Martin wins minority government

Last Updated Mon, 28 Jun 2004 22:24:34

 

TORONTO - Paul Martin's Liberals have survived a near-death experience to win a minority government ? Canada's first in 25 years.

 

The CBC decision desk predicted a Liberal minority victory at 10:22 p.m. EDT.

 

A Liberal minority government means nothing about the country's immediate political future is certain except the prospect of more uncertainty.

 

Once the Liberals gets over the joy of being still in power, their first job will be to figure out how to work with a partner after years of flying solo.

 

The answer depends how it chooses to proceed: in a coalition with either the NDP or the Bloc Qu?b?cois, or by forming alliances with enough MPs from those parties motion by motion to win the required support to pass legislation.

 

Either route is likely to be rocky. The Bloc and the NDP lean left in different ways, and the substantive change they demand seems completely opposed to the centrist deficit-cutting on which Paul Martin built his reputation on as Jean Chr?tien's finance minister.

 

What price will Martin pay for the NDP's support? In the campaign's closing days, Jack Layton hinted strongly about what he wants. His wish list includes a quick referendum on proportional representation and a commitment to reinvest in social programs rather than continue channelling so much from the federal surplus toward paying down the country's debt, Martin's pet project in the last decade.

 

As for the Bloc, it is difficult to see how the Liberals could grant Gilles Duceppe's wishes without compromising everything the party of Pierre Trudeau holds sacred: a strong central government which has avoided dealing with separatists. The Bloc is no fonder of the Liberal party, which has long been its only real opposition for hearts and seats in Quebec.

 

However, the two parties could find some common (though expensive) ground when it comes to spending more on health care, improving Employment Insurance benefits and beefing up environmental protections.

 

A question of leadership

 

Whatever happens in the months to come, Martin will have to face a leadership review of some kind. To be fair, the 65-year-old leader was bogged down with Chr?tien's baggage leading into this election - the sponsorship scandal, the out-of-control costs of the gun registry, continued social division over same-sex marriage, and the perceived arrogance of the Chr?tien team.

 

Still, there's no denying that he and his advisers share a great deal of the blame for the Liberal party almost being locked out of 24 Sussex Drive.

 

For one thing, the timing of the election call was lousy, with the Liberals still slipping in the polls over fallout from the sponsorship scandal and the Conservatives' new leader, Stephen Harper, enjoying a honeymoon with the media.

 

The Liberal campaign was fractured and sloppy. The people who had spent years fighting to get Chr?tien out so that Martin could take over as prime minister seemed unaware of how to mend fences and put the Big Red Machine back together again.

 

As a result, star players like Allan Rock, John Manley and Sheila Copps either walked away or were pushed out the door, Martin's appointment of a handful of parachute candidates across the country drove away longtime organizers, and many provincial Liberals chose to sit on their hands rather than pitch in.

 

What could save Martin in a leadership review is that no party wants to be caught in a full-blown leadership race when a confidence vote could bring down its fragile government at any time.

 

Of course, Stephen Harper has to face his own leadership questions, given the strength of the Liberal lead, when Harper was openly talking about a Conservative majority in the wake of the June 14 and 15 televised debates. Many will be wondering if he has what it takes to beat the Liberals, if he couldn't do it in a year when voters were furious with the Liberals and pining for a change.

 

Tough choices ahead

 

Looking ahead to another election within the next year ? or two at the most ? Martin has some tough choices to make, choices that will call on all the management skills he learned in the business world.

 

Will he purge his team of advisers, or merely add new blood to dilute the old mixture that almost proved disastrous? How can he reach out to the angry members of the party? What is the secret to rebuilding Liberal support in Quebec, where the party recorded its worst showing since the first Mulroney victory in 1984?

 

Above all, how will he govern Canada so that voters forgive the Liberals and feel like giving him a majority mandate the next time they go to the polls?

 

Whatever happens, the new minority government is unlikely to fall very quickly for several reasons:

 

* This campaign has strapped the resources of all the parties, and they would need time to fundraise to refill their coffers.

* Polls in this campaign consistently showed that Canadians would like to see a minority government in power for a while.

* Weary voters would not have an appetite for another five weeks of political immersion before next winter at least, and thus could punish any party that pulls the plug too quickly.

* This is the best chance the NDP and Bloc will have to make an impact on government policy, given the current configuration in Parliament. They will want to keep the minority situation alive as long as it works to their advantage ? and the Bloc in particular could hardly hope for more seats than the 51 seats it this time out, down only slightly from the party's 1993 record of 54 seats.

 

Written by CBC News Online staff

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Above all, how will he govern Canada so that voters forgive the Liberals and feel like giving him a majority mandate the next time they go to the polls?

 

The pendulum is swinging the other way up north. The liberal majority govt foisted off so much nonsense on the public during their majority term it will take decades to recover.

 

This is the same sort of cycle that happened in the UK several decades ago when Labor went berserk. True.

 

Although in multi-party parliamentary politics an ideological shift is very hard to implement due to all the alliances and pacts between differing parties.