by Paul Martin
It is clear that acts or omissions by the police may intentionally or otherwise have an influence upon the electoral process, which would subvert democracy. Any such real or perceived negative influence could also break the trust between citizens and the police that is essential to maintaining the rule of law in a civilized society.
That this calumny fell on the head of Ralph Goodale, a man whose absolute integrity over a long political career is unimpeachable, even legendary, only added to the injustice. Ralph immediately offered me his resignation, not because he had any responsibility to do so, but because he did not want to become a millstone around the neck of the campaign. I immediately rejected the suggestion. But I also knew from the moment the story hit that this could turn the campaign on its head and cost us the election. The absolutely vacuous and malignant suggestion that Ralph, the minister of finance, might have done something improper destroyed our attempts to distance ourselves from the scandals of the previous government. After all, this was coming from the Mounties!
We know now that the RCMP investigation, completed long after the election, absolutely cleared Ralph, as well as other ministers of any wrongdoing. Only one low-ranking public servant was ever charged, and the allegation against him was not that he had leaked sensitive information but that he may have personally profited from advance knowledge of the income trust announcement with a small personal trade, which couldn’t possibly have affected the market.
Before I pass from this appalling affair, let me say as clearly as I can that I do not think that Zaccardelli’s behaviour reflects in any way on the professionalism of the women and men of the RCMP. As prime minister I had especially close contact with RCMP officers who looked after Sheila and me twenty-four hours a day. We got to know them personally. Believe it or not, when we tried to organize a Christmas party for them and their families at 24 Sussex, Zaccardelli forbade it as improper fraternizing. We held it anyway, but not at our home the first year. The second Christmas, we said to heck with Zaccardelli, and had them round to 24 Sussex, as we wished to do.
My deepest feeling about the rank and file of the RCMP were captured in my brief address to the memorial service after the tragic deaths of four officers at Mayerthorpe, Alberta, in the late winter of 2005:
We use the word debt to remind us of something owed. The people of Canada owe an untold debt to these four officers and to their families. We owe a debt to each and every woman and man who chooses to put on the uniform, to submit to risk, to face harm, to uphold the law. The presence here of so many police officers, from cities and communities across the continent, is a testament to the camaraderie and the devotion that thrives within the law enforcement community. The bonds forged by dangers shared are strong and they are everlasting.
That memorial was one of the most moving occasions I experienced in public office, and I would never want failures of leadership to undermine the reverence we Canadian have for our Mounties.
In terms of the election, in the case of Ralph’s own riding — among the people who knew him best — the Zaccardelli-inspired announcement actually created a backlash among voters in his favour. Unfortunately, in the rest of the country that was not the case. Not by a long shot. For the most part, polling organizations had suspended their calls over the New Year’s weekend, but a few days into January, the news hit that we were lagging the Tories for the first time in the campaign. With that, the media had a new and more exciting narrative. Instead of a boring story about an election headed to producing a carbon copy of the last one, they had an exciting new tale to tell: “Tories on their way to government.” Our carefully crafted strategy of saving our detailed platform for after the Christmas break now came undone.
Let me just say a few words here about the media. The brilliant, erratic, and controversial British politician Enoch Powell once remarked that a politician complaining about the media is like a sailor complaining about the sea. I have tried to keep that idea in mind while writing this book. The truth is that I have had several distinct periods in my relationship with the media. After the 1995 budget, and then again after I “got quit” from Jean Chrétien’s cabinet, I enjoyed very favourable media coverage. At the time, naturally enough, I was inclined to think that it was a tribute to the sagacity of the media that they saw things so clearly. Of course, I knew, as did those around me who dealt with communications, that this would not last forever. Indeed, the favourable coverage in the period when I was out of government, I fully understood, raised expectations for when I became prime minister, which would be difficult, if not impossible, to meet.
Still, in the last weeks of the campaign I found it frustrating that we could not generate any interest in the ideas I had hoped the election would be about. I had insisted that we go into this election with a detailed list of commitments that were carefully costed. They included, for example, commitments to pay half of every university student’s tuition in his or her first and graduating years; to add one thousand family doctors to our health-care system, and establish a national cancer strategy; to double spending on child care; to continue with sensible tax relief that would emphasize the needs of low-income families; to provide action and leadership, domestically and internationally, toward achieving the Kyoto targets on greenhouse gas emissions, and then beyond. I could go on.
As I said before, we had deliberately left our detailed policy announcements until the New Year. We had also reserved much of our advertising budget for that period, intending to talk most specifically to Canadians at a time in the election campaign when we expected they would be listening most carefully. The income trust story, however, obliterated any interest in what we had to say. Moreover, our platform was leaked — some claimed by hostile elements within the Liberal Party — so that the dominant news story became one about internal disarray in the Liberal organization, instead of what we intended to do if we were re-elected — a matter that in theory, at least, should be of at least equal importance to the voters.
