The Election That Nobody Won

CANADA'S Prime Minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, flashed across the political firmament four years ago as the most magnetic leader since John F. Kennedy. He was cool, intellectual, aloof and telegenic--and, said his critics, arrogant. Last week it was a considerably humbled Trudeau who appeared at a nationally televised press conference. In a direct and stinging rebuke, Canadian voters had stripped his Liberal government of its majority in the 264-seat House of Commons and, as Trudeau put it, "conveyed to me and my colleagues that there have been failures." Now he announced his intention of calling Parliament into session next month, and counting on the cooperation of opposition parties to keep his government in office.

Mess. That sudden change in Trudeau's political fortunes was caused by the strangest election result that Canadians had ever imposed upon themselves. At week's end, with several closely contested constituencies scheduled to undergo recounts, the two largest parties seemed, incredibly, to be tied with 109 seats each. The Progressive Conservatives, led by Robert Stanfield, had won nearly all their seats in English-speaking provinces; Trudeau's Liberals were elected principally in French-speaking Quebec. The rest were divided among the socialist-oriented New Democratic Party (30), the right-wing populist Social Credit Party (14) and independents (2). As the Toronto Sun headlined the morning after the election: WHAT A MESS.

The mess could fairly be blamed on Trudeau, who had somehow managed to turn voters off in the course of an eight-week campaign of seemingly calculated indifference. He picked as his theme "the integrity of Canada," a precise but passionless way of declaring his opposition to Quebec separatism, and as his slogan "the land is strong," which is practically meaningless. He could not, it seemed, communicate any sense of concern over Canada's appallingly high unemployment rate of 7.1 %. As a Cabinet colleague cynically put it, Trudeau was simply unable to "bleed a little" for the electorate. At the same time, the Prime Minister scraped the bottom of pork-barrel politics, promising such "goodies," or so he called them, as a wharf for Yarmouth, N.S., new port facilities for Halifax and a federal park for Toronto. The effect on the voters was evident at the polls. Early in the campaign the Liberals were favored by 44% of the voters who had made up their minds, while 31% were for the Conservatives, 25% for the New Democrats and others; but 11% remained undecided. By the end of the campaign, the undecideds had increased to 17% --and most of them chose in the polling booth to vote for the Tories.

As the underdog, Stanfield (see box, page 35) waged a considerably more aggressive campaign than the Prime Minister did, traveling more than 70,000 miles across the land to Trudeau's 27,000. The Tory leader also addressed himself to the issues of unemployment, inflation and the "work ethic," thereby winning a backlash vote against unemployment-insurance benefits of up to $100 a week, which many Canadians consider too generous. To his credit, Stanfield did nothing to exploit another, far uglier backlash--against the enhanced role that Trudeau has given French Canadians and their language in the government of Canada. Early in the campaign, a woman in Victoria loudly urged Stanfield "to get rid of that Frenchman in Ottawa." Stanfield's quick reply: "There are many good reasons for getting rid of Mr. Trudeau, but that is not one of them."

Nonetheless, some Tory candidates were not above denouncing "French power," as Trudeau called it. The Prime Minister's first priority was to persuade Quebeckers to stay within the Confederation. To that end he had given fellow French Canadians important ministries in Ottawa and had tried to make the federal government bilingual in fact as well as in name. Quebeckers responded last week by giving him a massive endorsement: 57 of the province's 74 constituencies. A separatist "anti-campaign" urging them not to vote at all was a dismal failure.

But Trudeau, in part because of his personal foibles and failings, was unable to carry English-speaking Canada with him, and wound up with only 52 seats in the rest of the country. The magic of Trudeaumania, as it was called in 1968, flared only momentarily; for many voters, it had turned into Trudeauphobia. One weary organizer in Ontario summed up the vote in what was probably the proper order: "It was antigovernment, anti-Trudeau, anti-unemployment, and anti-French Canadian." Stanfield won 107 seats in English Canada but only two in Quebec. Thus the most ominous outcome of the election was that each of the two major parties now represents only one side of Canada's historic ethnic division.

Making his hard decision last week, Trudeau faced a limited number of options. He could have dissolved the new Parliament and called another election immediately, at the risk of incurring the anger of voters who have had their fill of politicking. Instead, he decided to meet Parliament and try to win the support of a majority of the members--specifically of the New Democrats, who now hold the balance of power. Their leader, David Lewis, 63, waged a hard-fought campaign against what he called "corporate welfare bums"--meaning companies that take government tax concessions and grants without creating new jobs in return. Lewis last week refused to enter any coalition and set a price for the party's support: higher old-age pensions, tough action to curb price increases (but not wages), massive government spending to stimulate employment and tax reforms to ease the burden for individuals and increase it for corporations.

If Trudeau eventually finds that price too high, he can always in effect hand the government over to Stanfield, who has now established himself as a highly credible alternative. Despite the party labels, Canada's Conservatives are slightly to the left of the Liberals in domestic affairs. Stanfield might get along with the New Democrats more easily than would Trudeau, at least until the next election.

Disadvantage. That could well come in the spring. Until then, Canadians have assured themselves of a minority government--a familiar and not necessarily unfortunate state of affairs. There have been five minority governments in Canada since 1957, arid most of them were responsive to the voters in a way that Trudeau and his Cabinet were not. The difficulty this time is that Ottawa faces tough trade negotiations with Washington soon after the U.S. election; a Canadian Prime Minister without a clear mandate would be at a particularly severe disadvantage in dealing with a President.

Immediately after last week's vote, much of Canadians' speculation about the political future focused on Trudeau himself. Would his combative instincts be aroused by the voters' rebuff? Or might he, in a fit of pique, quit politics altogether, an ever-present possibility? (In that case, his colleagues would probably choose Finance Minister John Turner as Liberal leader.) Equally fascinating was the question of what might have been. What would have been the result if Trudeau had been a touch less arrogant or more evidently understanding of the problems of ordinary Canadians? Or if he had been as animated on platforms in Ontario as he was in Quebec? Or if he had been more conventional in his personal style (after the election he wore a buckskin jacket to call on Governor General Roland Michener)? As Trudeau had once put it, "The only constant factor to be found in my thinking over the years has been opposition to accepted opinion." This time it was the other way round, and accepted opinion--personified by Canada's M.P.s --had the option of casting Trudeau into opposition whenever it chose.

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