I wonder who wrote that first newspaper ad for
the federal Liberals, that appeared in the Globe and Mail before
the election. The headline read ‘It’s not which Canadian you
choose. It’s which Canada.’ At the bottom of the page are
instructions to Choose Your Canada.
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| name="valign" top > MICHAEL ATKINS |
My first thought was Elly Alboim, a close advisor
to Paul Martin. A former CBC journalist and Ottawa Bureau chief,
Elly is as smart as they come. I met Elly when he was for hire at
Earnscliffe in Ottawa.
We were fighting Time Warner and the American
government at the time over some World Trade Organization decisions
in the publishing sector.
Shortly after getting started we realized the
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade thought the
Americans were their clients and the Canadians their enemy as did
the Senate committee looking into the issue.
We needed help.
In short we needed one of those much-maligned
lobbyists. Someone knew Mike Robinson (who headed up Martin’s
transition team) at Earnscliffe and with Mike came Elly.
So began a short, fruitless introduction to the
Byzantine world of Ottawa politics. We were sold out so fast it
would make your head spin, but we got to use their phones when we
went to Ottawa to meet politicians.
Elly was personable and smart. He was also very
cynical or very knowledgeable. I don’t know which.
Earnscliffe’s advice was useless, but at least it
was expensive. I often had the feeling when they went off to play
golf with their political buddies we were actually paying to have
these guys leak our strategy to the politicians rather than the
other way around.
After all we were a one-time client. The
politicians were long-term partners.
This election is going to be a nightmare. The
Liberals are going to try to get us to believe that Steven Harper
is a right wing scary guy who will privatize health care, eliminate
or undermine the CBC and mimic the values and strategies of our
neighbours to the south.
The Conservatives will try to convince us the
Liberals are a corrupt arrogant government whose time has
come.
They are both right. The less they say about
themselves the better.
This is not a choice, this is Russian
Roulette.
I’m not prepared to vote for anybody yet. My
strategy is to recommend write-in candidates. My first choice is
Frank McKenna. My second is Larry Campbell, the mayor of Vancouver
and my third is my old friend Frank Reynolds the unofficial mayor
of Manitoulin Island.
Frank McKenna is an inspiration even if he does
shill for the Aspers these days. He picked New Brunswick up by the
scruff of the neck and made them believers in themselves. He
developed and executed an economic recovery plan that has changed
the face of the province.
He listens, he has courage, he can drink scotch
all night and still make sense (I did that once with him) and he
was smart enough to avoid Team Martin this run.
Larry Campbell is a delight. He came to a
technology conference one of our companies hosted last month and
talked for more than an hour to a room full of geeks (federal,
provincial, and Municipal CIO’s) and never mentioned technology
once.
He’s an ex-policeman (where the customers are
always wrong), ex-coroner (real life inspiration for Da Vinci’s
inquest) and ran for office supporting save injection sites for
addicts in Vancouver’s gas town. He is in touch with real
life.
When I asked him in front of this crowd if he
might humour us with a a small reference to technology he told us
not to overrate ourselves. He said he had people who picked up
garbage in the city who were just as important.
Frank Reynolds is a multimillionaire insurance
guy who lives on Manitoulin Island. Every year he organizes the
Manitoulin trade fair without a flaw, and for years was a director
of the Northern Ontario Business Awards program where he handled
logistics and wore a flashing bow tie to our gala dinner in case
you missed him. He is honest and industrious. He’d be a great PM if
he’d just quit smoking.
Send me your recommendations. Surely we can find
one who is competent, believes in Canada and would sell their
business to someone other than
their sons if given the chance.
