Editorial

The Crisis of Leadership in the Liberal Party

The withdrawal of John Manley from the Liberal Party leadership race means that the November Liberal leadership convention has now been reduced to a coronation of Paul Martin as Canada's next prime minister. Manley's withdrawal from the race was based on his estimation that Martin had such a commanding lead in delegate support that he could not possibly win. Although Martin's overwhelming lead has been obvious to everyone for at least a year, Manley still repeatedly pledged that he would stay in the race anyhow, because he wanted to present an alternate "vision" for Canada.

The machinations within the Liberal party in the course of the campaign to replace Jean Chretien as leader have actually exposed the fact that neither John Manley, nor Paul Martin, nor anyone else in the Liberal party, has a vision for Canada, or at least not one which they would wish to share with Canadians. Manley's withdrawal merely confirms the fact that the Liberal party is not interested in a vision. It is only interested in winning and maintaining power. Paul Martin's support from the Bay Street financial oligarchy long ago guaranteed not only that he would be the next leader of the Liberal party but that he would also win the next federal election, expected next year. For the Liberal party, that is all that matters.

Of course, Bay Street left nothing to chance. These financial oligarchs not only filled Martin's campaign chest with money to ensure that he could out-advertise all other rivals, they also seized control of the Liberal Party national apparatus as well as several provincial party organizations. This control enabled them to stack the delegate selection process in Martin's favour, guaranteeing that there could be no chance upset of their champion. In this way, a handful of millionaires and billionaires has decided on behalf of all Canadians who will be their next prime minister.

The farcical nature of this leadership race has exacerbated the underlying crisis of leadership in the Liberal party which will continue to deepen and broaden in the months and years to come. This crisis is a reflection of the crisis which has gripped the entire Canadian electoral system since the failure of the Charlottetown Accord in 1992 and the subsequent collapse of the Mulroney Conservatives in 1993. Underlying this crisis of leadership are a crisis of credibility and a crisis of accountability.

One of the features of this crisis is that the Canadian electoral politics has become profoundly apolitical. Elections have been stripped of any relevance and reduced to media campaigns. Even the pretence of democracy is slipping away as the parliamentary parties prove through their practice that they owe their allegiance, not to the Canadian people, but to the financial oligarchs. Paul Martin's main credentials are that he has always listened to the Bay Street financiers and that they trust him to do their bidding. He proved this in his support for Free Trade. He proved it again when he took up the demand of the financial oligarchy to cut social spending and transfer the savings to them in the form of "paying down the debt".

This is not to say that some other choice as Liberal leader would have made the slightest difference in terms of policies. After all, Liberals know very well that their continued success depends precisely on the support of those millionaires and billionaires who have "elected" Martin. However, someone with a less open attachment to Bay Street may have succeeded in fostering illusions about who is actually running the country. As it is, Martin's crowning as Liberal leader and next prime minister is a virtual guarantee that the political crisis gripping Canada will further escalate.