The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Leadership is everything according to some political experts. As one former MLA told me years ago, "Your leader gets half your votes." This is certainly true when the leader is personally popular like John Diefenbaker and Pierre Trudeau. When the leader is only moderately popular, they tend to run election campaigns as a team, which is what Stephane Dion tried to do in the last election with little success. He left Liberal candidates to battle dual problems Ð an unpopular leader and an unpopular and incomprehensible Green Shift tax policy that made little sense to the voters in a time of economic meltdown. As a result, the Liberal vote really collapsed in many areas, allowing the NDP to squeak out a win in Edmonton and the Tories to win for the first time in Kenora, a seat that was formed around the First World War. Recall also that Danny Williams, the strange but popular Newfoundland and Labrador Premier, had a big effect on the Newfie vote, carrying on his war with Stephen Harper by urging voters in his province to vote for anyone but the PM. Williams did this because he said Harper broke his word not to count the offshore oil revenues in the transfer funds to his province. Williams wants his province to continue its "have not" status like Manitoba and continue to get money from the "have provinces" but also to keep all the oil revenue. This will not happen, and it isn't happening in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Premiers normally stay out of federal campaigns because they have to work with whoever forms the government. Gary Doer is a good example. Doer gave NDP leader Jack Layton little help in the last campaign and even had a spokesman refuse to accept Layton's call for more taxes on business. But Williams really shot himself and his party in the foot. The Tories losing their three seats meant there could be no Newfoundlander around the cabinet table, and Williams can expect a short shrift from Harper. Senator Marjory Lebreton said it best on election night: "I knew Danny Williams when he was an adult." He's long gone now, and there's no doubt that Canada's normal governing party made a mistake in electing long-shot Stephane Dion as leader. Like it or not, a Canadian party leader has to be able to communicate effectively in both official languages, especially English, and Harper's French was much better than Dion's English. Dion had no choice but to call a leadership race after the election. After the Conservatives' miscue on the fiscal update sparked a coalition government attempt Ð which failed Ð Dion left as leader earlier than he first announced. With all candidates really being forced to drop out except Michael Ignatieff, the Liberals had a leadership vote that violated their own constitution, letting the caucus and some party heavyweights decide that their new leader should be none other than Iggy. The Liberals' system is antiquated as well. It's not 'one member, one vote' as in other parties, a system that reflects the wishes of party members. Instead it's an election of delegates across the country, which can lead to backroom dealing like was done before. It is obvious that Dion would never have won a true vote of the party, but with the help of those like Gerard Kennedy, he was able to overcome Ignatieff and Bob Rae in the 2006 leadership race. The party had no chance to change their system due to the constitutional crisis in Parliament, and had to make due as best as they could. There were many other possible candidates, such as rookie MP Kennedy, Justin Trudeau, Denis Coderre, Martha Hall Findlay and others, but would any of them stand a chance to win? Apparently now many in the Liberal caucus and party are not too happy with Ignatieff as he is following the old Liberal system of surrounding himself with friends and leaving others out in the same manner as Paul Martin did. At least Ignatieff is not too warm on the coalition idea, which is a guaranteed loser for his party in the next election, but he did use the phrase "a coalition if necessary, but not necessarily a coalition" to describe his position. My choice for Liberal leader? The best would have been John Manley, but he is too conservative for a lot of Liberals, and in any case he is more interested in making real money in business. Roger's Right Corner runs Wednesdays.
