By Paul Albers
Thursday, April 26, 2007
It is hard to believe that only a little more than two weeks have passedsince it happened. Will any of us ever forget where we were when we heardthe news? How deeply it shook us? Will things ever be the same again?What's that, you ask? The fire the destroyed the one time home of JohnnyCash? No, I'm talking about the announcement that Belinda Stronach will notseek re-election.
Alright, so it was hardly an earthshaking disaster and by now it hardlyseems worthy of further comment, yet the prospect of Belinda riding to therescue of the Liberal Party (by leading it of course) in the aftermath of aConservative majority government still exists.
Many obituaries have been written for her public career, but should shedecide to re-enter politics, the memory of her past service should be arealistic one, not an air-brushed public relations creation. Belinda's pathand mine have crossed a few times and although I'm sure she has no idea whoI am, I intend to conduct what I hope will be the final autopsy of herpolitical career in the interest of preventing history from repeatingitself.
Her greatest achievement came right at the start. If vote splittingcontinued on the right it would have kept the Liberal Party in power to thisday. The merging of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservativeswas a shotgun wedding and it was Belinda's finger on the trigger. Thisexercise of 'chequebook diplomacy' was later tainted when Belinda decided torun for the leadership, raising questions about her motives for uniting theright in the first place.
Many considered her unfit to lead a party (or country) pointing to her thinresume, the fact that she dropped out of college, couldn't speak French, sheseemed unable to maintain a stable marriage, and that her only success inthe workplace happened in her father's company. The media however loved theprospect of a moderate, rich, glamorous single mother from Ontario leadingthe new party instead of a dull Western economist steeped in traditionalvalues, so they did everything they could to gloss over her failings andprop up her campaign from it's unimpressive 'economic pie' kick-off.
One of her first media events was to sit down with Charles Alder on CJOBradio. Belinda madly flipped pages in a thick binder to find thestaff-written talking point that came close to having some relation to thesoftball questions lobbed her way. When asked to cite an example from hercareer at Magna of making a tough decision, she couldn't. The only clearpolicy statement from her was that she considered same-sex marriage to be ahuman right but would hold a free vote on it. Adler later expressed regretsfor going easy on her and described her as 'doing a horrible impersonationof a prime minister' but generally her poor performance was given a passbecause of her lack of experience.
Having hired campaign director John Laschinger (who previously advocatedfibbing as a means of creating positive press for a candidate) Belinda setoff on her grand tour.
I attended her first event in Ottawa. The setting was an opulent ballroomin Ottawa's most prestigious hotel, the Chateau Laurier. There was not asingle Canadian flag present anywhere, no chairs either for some reason. Itook an informal survey of Belinda supporters as we waited (and waited) forher to show up. Most of them couldn't name one policy of hers that set herapart, and didn't believe Belinda's claim that she could defeat Paul Martinin the next election.
Belinda arrived nearly half an hour late and did a slightly better job ofdelivering the same speech she gave on national TV at the start of hercampaign. As she worked the crowd I had a chance to talk with her. I askedher how she expected to unify the new party while labelling more than halfthe members as being opposed to a human right, and would she really waivewhat she thought was a human right based on a free vote. Her handlersquickly got her out of there.
A month later reports started coming in that Belinda appeared to be tryingto buy victory by gaming the 100 points per riding system for the leadershiprace. Quebec ridings had been a wasteland for both the Alliance andProgressive Conservatives and into the void came what Lysiane Gagnon of theGlobe and Mail called 'a crude and cynical operation' to spread pre-paidmemberships via well-paid organizers. In theory, 750 instant Quebec memberswould be able to cancel out the votes of every one of the tens of thousandsof long time conservatives in British Columbia and Alberta.
I had the chance to ask her personally about this when she appeared on CBC'sCross Country Checkup. She insisted she was campaigning all over Canada(which wasn't the issue in question). I asked if she was at all concernedabout a backlash if a small minority of members wound up picking the leader.She insisted that she was campaigning all over Canada. Host Rex Murphyrestated my question trying to get a meaningful reply, and Belinda insistedshe was campaigning all over Canada.
Her campaign was highly scripted and she skipped out on two televiseddebates sponsored by the CBC and Global Television. She was required toparticipate in the debates sponsored by the Conservative Party and onceagain low expectations worked in her favour as she won praise for not makingany huge mistakes. As her poll numbers fell, her campaign team took the lowroad, slinging new mud on an almost daily basis, none of it valid enough tostick.
As her final campaign gaffe, she started her speech at the leadershipconvention saying she was 'throwing away the script', then proceeded to readher speech directly from the papers in her hand. She finished second with35% of the points, but it is very likely that the percentage of partymembers that voted for her was much, much smaller, perhaps even smaller thanTony Clement's vote.
To her credit, she kept her word and ran for the Conservatives inNewmarket-Aurora, winning the seat by a mere 689 votes. As an MP andInternational Trade critic Belinda was usually invisible. Eventually, herdisagreements with Harper, and perhaps a realization that she would neverlead the Conservative Party, led her to cross the floor to the Liberals. Itwas a move frequently compared to a rat jumping onto a sinking ship.
The Liberal party was two days away from losing a confidence vote whenBelinda switched parties and saved them. There were allegations from otherMP's of attempts to bribe opposition members into crossing the floor aroundthe same time. The media openly laughed when the Liberals claimed Belinda'smove had nothing to do with her instant appointment to a senior cabinetposition.
Floor crossing is nothing new to politics, but her betrayal went deeper thanusual. She had just attended an election strategy planning workshop for theConservatives and was in a relationship with Deputy Leader Peter MacKay.She also claimed that former Progressive Conservative PM Brian Mulroney gavehis blessing. Mulroney was in the hospital at the time so he sent TorySenator Marjory LeBreton to speak on his behalf. "Twelve hours as anofficial Liberal and already she has the lying down pat," LeBreton said.
Belinda's move only bought the Liberal party a little more time in office,time they used to further offend Canadian voters and seal their eventualdefeat, leaving her an opposition backbencher. As chair of the NationalLiberal Women's Caucus she promoted recycled policies repackaged as 'ThePink Book' but got more attention for dying her hair black. The spotlightturned on her when her former boyfriend allegedly referred to her as afemale dog in the House of Commons, but public outrage was blunted due tothe news a month earlier that Tie Domi's wife had named her as thehome-wrecker in their messy divorce.
Her decision to not run for the Liberal leadership was a surprise. Publiclyshe claimed her reason was the lack of a one-member-one-vote system, butthat sounded self serving since the lack of that kind of system helped hercampaign for the Conservative leadership and she liked it fine then.Speculation on her actual motives for not running ranged from her lack ofFrench, to the new spending rules, to her biding her time in anticipation ofanother Conservative victory.
She never played a big role in the Liberal leadership race, and remained alargely invisible backbencher after.
Time will tell if Belinda's departure is permanent or just a profitable andeasy vacation while she waits for another opportunity to pursue politicalambitions. If she does return it should not be forgotten that she validatednearly every criticism ever levelled at her, and she left as a symbol ofeverything she said she came to change. If this is where it ends, herpolitical career died from self-inflicted wounds.
Paul Albers is a freelance columnist living in Ottawa. He can be reached at: p.e.albers@gmail.com
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