Finally, some of the choices the media made during the leadership debates were truly puzzling. There were four debates among the party leaders, two in English and two in French. In each of these debates, we were told ahead of time that the moderator asking the questions would select four issues from the following list, the economy, governance, national unity, the environment, social policy, and foreign affairs. When the first debate passed without foreign affairs, or the environment, coming up, I was certain that they were holding them for the second debate or later. We were just moving our troops into more forward positions in Afghanistan, and this was obviously going to be a major challenge for the next government, whoever won. I was also keen to talk about the role we were playing in Darfur. Meanwhile, the environment was one of the issues about which voters were most concerned, and we had just sponsored a major international conference on the subject.
When there were no questions about foreign affairs or the environment in the second debate, which occurred before Christmas, who would have believed that these issues would not have been front and centre in the final two debates to come in the new year? They were also issues where we had a clear advantage over the opposition parties, as opposed to the sponsorship issue, which had been the main focus of the debate organizers before Christmas. Thus you can imagine my puzzlement when the issues raised in the last two were exactly the same as the first round, and there was not a single question on Canada’s role in the world or the environment, both issues which were of prime concern to Canadians. Not one, in four debates.
Just after the New Year, I made a commitment in one of the debates that I had been thinking about for a long time, which was to repeal Ottawa’s ability to use the notwithstanding clause in the Canadian Constitution. Tom Axworthy and Serge Joyal helped me craft my proposal. The notwithstanding clause allows Ottawa and the provinces to add language to legislation overriding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As I discussed earlier, initially I had supported the clause, believing that it protected the supremacy of Parl
iament and the legislatures — a prized value in a democracy. But respect for human rights is also an important value, and I came to the view that a parliamentary majority overriding the rights of a minority, which the courts had ruled were entrenched in the charter, was wrong. Later on I became increasingly concerned that the Conservatives were planning to use the notwithstanding clause to remove rights that the courts had adjudicated to exist. In retrospect, trying to launch this debate in the midst of an election campaign, as I did, was not very effective and the idea sank like a stone. The communication may have been faulty but I truly believe the principle is right.
The deeper we slogged into January, the gloomier my organizers got about our hopes of turning the election around. But we kept trying. We had succeeded under similar circumstances in the 2004 campaign. As often happens with candidates, I was more hopeful than many of those around me, if only because I had to be. Having Sheila by my side kept my spirits up and the campaign in perspective. Strategic Counsel had published polls that suggested we were headed to a disaster on a scale the party had not seen since 1984. I was convinced the situation was better than that. However, I was not surprised, when mid afternoon of election day, David Herle came to see me in our suite at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal with his last analysis. “Look,” he said, “we aren’t going to win; we aren’t going to pull it off.” He was very matter of fact. David thought we would come in around a hundred seats (which proved to be almost dead-on), with a worst-case scenario of eighty seats.
I spoke first to Sheila and said that I was going to have to make a decision. I was determined that if I decided to go, I would do it quickly: that night. It was one of her many gifts of love over a lifetime that she, who never chose politics, took this moment to make certain I was making the right decision. “Are you sure?” she asked. “We’ll move to Stornoway. We can take our time.” Paul and David were with their mother. Jamie, who never had much enthusiasm for politics, was the most adamant that I go right away. “Now you can do what you want,” he said.
Clearly the country was going to be in other hands. The issue was what would be best for the party. I chatted with Elly Alboim, Mike Robinson, Tim Murphy, Scott Reid, Jim Pimblett, David Herle, Michele Cadario, and Terrie. As often happened, David and Terrie were on opposite sides, with Terrie arguing that I should make a clean break and go. David, arguing for himself and the campaign team — John Webster, Lucienne Robillard and Karl Littler — made the case for staying on. I also consulted Mike Eizenga, our very able party president, who had been with me for the last couple of weeks of the campaign and who contributed the party perspective. But in the end, advisers can’t make a decision for you — especially on a matter like this. It was up to me. I felt that the best way for the party to start fresh was with a new leader, unencumbered with the legacy of the split between me and Jean Chrétien, free of the deadweight of sponsorship, and able to present a fresh face in a way that I had wanted to.
As difficult as that day was in many respects, I did not find the decision a hard one to make. And as it happened, it was that very day that Sheila and I also received some of the most joyful news of our lives: David and Laurence were going to give us our first grandchild! There was also another silver lining for me personally. I would dearly have loved another three or four years to see through what I had started. But I had been in politics for eighteen years, and in government for most of that. There are wonderful rewards in public life: accomplishments unattainable anywhere else. But after a while, you wonder about seeing life at thirty thousand feet. It’s sort of nice to see it from the ground. It was time to move on.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Fast Forward
I had been scheduled to attend the World Summit on Progressive Governance in South Africa, just a few days after the election, along with other government leaders including Britain’s Tony Blair, Brazil’s Lula da Silva, South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, and Sweden’s Goran Persson. As a former prime minister now, I sent my regrets. But both Blair, who was one of the founders of the group, and Mbeki, who was host, phoned and insisted I come. And I thought, Why not?
