54. Missing election themes and details

Unpublished
14 May 1997

Your editorial, Debate is solitary, government is collective (May 14) warns that “this is not a presidential election”. It is not so much that we do not know the other Tories who are running that makes the executive analogy so apt but that the Clintonesque Charest has an emphatic strategic plan for everything, and, where it counts most in moderating the power of the over-privileged, a practical solution for nothing. Given the media person power watching and analyzing the federal election, it is significant that so many major themes and details escape notice.
Set against the history of televised debates, all of the party leaders — given their specific handicaps of records, platforms and personal styles — performed equally well. During the English debate even wary electoral voyeurs were rewarded with sufficient slips and slaps. Who caught Alexa McDonough slipping with “we should be cutting jobs” (she meant to say unemployment)? And who noticed Jean Charest illustrate one of his many five-point plans by miscounting and mispelling on the digits of one hand: “I would, a)...., 2)...., 3)..., 5)....?” My favorite slap was the ignored allegation of Gilles Duceppe accusing Finance Minister Martin, absent shipping line company owner, of avoiding a fair share of domestic corporate taxes by the common industry practice of having vessels registered in offshore, regulation–lax countries.
Despite the media “reality checks”, nowhere in this election have journalists or party leaders given enough credit to Don Mazonkowski. It was this Finance Minister who lit the fires of social and cultural spending cuts (remember the rarely mentioned Tory federal budget where the goal over five or so years was zero selective programme spending?) even if it was a Liberal government who subsequently poured on the gasoline.