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THE BIZARRE 2004 FEDERAL ELECTION

The 2004 federal election was remarkable and bizarre.

A peek at the peculiarity of this election was glimpsed even before the writ was dropped which gave a broad hint as to the nastiness ahead. This occurred when the Liberal Party of Canada conducted a poll in Ontario asking the question, "Would you be more or less likely to vote for the Conservative Alliance if you knew it had been taken over by the evangelical Christians?"

This type of question is called "push polling", which is a technique used to plant suggestions in the minds of voters under the guise of collecting their opinions.

This poll exhibited religious bigotry on the part of the Liberals. The Liberals defended the polling question, insisting that they were not attacking the religious beliefs of Conservatives, but were merely trying to expose the conservatives' "social conservatism". It is clear, however, that the Liberals were attempting both to demonize evangelical Christians as being too scary to be trusted with governing Canada and to frighten the voters away from the Conservative party. The Liberal party, which is supposed to be a party of inclusion, tolerance and equality, had exposed itself as anything but.

Prime Minister Martin called the election on May 23, 2004. His party, at that time, held 168 of the 301 seats (now 308), and the opposition Conservatives held 73 seats. The polls indicated at that time that the Liberals would glide into the new Parliament with a solid majority with between 171 - 175 seats, with the Conservatives holding between 56 - 60 seats. All was well with the Liberals' world. The Liberals are referred to as Canada's "National Governing Party", as its normal role is to rule over Canada from sea to sea, with a few pesky exceptions in the unreliable west.

Then something happened. The polls began to show the Liberal party losing support everywhere but Atlantic Canada, with the voters expressing what was politely described by Liberal organizers, as "a mood of negativity".

A Compas survey showed the Conservatives closing the gap at 37% support with the Liberals at 39%, indicating the possibility of a Liberal minority government.

It got worse for the Liberals. The Tories and Liberals were in a dead heat by the end of May, and by June 6, an Ipsos-Reid poll showed the Conservatives trailing the Liberals by only one percentage point, 32% to 31% nationally, but putting the Conservatives three percentage points ahead of the Liberals in seat-rich Ontario.

An election war was on for Liberals who regard any possibility of an election loss as akin to a constitutional crisis.

It was time to bring out the "scary" Conservative routine. Luckily for the Liberals, the Conservative party's Health Critic, Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead, AB) mentioned in an interview that independent third party counselling would be "valuable" for women contemplating abortion. "Aha, gotcha!" cried the media and the Liberals. The Globe and Mail considered this worthy of front page coverage in its June 1 edition. It then followed the abortion issue with story after story on the "intolerance" of the Conservatives towards a woman's "choice" on abortion. The left-wing Toronto Star followed suit. The CBC was delirious with joy over this breakthrough on abortion, which naturally led to the CBC and the newspapers reporting on the Conservatives' other "scary" views on same-sex marriage, marijuana, and the recently passed homosexual hate crime amendment. This latter issue was deemed front-page news in the June 9th edition of Globe and Mail. Forget medical health care, increased defence spending, and reduced taxation proposed by Conservative leader Harper. These social issues, it was hoped, would derail him!

Prime Minister Martin next launched into a remarkable 1970's left-wing platform, proposing a national day care plan and abortion rights for women (even refusing Liberal MPs' right to introduce a private member's bill on the issue), as well as supporting the more recent, left-wing issues of same-sex marriage as a human right, and decriminalization of marijuana, etc. Mr. Martin's move to the left was to pick up former Liberal support that might be slipping over to the NDP.

The Liberals slam-dunk majority was fast disappearing. It seems Canadians didn't believe the Liberals anymore. The more Mr. Martin proposed, the less the public believed him. All the Liberal financial scams had taken their toll. Mr. Martin had also heavy-handedly placed some of his "special friends" in ridings without the benefit of a nomination. The sound of the backlash from this was heard across the country. Such examples of the "democratic deficit" were a re-enactment of the old days of recently removed semi-dictator, Jean Chrétien. The old Liberals were up to their old tricks. Nothing had changed with them.

The province of Ontario proved an especially sensitive spot for the federal Liberals. A few months previously, the provincial Liberals had been elected in that province- largely on the basis of a promise not to raise taxes - which the provincial Liberals quickly proceeded to raise, to the intense anger of the public. This reinforced the notion that no Liberals can be trusted. The Conservatives rose in the polls in Ontario.

The nationally televised debates did not help the Liberals. Mr. Martin wasn't able to reassure Canadians that he was much different from his predecessor Jean Chrétien.

The Liberals, however, had no intention of losing this war. More attack ads came over the airwaves tying Mr. Harper to a "hidden agenda" supposedly behind which lurked all manner of evil. The broadcast media also did its bit, as it had its own concerns about the Conservatives since the latter included in its platform a policy to cut back the enormous power of the CRTC, which would result in Canadian broadcasters no longer being protected from foreign competition. An effective Liberal organized underground campaign also frightened ordinary women on the streets that a Conservative win would set women back 50 years.

There were mistakes made by the Conservative campaign as well. One example was the way the Conservatives portrayed the Liberal failure to deal adequately with the child pornography law. Mr. Harper's comments that Mr. Martin supported child pornography were not reasonable. Also, one wonders why the Conservatives were so strangely passive in that they failed to respond to the Liberal attack ads. The Liberal scare tactics made the difference in the campaign, since it caused the voters, especially in Ontario, to forget the Liberal scams and instead become frightened of the so-called "hidden agenda" of the Conservatives.

Canadians have also been historically deferential to authority. And after 44 years of mainly Liberal rule, the Liberals had certainly become "the" authority to many Canadians. That coupled with the Liberal scare tactics (ably assisted by the media which gleefully echoed them) made voter-rich Ontario skittish about change.

The question we should now be asking is how long will this Liberal-NDP alliance survive? The average length of Canada's eight minority governments since Confederation is just short of 18 months. We can look forward to another federal election, perhaps some time in late 2005 or 2006. Let's hope that not too much damage will have occurred by then.

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