It is election day in Canada. I am sitting on a
British Airways Boeing 777 slurping a little Glen Fiddich,
precariously balanced on my neighbour’s pull-out table, waiting to
fall. One false move by the captain or my new friend and we will
all be wearing it. As I type, I watch him out of the corner of my
eye, feverishly attacking his BlackBerry. He is a consultant from
Newcastle, England, who is doing some training for RIM in waterloo.
He will be in Canada in exactly 32 hours. He is living at an
unsustainable speed.
MICHAEL ATKINS President, Laurentian Publishing |
We both seem a little out of place amongst the
babies throwing toys and pillows about, to most everyone’s
amusement.
I am returning from my annual sojourn abroad,
where I meet with the European managers of companies associated
with the International Data Group, which publishes information
technology magazines around the world.
There hasn’t been one whisper about Canada or the
Canadian election for a week.
The drama has been European soccer. Each night,
another international manager has cried in his beer as his country
went down in defeat to some snivelling soccer upstart. Spain,
Germany, France, Denmark and England have all taken their
turn.
This has involved far too much drinking and
consoling.
It seems worse than being a Toronto Maple Leafs’
fan. We are talking national humiliation.
I haven’t seen or heard from Stephen, Paul or
Jack since the day after the big debate.
I haven’t missed them either, but today is the
day and I have just enough time to get to the polling station. I’ve
decided to hold my nose, and I mean purchase a robust, aggressive
clothes-pin, and support the Liberals. I’m not happy about it. The
closer I get, the more agitated I get. The truth is, however, I
don’t buy Stephen Harper. I don’t believe in his priorities. We
can’t afford to cut taxes, we must repay the debt if we don’t want
to cripple our children, we must get on the Kyoto accord, we must
support our city states or they will crumble and, in Northern
Ontario, there needs to be regional support. There is no common
ground.
That said, I want those Liberals to have the
scare of their life.
It is one o’clock in the morning on June 29. I
made it to the polling booth with minutes to spare and, as
promised, held my nose. I wasn’t alone. In fact, it seems we have a
nation of nose-holders. Clearly, something has been going on since
I left.
We have, more or less, what we wanted: a
chastened Liberal party, a reinvigorated New Democratic Party
safely out of power’s way, a chastened Tory party who need to
rethink their priorities, and the birth of the Green party. Ah, the
Bloc you say. well, as much as I dislike their mission, it was the
only safe way to punish the Liberals without electing the
Conservatives.
There isn’t much justice in love, war or
politics. If the Conservative Party had taken over the Alliance
party, instead of the other way around, and if Joe Clark were still
their leader, he would be prime minister today, with a huge
majority government. The noseholders would have voted for Joe
because he did not represent such a stark departure from current
Canadian values, and the Liberals could have been safely punted to
the future they so richly deserved.
That said, I was astonished at the vigor of this
65-year-old man named Paul Martin who was written off the last time
I looked.
He wasn’t the same guy I left behind. He spoke
well. He seemed comfortable in his own skin and appeared
rejuvenated by his near-death experience.
I think the election has been good for him. He
spent so much time fighting Jean Chrétien he forgot he was applying
for work with us.
When we told him in the early going that we’d had
enough of him, it seemed to set him free.
Reminds me of David Peterson, who was brilliant
during his minority accord with the NDP in Ontario, and then faded
to arrogance when he won a majority and lost an election he should
have won. At the time, I remarked that Peterson seemed to enjoy (in
hockey terms) playing a man short. He liked the risk of minority
governing.
We’ll see how Mr. Martin plays hockey. Good for
us.
Store your clothes-pins in a safe place. The next
election is not that far away.
Michael Atkins is president of Northern Ontario
Business Ltd. [email protected].