. . . Canada Prefers the Familiar

Canadians, like their American neighbors, have shown they want to be governed from the middle. Prime Minister Jean Chretien, after a mercifully short five-week campaign, Monday won another term in office and widened his Liberal Party’s majority in Parliament. He took a big gamble, calling the election early in hope of cashing in on the country’s economic prosperity, and it paid off handsomely. The election, however, was more a referendum on Liberal Party policies that helped Canada turn bulging budget deficits into a surplus than on the popularity of Chretien himself.

Voters rejected the right-wing policies of Alliance leader Stockwell Day that called for shifting more power to the provinces and reopening a highly divisive debate over abortion and the death penalty. They also didn’t buy Day’s conservative social agenda, which would strip tax-exempt status from a native population living on reservations and bestow large tax cuts on the well-to-do.

Chretien’s third consecutive electoral victory constitutes a triumph last achieved in 1945. Many Canadians believe the prime minister should be preparing for a graceful exit sometime during his five-year term to allow the more popular Finance Minister Paul Martin to lead the Liberals into the next election.

Scoring heavily in Ontario, their traditional power base, and gaining ground in the Atlantic provinces and Quebec, the Liberals widened their lead to 173 seats from 161 in the 301-member House of Commons. The rival Canadian Alliance gained eight seats for a total of 66, just enough to wear the mantle of the official opposition. However, it remains largely a political power of the western provinces.

Bloc Quebecois, the driving power behind the movement for Quebec’s secession, lost steam and seven of its 44 parliamentary seats, an indication that the French-speaking province’s appetite for independence is continuing to wane.

In his first campaign, in 1993, Chretien ran on a pledge to keep his distance from Washington and to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement to improve Canada’s access to energy markets and blunt U.S. “dumping” laws, among other things. But in office, he developed a close friendship with President Clinton and, instead of reopening NAFTA, became a strong advocate of free trade with the United States and Mexico. The trading partnership is likely to continue no matter who occupies the White House in the next four years.

Though his political skills are keen, Chretien has come under growing criticism for his intolerance of independent thought even within his party and for a lack of fresh ideas. His popularity has fallen, and at least one leading newspaper called on him to resign the leadership of his party. Whether he does step down before his term expires will be his choice. Meanwhile, his party’s centrist policies and responsible management of Canada’s finances won a resounding endorsement. Chretien rightly deserves credit for that.