too loud.
The Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative leadership have hatched a deal to merge under the Conservative Party banner. If it happens, there will be a leadership convention just before an expected spring/summer election and no time for a policy convention to try to meld the two often-conflicting party ideologies.
It means Martin will be facing an opposition leader voicing policy positions made up by a small party elite, with no membership approval and little political legitimacy.
Now that’s weird.