The summit was held at the Didimala Game Lodge in lovely country side about an hour’s drive from Pretoria. The conference centre has an unusual organic design, made from brick and straw bales. I knew most of the leaders at the meeting reasonably well, and the discussion, which was on familiar topics including African development and the stalled Doha round of international trade negotiations, went quite well. There was one man at the table whom I did not know, and who didn’t say very much, so as we left one of the sessions I went over to introduce myself and we ended up having lunch together.
His name was Joachim Chissano, and he was the former president of Mozambique. He had quite a story. Chissano was the first black student to attend the high school in Maputo, the capital of what was then a Portuguese colony. He travelled to Portugal to study medicine, but his studies were ended abruptly because of his political activities. He became an activist for the Liberation Front of Mozambique (Frelimo), the Mozambique independence movement, and later a diplomat and a prominent moderating influence on the organization. He returned to Mozambique and lived many years in the bush as a commander in the liberation struggle, rising to the rank of major general. He played a key role in negotiating independence from Portugal in 1975 and became the country’s first foreign minister. When he became president in 1986, the country was in the middle of a civil war, which he was able to bring to an end in 1992 after sixteen years of fighting. He created a multi-party system in Mozambique, won two elections as president, and then did a very unusual thing in African history: he voluntarily stepped aside, even though the Constitution would have allowed him to run again. He later received the first-ever African award for achievement in government: a $5-million prize bestowed by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to encourage good governance in a continent that has often suffered from its absence.
He had done more in each year of his existence than many people do in a lifetime. Just let me say that I don’t think I’d volunteer to take to the stage beside him on Career Day. But as it would happen, our post-political lives would soon bring us together in an un expected way.
From South Africa, Sheila and I headed to Turkey. On the second last day of that short trip, we ended up in Izmir (formerly Smyrna) on the Aegean Coast. During this visit, we had been assigned two Turkish police bodyguards.
After we checked into the hotel about four in the afternoon and went to our room, the bellboy brought up our luggage. I tipped him, he said thank you, and I was a bit surprised when he hesitated to leave the room.
Then he said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” I said.
“I’m a graduate student in international relations at the university here in Izmir,” he said. “I wonder whether you could come and speak at the university.”
I told him that we were leaving at eleven the next morning, but he said that was okay. He would organize something for eight. I found it hard to believe he could arrange much at such short notice, but he assured me it would be no problem.
When I came downstairs the next morning, instead of two bodyguards there were a dozen. When I got to the university, where I had expected perhaps twenty students, there were more like three hundred, rounded up no doubt through a network of text-message exchanges. And more police.
This was at the height of the controversy about the cartoons of Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper, and it turned out there was a huge interest in hearing from an ex-prime minister of a Western country — however distant you might imagine Canada must have seemed to them.
I spoke for twenty minutes about foreign affairs, and then we went to a question-and-answer session that went on for an hour and a half. We covered all kinds of topics, but primarily they drilled me on the cartoons. What frustrated many of the students was the failure of people in the West to understand the anguish the publication of the cartoons had caused even to secular peopl
e such as themselves. Surprisingly, some others believed that the whole cartoon controversy had been deliberately provoked to stir up anti-Muslim feeling and to prejudice Turkey’s bid to enter the European Union.
I told them that I thought the publication had been more than discourteous and showed a profound lack of sensitivity to Muslim feeling. But I also said that they needed to understand that Western traditions included the right to say and even publish things that might offend some people in the deepest way.
In the end, what impressed me the most was that the students really tried to understand both sides of the controversy, while their professors seemed reluctant to do so. One observation I have made over the years is that the biggest challenge in international relations is often not simply reconciling different points of view. Often the biggest difficulty is getting people to understand the origins of those points of view that are different than their own, something that is often an essential first step in coming to agreement. For cultural or ideological reasons people of influence who ought to know better often appear incapable of understanding where the other side are coming from — and even more to the point, they lack the desire to do so. This was the attitude manifested by the professors, but not the students. It may be that as my generation passes from the scene, things will improve.
By the time I returned home from this trip (which also included a few days in Portugal to golf), I had confirmed this much about my “third career.” After business and politics there was a lot I still wanted to do, and it didn’t include professional golf.
I have said before that I have a tendency not to look back but rather to throw myself into each stage of my life, whatever it is, and let what has passed drop very much into the background. In this case, it is not as if I did not have regrets about leaving the job as prime minister. I did. Those regrets included the fact that some terrific people didn’t return to Parliament because we didn’t win. And clearly I was — and am — deeply disappointed that I wasn’t able to conclude the agenda I had laid out for myself in government. As time has passed, I have been aghast at what the Harper government has done in walking away from the Kelowna Accord, our child-care agreements, and our role in the world. I have also been deeply troubled by the degree to which this government has been willing to put at risk the fiscal achievements of the previous decade.
