Paul Martin's exploitation of Alberta's promised health reforms was the singularly most divisive tactic the Liberals used in the campaign. From the Toronto Star coverage;
The Prime Minister has been daring Klein to make his plans public and has accused the Conservative Alberta premier of cloaking his medicare-threat proposal in a bid to help his "silent partner," Conservative Leader Stephen Harper. Martin has been saying it was ominous that Klein, whom the Liberals described last week as a "public health menace," was proposing to release his plan on June 30, just two days after the federal election.
Well, congratulations Mr. Martin. It worked. You won. And now you get to back up your challenge that Harper wouldn't defend the Canada Health Act, and you get to back it up by taking on Alberta, just two days after your victory, and with your words fresh in the minds of the electorate.
This morning Ralph Klein unveiled the Alberta health reforms. There are some pretty drastic changes, including a user pay scheme and a 50% cut to health spending growth.
He accused the federal Liberals of cutting the public system on one hand, while delivering empty promises on how to sustain it."They keep saying they'll save medicare but they don't say how," he said as he rolled his eyes."The bottom line is we still need substantive system reform, and we need to know where the federal government stands."
After making the sanctity of public health care front and center in his campaign, what bigger political landmine than to face parliament at war with Alberta over the Canada Health Act, but unable to directly engage Klein about it (consultation period, Mr. Martin) - with the BQ on the side of defending provincial rights to control of health delivery and the NDP demanding he put the hammer down?
Balls in your court, Martin. Let's see what you're made of.
You know, if this were the US, and these were Republicans I'd almost be thinking a Rove rope-a-dope here.
Update Well, considering the breathless reporting of this story when it hit the airwaves, I wondered why there was no scramble to get Paul Martin's take. And then, why such a bland response from the feds. I know that had these details been released prior to the election, they would have been agressively denounced. Today, there's not so much as a whimper and some snark from Roy Romanow.
Colby has more. And an interesting scenerio. Stephen Harper as premier of Alberta? I hope he's right.
But strictly on tactics, it was Ralph who handed this gift to the liberals. Any decent politician is going to use the fear of the unknown that Klein's original release generated.
Any smart approach by conservatives towards the healthcare issue should clearly state 2 things, simply for tactical reasons, we are not going towards an American system (American conservatives would agree that their system is not one you would want to build from scratch - unless you are quite wealthy) and secondly any reform of healthcare will include universal catastrophic coverage. Your life savings won't drain away because of the bad luck of bad genes.
And you still have to prepare the electorate for this approach.
Posted by: Tom at June 30, 2004 5:07 PMPut his gift in the context of a nearly sure thing minority government and another election on the horizon.
Although, as the day wears on it's being spun as being complaint with the act. I don't know how. Klein himself said he was willing to forgo federal funding of health care in his province if that's what it took to get his reforms in. That doesn't sound like a man who wasn't ready for a fight.
I think Canada could have handled the Klein healthcare flap -or- the kiddie porn attacks and still voted in a conservative minority - but not both. There had already been so much the electorate had been asked to ignore.
The combonation of everything the so-cons said during the campaign (including stuff the idiot press dragged up from long before the election call) just put too much fear into my fellow Ontarians.
A pity really - we needed Harper in power.
Posted by: Andrew at June 30, 2004 6:30 PMYou western conservatives should really read this post from the Blogs Canada Eblog and seriously contemplate what it says if you ever want to see a CP majority in this country.
Posted by: Robert McClelland at June 30, 2004 6:43 PMWhat I want to see is Ontario gone. Period.
Posted by: Sean at July 1, 2004 12:58 AMYeah Robert, for the most part it's a bunch of people talking about how friendly various parts of the country are.
A friend in Kitchener has her own opinion. After finding out one of her employees was so turned off by the Toronto gay pride parade that he voted Liberal, she said that the only way the Conservatives would win in Ontario is to gear their campaign to a 6th grade education.
Considering the complete absense of anything but scaremongering by the last 4 weeks of the Liberal campaign, I think she's right.
Posted by: Kate at July 1, 2004 8:46 AM