by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
October 15, 2004
That was the headline in both the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star when they reported on the Parliamentary vote on the Speech from the Throne. Just to re-cap, the Conservatives proposed an amendment and the Bloc Quebecois proposed an amendment to the Conservatives’ amendment. Pretty dull stuff.
Canadians, it appeared couldn’t have cared less. But the media, as they are sometimes prone to do, turned the possibility that the five-month- old Liberal minority government might fall into a high drama. The worried looks on faces of some newscasters as they painted the doom and gloom of their boy Paul Martin’s government collapsing on occasion approached near terror.
The worst case scenario would have been that the government would have fallen and a new election would have been called. Of course the media pondered the small possibility that the Governor-General could have asked Stephen Harper to form a government--a fate worse than having George W. Bush win another term in the White House. Canadians don’t want another election, but we are accustomed to not getting what we want from the government. Two elections within a six month period would be a huge waste of money, but wasting taxpayers’ money on inferior military equipment and golf balls with Jean Chrtien’s signature on them are a way of life in this country.
The reality was that it was all bluff. None of the parties wanted an election and it was simply a matter of who blinked first (it appeared Paul Martin did). There never was the big crisis that the media made it out to be.
The “back from the brink” scenario that the media tried to paint simply didn’t exist although NDP leader, Jack Layton, who appears might be in over his head, seemed to show panic. It was simply the media making a big deal out of the Opposition testing the minority government, on a slow news day.
Shortly after the vote, when we all came back from the brink, news came in that the fire on the HMS Chicoutimi was more serious than first reported. The media quickly forgot how close Canadians came to having to endure another election campaign.