Ottawa’s weird political season began this week as MPs assembled for the last parliamentary session before an election. The rhetoric will be heated and, at times, extreme.
The Opposition will see evidence everywhere of the end of Canada due to Liberal mismanagement (except, of course, the Bloc QuŽbeois, for whom Canada cannot end soon enough).
The Liberals will try to make us believe we’ve never had it so good, notwithstanding declining services and a million unemployed.
Between the political gamesmanship and unrealistic promises, some moments of actual governing will break out.
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The government will announce, and impose, reforms to the Canadian Wheat Board. Ralph Goodale will announce that the export monopoly for wheat and barley is being maintained, but will try to deflect the criticism by saying if farmers really want change, they can elect a CWB board of directors which will deliver it.
The cash advance payments system will be revamped.
The Liberal government will announce, finally, its plans for legislation on endangered species.
And in his budget next winter, finance minister Paul Martin will announce the deficit has fallen well below $20 billion and continues to fall. It will set the stage for a deficit-elimination promise during the expected 1997 election.
In Parliament, the frenetic Opposition dance will be as interesting, and certainly more entertaining, than the Liberal waltz.
The BQ, of course, will see evil Canadian centralizers behind every new Liberal proposal to decentralize the country.
The New Democrats will be noisier, trying to be noticed as the only left-leaning alternative to the Liberals.
And then, there will be Reform.
Leader Preston Manning’s job will be to appear prime ministerial while improving his opposition performance.
He will have to dress up old ideas in fancy new election-campaign garb.
He will have to try to sound like something other than a conservative Liberal-in-a-hurry.
And he will have to battle a growing public perception that Reform is out of the next election race.
Oddly, the Reform Party has appeared only too happy to help spread that message. In one of the strangest pre-election news releases ever issued by a political party, Reform this month papered the Parliamentary Press Gallery with evidence of their poor electoral prospects.
Manning’s office issued the Gallup poll result because it showed Conservative leader Jean Charest running a poor third in his own Sherbrooke, Que., riding.
The larger message of the poll, however, was that had the election been held in mid-August, the Liberals would have received an amazing 55 percent, the PCs 16, and Reform just 10 percent.
This means that Reform has lost almost half its 1993 support, the Liberals have picked up 14 points and the Conservatives have fought back to their 1993 levels.
It means Reform trails Conservatives everywhere in the country except B.C.
And this was a poll promoted by Reform. The weird political season in Ottawa just got weirder.
