July 28, 2003
Summer is usually the time when politicians seem to drop off the map. Parliament isn’t sitting, and the living is easy. But this summer, the politicos seem to be basking in the limelight. Da boss has surfaced to say that he’s shocked--shocked I say--that the Iranians have killed a journalist. The next thing that we’ll hear is that Iran will be chopping off hands. Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham is practicing his "no power" version of Lloyd Axworthy’s soft power by pretending to talk tough to Iran. Graham speaks softly, but carries no stick, which at least saves the overtaxed population from having to fork over a gazillion dollars to fund a stick registration system. And Liberal MP Dennis Mills is front and center as a backbencher cum rock promoter.
But the big news this summer seems to be with the past and present candidates for the leadership of the federal Liberal Party. John Manley, who as Canada’s Minister of Finance crunches all those numbers that result in higher surpluses so that Jean Chrétien has more money to refuse to give to the provinces, finally learned what we all knew--that he didn’t have the numbers to beat Paul Martin. Manley withdrew from the race but, like a good Liberal, put a positive spin on his dismal leadership bid. He said that the race gave him the opportunity to put his policies forward and to debate the issues. The only policy that anyone remembers Manley having had was that Paul Martin should disclose his list of donors before he is legally required to do so. As far as debating the issues is concerned, Manley must be referring to the six all-candidates debates, five of which were only broadcast on CPAC, the parliamentary channel that raises the philosophical question of whether a TV station broadcasts if no one watches it.
At least Manley has a sense of humour. When asked by CBC radio if he planned to do anything differently next time, the Deputy Prime Minister said: "I’d start 10 years earlier."
Having been given the heads up that Manley was going to announce that he was pulling out of the race, Sheila Copps called her own press conference to announce that she was staying in the race until the end. The bitter end. The extremely bitter end. Copps indicated that she was going to win the party leadership on the first and only ballot, leading Global News Ottawa bureau chief, David Vienneau, to remark that her statements were reminiscent of the Iraqi Information Minister’s comments that there were no American tanks in Baghdad. Copps said that although she has 18% of the vote, she’ll end up with at least 50% plus one when the final vote is taken. According to the Heritage Member, a lot of Canadians; the anti-American, redistribute the wealth, diversity is everything, Toronto Star reading crowd, share her vision of Canada. Unfortunately for Copps, most of these people support the NDP, or can be found in the new Regressive Conservative Party led by Peter McKay-Orchard.
While in opposition, Copps loved to be the center of attention, yelling at Prime Minister Mulroney from the opposition benches with her Rat Pack buddies and jumping over tables in a single bound at committee meetings. Now Sheila can’t even get noticed by her leadership rivals. When John Manley announced his withdrawal from the race, he barely acknowledged her existence while stating that Paul Martin will be the next leader of the Liberal Party and the next Prime Minister of Canada. Paul Martin takes her opposition so seriously that he’s jetted off to New York to help U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, run the world or something.
It seems "nobody’s baby" has become nobody’s serious candidate.
Ironically, or perhaps not, both the Toronto Sun and the National Post came up with the identical Canadian "doomsday scenario" on the same day. Paul Martin gets hit by a bus and Sheila becomes Prime Minister by default. Yikes!
Hopefully, one day Canada will become more like countries such as Zimbabwe, and other third world countries, where the government can at least have the pretense of a democracy. Until then, we’ll just have to be happy in our one party, one candidate, state.
And to all you bus drivers out there--watch where you’re going!