- 03 Jun 2003 21:13
#13439
I don't know how many Canadians there are here but nevertheless, I'm curious to know what fellow Canadians think of MacKay's "deal with the devil".
This Faustian bargain is going to haunt him
By JOHN IBBITSON
Monday, June 2, 2003 - Page A13
TORONTO -- For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the leadership of a party, and lose his own soul?
Peter MacKay is the fourth leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in Canada in 10 years, a telling statistic. He is also the weakest. So intense was the resistance to his candidacy at the weekend leadership convention that it took four ballots and a signed but secret covenant with maverick candidate David Orchard to secure victory.
In doing so, Mr. MacKay has brought into the highest counsels of the party a figure who is inimical to some of its most cherished principles. And on this basis, this new leader must take the Conservatives into next year's federal election. They risk oblivion.
Mr. MacKay, 37, was supposed to have the convention sewn up. He had secured better than 40 per cent of the delegates selected at the riding level, and was the acknowledged favourite of the party power brokers, especially those who still have close ties with former prime minister Brian Mulroney.
But Mr. MacKay couldn't persuade all his delegates to travel to Toronto and, as the convention progressed, the growing consensus on the floor was that, in choosing Mr. MacKay, the party was in danger of embracing mediocrity.
And so fellow Nova Scotia MP Scott Brison, after an agonizingly close fourth-place finish, crossed the floor to Calgary lawyer Jim Prentice, whose organizers were convinced they had the convention in the bag.
But then came the phone call from David Orchard, an organic farmer from Borden, Sask., who commanded more than 600 supporters possessed of a remarkably grim, humourless fervour.
Mr. Orchard had come second to Joe Clark in the last leadership contest. Now, with absolutely no prospect of picking up a single vote other than those he brought with him, the man Mr. Clark once called a tourist in the Conservative Party was prepared to deliver the convention to whomever was ready to meet his terms.
Mr. Orchard opposes the very free-trade agreement that is the Conservatives' proudest legacy. He wants environmental issues placed at the very top of the party's priorities. And he opposes truck or trade of any sort with the Canadian Alliance. All a candidate needed to pick up those 600 Orchard votes was to embrace those values.
Mr. Prentice wanted no part of an agreement that would prohibit any future co-operation in a movement to unite the right. Mr. Brison would not countenance rethinking the party's support for free trade. But Mr. MacKay, facing defeat at a convention that he was supposed to have owned, was prepared to do almost anything. He would review the party's support for free trade. He'd promote environmental issues. He'd guarantee that the party fielded 301 candidates at the next election, ending any hope of co-operation with the Alliance. He'd sign all this in writing.
And so Mr. Orchard, to his own true believers' dismay, shook Mr. MacKay's hand.
Party insiders insist that Mr. MacKay's signature is not a betrayal of conservatism. They maintain there is still plenty of wiggle room in the agreement. Mr. Orchard will soon discover how little influence he truly wields, they predict, smiling knowingly.
It will be an interesting press conference, then, when Mr. Orchard declares he has been betrayed and abandoned by the man he made king.
So let's take stock. The federal Conservatives have elected as leader a Nova Scotia MP who is young, articulate and the son of a popular former cabinet minister. There his résumé ends.
His party is deeply in debt, its support outside Atlantic Canada largely scattered. And the establishment, believing that only Mr. MacKay can guarantee them the 12 seats the Tories need to retain party status in the House, has engineered the victory of its favourite at great cost to party unity and to principle. The establishment did this once before. Her name was Kim Campbell.
Party leaders have sometimes surprised the skeptics, gaining strength and wisdom on the job, overcoming initial obstacles and proving themselves worthy of the public trust. Others, however, have been forever damned by the first impression the voters form of them. And the first impression they form of this new leader may well be that he is prepared to sign a Mephistophelean deal for the sake of power, or at least its illusion.
Good luck, then, Mr. MacKay.
jibbitson@globeandmail.ca
This Faustian bargain is going to haunt him
By JOHN IBBITSON
Monday, June 2, 2003 - Page A13
TORONTO -- For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the leadership of a party, and lose his own soul?
