Trudeau's Triumphant Comeback

A bumbling image and an austerity budget beat Joe Clark

"Well," declared Pierre Elliott Trudeau, "welcome to the 1980s." As supporters cheered his triumph in Canada's national elections last week, a moist-eyed Trudeau stood on the podium in the same ballroom of Ottawa's Chateau Laurier hotel where he had conceded defeat last May after eleven years as Prime Minister. A mere three months ago, he had announced his impending retirement from public life, acknowledging that he was no longer the leader to rebuild his shattered party or shape its solutions to the problems confronting Canada in the new decade.

It was an astonishing political resurrection. As leader of the Liberal Party, Trudeau not only won back his old job but did so in a fashion that left him undisputed master of both the party and of Canada's 32nd Parliament. This time the political obituaries were being written about the Tory government of Joe Clark, who at 39 had been the country's youngest Prime Minister ever and head of one of its shortest-lived governments (6 1/2 months). When the votes were tallied, Clark's Progressive Conservatives had dropped from 136 seats in the House of Commons to 103, while the Liberals increased their strength from 114 to 146. The socialist New Democrats picked up 32 seats, an increase of five; the Quebec-based Social Credit Party, which held five seats in the old Parliament, was wiped out.

The impressive Liberal tide began building in the four Atlantic provinces, then swept through the traditional Liberal bastion of Quebec, and into the industrial heartland of Ontario. By the time prairie voters turned on television to hear the results from the east, the Liberals had won 144 seats, two more than necessary to control the new House of Commons. From Manitoba west, however, the Liberals managed to win only two seats, thus leaving the country troublesomely divided along strict geographical lines.

The Tories went down to defeat dogged primarily by one issue: a proposed hike of 18-c- per gal. in gasoline taxes. The gas hike was the key article in the Tory budget that was rejected by Parliament last December--the immediate cause of elections. Said Secretary of State David MacDonald, one of three Clark ministers who lost their Commons seats: "There was a feeling we were administering castor oil; people never take very kindly to castor oil." Newfoundland's John Crosbie, the Finance Minister who conceived the budget, was bitter. Said he: "There has never been an election where you say to people, 'You should pay more,' and win."

Voters were also turned off by Clark's uncertain leadership and his image as a malaprop-spouting bumbler. "The media have done a number on me," complained Clark. "I frankly wasn't paying too much attention to it." By the time the campaign began, the country was awash with Joe Clark jokes, many of them crude and unfair. (Which of those two fellows in Santa Claus suits is Joe Clark? Answer: The one handing out Easter eggs.) The jokes were only part of the problem. Far more serious were Clark's inexperience in economics and foreign policy, and a string of broken campaign commitments.

The most publicized fiasco was Clark's promise that he would move the Canadian embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, the city where most Western countries, including the U.S., maintain their diplomatic missions. Clark's proposal was calculated to attract Jewish votes in several key Toronto districts, but once in office he backed down after Arab nations threatened economic reprisals against Canada. A pledge to lower taxes also went by the board when the Tories belatedly concluded that this would add to the government's deficit and stimulate inflation. To get off the hook, Clark claimed that the Liberals had left the country's finances in worse shape than he had imagined.

In retrospect, Tory insiders cite two errors that brought Clark's government to its unexpectedly early demise. Explains one Tory: "We took far too long to get our act together." Elected in May, Clark did not summon Parliament until October, the biggest such delay by a newly elected government in Canadian history. Clark sensibly wanted to give his new ministers time to learn their way around the unfamiliar corridors of power, since the Tories had not been in office since 1963. But by the time Parliament met, the Tories were already plummeting in the polls.

A more serious miscalculation was Clark's early decision to "govern as if we had a majority," even though the Tories, with 136 seats out of the total of 282, were five short of parliamentary control. Confidently assuming that Trudeau's political career was over and that the Liberals would not dare risk an election with a lame-duck leader, Clark brought out a belt-tightening budget, which Finance Minister Crosbie described as "short-term pain for long-term gain." The Tories did not even attempt to obtain the support of the Creditistes or the New Democrats, which could have kept them in power. When the three opposition parties joined in backing a New Democrat motion of no confidence after the budget had been presented, the Tories lost by three votes. Clark was forced into an election at a time when he was 20 points behind in the polls and when he had no choice but to campaign on a highly unpopular austerity budget.

Clark contended that his proposed total of $3.5 billion in tax increases was an essential step in bringing Ottawa's $11.2 billion spending deficit under control. He fought for his plan to raise the domestic price of oil by $4 a barrel from $13.75 this year. His goal, he said, was to encourage energy conservation as well as the development of new oil supplies. But the proposed oil price boost was seen in eastern Canada as a boondoggle for the oil producers of Clark's native Alberta. Ontario's Tory Premier William Davis publicly clashed with Clark, arguing that Alberta was going to be enriched at the expense of jobs and industry in Ontario. As a senior Liberal strategist put it, "Clark broke the first rule of minority governments--you do things for people, not to them."

Trudeau pledged in his campaign to abandon the recommended 18-c- tax as unfair to lower-income Canadians. Said he: "We would agree to a tough budget, but not one that is tough with the wrong people."

The former Prime Minister conducted a low-profile campaign, seeking to avoid arousing old antagonisms. He refused to debate Clark on television and held only one press conference. He managed to win without the endorsement of most of the country's major dailies (two exceptions: the Toronto Star and Montreal's La Presse) and over the objections of pundits who complained that he was running a cynical campaign by turning down requests for interviews and a television debate.

One immediate casualty of the election may be Clark's commitment to join the U.S. in boycotting the Moscow Olympics. Trudeau said that he would support the boycott only if it were backed by enough Western and Third World countries. Trudeau's major challenge will be to restore national unity. The first problem will be to reach an accommodation with Quebec, where a referendum on its future will probably be held in June. The governing Parti Quebecois wants outright political sovereignty for the province; Quebec's resurgent Liberals propose an amendment that would give the province more autonomy but also keep it within Canada.

Beyond that, Trudeau must find a way to salve an alienated western Canada that now finds itself without effective representation in the federal government. As the Montreal Gazette editorialized last week, "Canadians have given Mr. Trudeau a rare chance to end his career on a high note of accomplishment, rather than the sour anticlimax of last spring's defeat. It is his last and perhaps his greatest challenge."

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