The Canadian General Election of 2000 by Jon H. Pammett & Christopher Dornan

Author:Jon H. Pammett & Christopher Dornan [Pammett, Jon H. & Dornan, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781525255311
Google: SXQZtAEACAAJ
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com, Limited
Published: 2017-07-24T06:55:14+00:00

The Pre-Campaign

Chrétien, his wife, Aline, and a phalanx of aides and security officers crossed the street from his residence to Rideau Hall on Sunday morning, going through the motions of asking the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament so he could seek a new mandate. The decision to go to the polls in the fall had been his and his alone. His party had been gearing up ever-so-gradually for a spring 2001 vote, when Chrétien suddenly concluded the stars were in alignment for a lightning strike. Day was still getting established and remained unknown. Liberal polling suggested his freshness and likeability could work to his advantage even though his flat tax and provincialism were welcome putty in the Prime Minister’s hand. Best to move fast and use a campaign to define him before he could define himself, Chrétien reasoned. (Inexplicably, Day would lend a helping hand by veering off script in the House of Commons and daring the Prime Minister to call an election for which the Alliance was completely unprepared.) Chrétien was a bird-in-the-hand kind of guy. He could see that the country abounded with economic optimism after two consecutive years of nearly 5 percent growth. The upbeat mood could only get worse over a long winter, especially with rising gasoline and home heating prices scaring the living daylights out of everyone with a car or home. The Opposition parties were actually making headway on that issue in the Commons.

Chrétien’s advisers and ministers initially thought the old guy had lost it. They were fixed on the last war, and the difficulty he had experienced in justifying an early election call in 1997. How would they again justify going to the electorate early and unnecessarily? Wouldn’t it just exacerbate a growing Liberal reputation for arrogance? But “the boss” shrugged them off and issued private instructions to Finance Minister Paul Martin to get a snap budget ready.

The budget — the Liberals preferred to call it an economic statement or mini-budget for legalistic reasons — came down on October 18, four days before the election call. It was a work of beauty. Martin had been roundly criticized by business groups and the right-wing press in his February budget for the timidity of his tax reductions. Now he heaped on an extra helping, bringing his tax-cutting package in its entirety up to a nice round figure of $100-billion over five years. He also addressed just about every concern the high tech community had voiced about the brain drain and he stole the Alliance’s thunder with a large, one-time pay down of the national debt. The budget pleased fiscally conservative Liberal MPs from the several dozen small-town Ontario ridings where Alliance was thought to have a decent shot. Once again, a lid was placed on overall spending despite the rhetoric of new programs. The lion’s share of spending in the budget went to finance the health accord the Prime Minister had signed with the provinces in September.

Martin used his budget speech to launch a blistering attack

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