Establishment’s preferences were swept aside
Let’s just call it the Charlottetown syndrome.
You’ll recall the Charlottetown accord, the illegitimate constitutional child of the Meech Lake Agreement.
All the business groups in the nation were for Charlelottetown, so were all the unions. The Progressive Conservatives were for it, the Liberals and the New Democrats, too. As were all the newspapers.
It was “unCanadian” to be against it.
That’s what the establishment said.
But the Canadian people said something quite different.
One big loud “No!”
So it was this past weekend with federal Liberal contender Michael Ignatieff and provincial Progressive Conservative contender Jim Dinning.
I must say a month ago I saw Dion easing out Ignatieff, and two weeks week ago felt unease over Dinning’s path to glory, I just didn’t figure it would be Ed Stelmach who put the tarnish on Jim.
The Ignatieff charade was easier to call.
Here was a man who spent most of the past 30 years outside of the country and was being likened to Pierre Trudeau.
Yes, gulp.
And his supposed nearest rival was the former disastrous premier of Ontario, reformed New Democrat Bob Rae.
Also a member of the political establishment.
So when the natives got restless and didn’t want an establishment figure shoved down their throats, Dion was the obvious choice.
I got a whiff of Dinning’s yawning faultline when I leafed through his heavy sheaf of policy papers. Nothing but platitudes.
You couldn’t write a one-inch news story from them, never mind a column.
I kept asking Jim to give me five straight single-sentence priorities in the Stephen Harper style. As in: Cut the GST to 5%, and hand a $100-a-month child-care subsidy to families.
But, no, nothing but platitudes.
Then there were the people around Dinning, the high-priced hired help from the Ralph Klein regime and the former federal Progressive Conservatives. Patronage trough types.
Dinning, a heck of a likable fellow, just breezed along as if he had nothing to worry about.
But he did.
I must admit, I didn’t really start to think Dinning was definitely gonzo until the last week of the campaign, when he started to demonize contender Ted Morton.
That’s when he started to sound like Paul Martin savaging Stephen Harper.
Gutter politics.
Unbecoming of a gentleman like Dinning.
At that point, I thought Jim was finished. People don’t like those kind of tactics.
Now, I don’t know whether “Steady Eddie” Stelmach will be the Harry Strom of the 21st century or not, but my advice to Stelmach is this: Give not a single patronage contract to any political insider from the Klein regime, and don’t give any member of the Dinning campaign team a job.
Run a straight, clean shop.
That said, we’ll never see our next premier embarrassing us in public.
Which is surely a good omen.
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