QUEBEC AFFAIRS
"Follow my white plume." Thus spake Sir Wilfrid Laurier on his way to the slaughter in the election of 1911.
Sir Wilfrid had had the gall to call an abrupt vote only forty-five months into his fourth mandate. He had hoped Canadians would follow his white plume -- by then meaning his 69-year-old balding pate -- and endorse a hastily-negotiated free trade deal with the U.S.
Laurier's three year, nine-month term -- his last stint as prime minister, since he died in 1919, still leading the Liberal Opposition -- was four months longer, one full season, than the government Jean Chrétien is terminating for a "follow my plums" election.
There is little evidence to suggest Laurier was turfed for calling an unprecedented early election; he was done in by anti-imperialist forces in Quebec, pro-imperialist forces in Ontario, and anti-free trade votes in B.C. and Manitoba -- organized by former Liberal strongman Clifford Sifton, if you can believe.
The point is that Laurier had every expectation of an easy win in the 1911 election, a not unreasonable assumption based on the state of the opposition and his still-powerful personal appeal.
That he was handily defeated by a combination of divergent interests probably came as a surprise to him and in hindsight he certainly would have thought twice about a hasty election given the volatile situation at the time.
We don't know if or how much Jean Chrétien will pay for such a artfully orchestrated dance to the polls on Nov. 27. We don't even know how much he paid for it in 1997, when he pulled the plug after only 42 months in office.
After fighting ten elections since his first in 1963 (still less than Herb Gray's 12!), Chrétien should know all about calculated risk, being essentially a cautious man.
What Chrétien doesn't have going for him in this election, that his hero Laurier did, is a powerful anti-Liberal tide in Quebec. In fact, based on some basic poll number crunching, the Liberals stand a reasonable chance of improving their 1997 tally, without having to recruit undead Tories.
It is the apparent all-but-complete evaporation of Conservative support in Quebec which gives Liberal organizers aspirations for adding to the twenty-nine seats they currently hold, including the three Tory cross-overs, David Price, Diane St. Jacques, and André Harvey.
Last time around, the Tories pulled a respectable 22.2 percent of the popular vote in Quebec, netting then-leader Jean Charest a tidy five-MP caucus. That may have been a triumph of sorts for Charest, but the significance for the Liberals is how that percentage tipped the scales for the Bloc Québécois in as many as half of Quebec's 75 ridings.
The Liberals, according to pre-election polls, hold a slim to significant lead over the Bloc.
In 1997 the Bloc nudged ahead of les Rouges in popular vote, 37.9 to 36.9, but, due to lopsided Liberal votes in Montreal, those numbers translated into a 44-member delegation for Gilles Duceppe and only 26 for the Liberals.
With the Conservative vote cut adrift, the question now is how much of it will go to the Bloc and how much to the Liberals. While each individual who voted Tory last time out had their own reasons for doing so, it's safe to assume that a portion of those ex-Tories have no difficulty voting for a Quebec-first party like the Bloc.
Just how many of those voters are willing to hold their noses and vote for the Chrétien Liberals because they are federalists will mean the difference between a see-saw with the Bloc or a significant leap forward for the Grits.
Personally and politically, it would be a sweet, sweet victory for Jean Chrétien to win more seats in his home province than les separatistes. It would be vindication for career-long torment by sovereignists and intellectuals who dismissed him as a rabid, vapid Trudeau lackey.
If just enough erstwhile Tory voters oblige him and give Chrétien an extra seven or so seats in Quebec, Chrétien might then be ready to follow the white plume into a satisfied retirement.
Copyright © 2000 Peter Black/Log Cabin Chronicles/10.00 |
