"A Hollow Victory"

June 4, 2003

The aftermath of a political party’s leadership race is complicated enough.  Mending fences and uniting the membership behind a new leader is no easy task.  Most new leaders take immediate conciliatory steps to build working relationships with any enemies they’ve made.  But for Peter MacKay, the new leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, the most difficult struggle will be dealing with the new ‘friend’ he made in his race for power.  

Mr. MacKay’s bizarre last-minute agreement with fellow leadership candidate David Orchard has shocked and angered Tory members and many of Mr. MacKay’s own supporters.  For the rest of Canadians, the dramatic ‘ending-with-a-twist’ to the Tory leadership convention this past weekend simply demonstrates that the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada continues to operate as it did in the past – through secret backroom deals that put the quest for power before principles.    

David Orchard is an ardent anti-free trade crusader.  Something rather ironic when you consider that many Canadians believe the North American Free Trade Agreement to be the only worthwhile policy the Tories and Brian Mulroney implemented while in power from 1984-1993.   

In order to secure Mr. Orchard’s support on the final ballot, Mr. MacKay, who has clearly stated his support for free trade, entered into a written agreement with Mr. Orchard to review NAFTA and to shun attempts at electoral co-operation with the Canadian Alliance.

I had the opportunity to get to know Mr. MacKay very well when several of my colleagues and I formed a Parliamentary coalition with the Tory MPs in 2001.  Mr. MacKay was the coalition’s House Leader and I was its Chief Whip.  For seven months, we worked closely together and I came to respect him personally and professionally.  This is why I find his deal with Mr. Orchard particularly surprising and disappointing. 

While Mr. MacKay may have helped to prove that a parliamentary coalition against the Liberals could succeed, it’s an electoral coalition that’s necessary to unseat the Liberals in the next federal election. 

It is this hope of an electoral coalition between the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance that is now threatened by the MacKay-Orchard deal.  If Mr. MacKay is intent upon honouring his ill-conceived pact with Mr. Orchard, overtures by Canadian Alliance leader Stephen Harper are bound to be rebuffed. 

That’s bad news for the Tories and it’s bad news for Canadians who fear that continued vote-splitting in Eastern Canada will once again leave this country stuck with an ethically-challenged and policy-barren Liberal government.  In fact, the MacKay/Orchard victory actually managed to extract an uncharacteristically clear and accurate comment from Prime Minister Jean Chrétien who said, “I think it’s great for the Liberal Party.” 

Canadians deserve, and are increasingly demanding, a credible, national alternative to the governing Liberals.  The Canadian Alliance is prepared to offer them one, with or without a Tory coalition.  Mr. MacKay could have been the catalyst to jolt the Progressive Conservative party into facing today’s political reality.  Instead, his poor judgement has reminded Canadians why the Tories were nearly rendered extinct in the first place.