Peter MacKay is the fourth leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in Canada in 10 years, a telling statistic. He is also the weakest. So intense was the resistance to his candidacy at the weekend leadership convention that it took four ballots and a signed but secret covenant with maverick candidate David Orchard to secure victory.
In doing so, Mr. MacKay has brought into the highest counsels of the party a figure who is inimical to some of its most cherished principles. And on this basis, this new leader must take the Conservatives into next year's federal election. They risk oblivion.
Mr. MacKay, 37, was supposed to have the convention sewn up. He had secured better than 40 per cent of the delegates selected at the riding level, and was the acknowledged favourite of the party power brokers, especially those who still have close ties with former prime minister Brian Mulroney.
But Mr. MacKay couldn't persuade all his delegates to travel to Toronto and, as the convention progressed, the growing consensus on the floor was that, in choosing Mr. MacKay, the party was in danger of embracing mediocrity.
And so fellow Nova Scotia MP Scott Brison, after an agonizingly close fourth-place finish, crossed the floor to Calgary lawyer Jim Prentice, whose organizers were convinced they had the convention in the bag.
But then came the phone call from David Orchard, an organic farmer from Borden, Sask., who commanded more than 600 supporters possessed of a remarkably grim, humourless fervour.
Mr. Orchard had come second to Joe Clark in the last leadership contest. Now, with absolutely no prospect of picking up a single vote other than those he brought with him, the man Mr. Clark once called a tourist in the Conservative Party was prepared to deliver the convention to whomever was ready to meet his terms.
Mr. Orchard opposes the very free-trade agreement that is the Conservatives' proudest legacy. He wants environmental issues placed at the very top of the party's priorities. And he opposes truck or trade of any sort with the Canadian Alliance. All a candidate needed to pick up those 600 Orchard votes was to embrace those values.
Mr. Prentice wanted no part of an agreement that would prohibit any future co-operation in a movement to unite the right. Mr. Brison would not countenance rethinking the party's support for free trade. But Mr. MacKay, facing defeat at a convention that he was supposed to have owned, was prepared to do almost anything. He would review the party's support for free trade. He'd promote environmental issues. He'd guarantee that the party fielded 301 candidates at the next election, ending any hope of co-operation with the Alliance. He'd sign all this in writing.
And so Mr. Orchard, to his own true believers' dismay, shook Mr. MacKay's hand.
Party insiders insist that Mr. MacKay's signature is not a betrayal of conservatism. They maintain there is still plenty of wiggle room in the agreement. Mr. Orchard will soon discover how little influence he truly wields, they predict, smiling knowingly.
It will be an interesting press conference, then, when Mr. Orchard declares he has been betrayed and abandoned by the man he made king.
So let's take stock. The federal Conservatives have elected as leader a Nova Scotia MP who is young, articulate and the son of a popular former cabinet minister. There his résumé ends.
His party is deeply in debt, its support outside Atlantic Canada largely scattered. And the establishment, believing that only Mr. MacKay can guarantee them the 12 seats the Tories need to retain party status in the House, has engineered the victory of its favourite at great cost to party unity and to principle. The establishment did this once before. Her name was Kim Campbell.
Party leaders have sometimes surprised the skeptics, gaining strength and wisdom on the job, overcoming initial obstacles and proving themselves worthy of the public trust. Others, however, have been forever damned by the first impression the voters form of them. And the first impression they form of this new leader may well be that he is prepared to sign a Mephistophelean deal for the sake of power, or at least its illusion.
Good luck, then, Mr. MacKay.
jibbitson@globeandmail.ca
Unless Alberta's population doubles Ontario's in the next oh, say 10-20 years, the Canadian Alliance will never form a government because they are perceived as, and have become, a de facto regional party. They've done absolutely nothing East of Manitoba, and are currently riding at a whopping 7% in Ontario -- if my memory serves me correctly. This is not a good thing. Let the coronation commence. 
. If they'll ever recover I don't know, I hope they do but it just doesn't look good right now. 
- By wat0n
- By litwin