Which election is the real thing? - Canadian election

National Review, Nov 25, 1988 by Donald Coxe

CANADIANS are used to having their political affairs regarded abroad-if at all-as being of modest significance. Thus, few Canadians seem greatly concerned that few Americans seem greatly concerned about the outcome of the Canadian election on November 21. Why should Americans take note when the decisive phases of the Canadian election are being drowned out by the sounds of the Real Thing?

And yet, a reasonable case can be made for the proposition, not only that this election is the most important in decades for Canada, but that its outcome has enormous longer-range implications for the competitiveness-or even the survival-of major sectors of American industry as well.

This unique prominence comes because implementation of the U.S./Canada Free Trade accord depends on the re-election of Brian Mulroney's Tories with a majority government. Both opposition parties-the Liberals and the socialist NDP-have sworn to abrogate the pact, which was one of the Reagan Administration's top economic goals. It was approved by the Tory-dominated House of Commons, but then imperiled because the non-elected, mostly Liberal Senate held it up, in a constitutionally controversial stand designed to force an election.

Pre-election polls showed that more Canadians accepted the Free Trade pact than rejected it. With that backing, and with evidence of serious internal divisions within the Liberal ranks, Mulroney called the election. Early polls showed that his timing was good: going into the late-October marathon TV debates (in both French and English), the Tories were riding high at 43 per cent of the vote, more than enough for a landslide win and the ratification of Free Trade.

Canadian TV debates are three-hour spectacles, commanding overwhelming national audiences, because, unlike the controlled, antiseptic American models, these are real debates in which the personalities and credibilities of the challengers are displayed under genuine combat situations.

The debates were a disaster for Mulroney, turning what should have been victory with perceived ease into struggle with perceived sleaze. Liberal leader John Turner and Socialist NDP leader Ed Broadbent managed to touch the perennial deep chord of Canadian doubt about deals with the giant to the South, and Mulroney came off as a slick used-car salesman trying to push a product with limited roadworthiness.

At this writing, the Liberals have moved to a lead in the polls. However, many analysts doubt these polls and still think the Tories have a chance at a majority. What's at stake?

A Bush win, followed by a Tory majority in Canada, would trigger a momentous binational construction program as major corporations tooled up for the new world of the 1990s. That promises to be a world divided among three great coalitions of ftee-market economies-the three trading zones that last year accounted for 22 per cent of world GNP each (Europe, Canada & the U.S., and the new Southeast Asia CoProsperity Sphere). Nations not belonging to one of these three clubs would find themselves making rather desperate catch-up efforts.

When the European Economic Community voted in February to create a single market-a true Common Market of 12 nations-this vote set off the biggest wave of mergers, spinoffs, takeovers and consolidations in history. Companies are scrambling to get world-class production and distribution organizations in place before the cocoons of protectionism unravel. North America can also expect a spectacular era of rationalizations, mergers, and overall productivity gains if the Free Trade agreement is ratified. Without it, we would be helpless in the face of the storms resulting when the new competitive winds from Europe meet the strong winds from the Pacific over North America.

The Free Trade accord has galvanized the Canadian Left into an all-out campaign-and the one hope is that the strident anti-Americanism of this coast-tocoast demagogy could backfire, making even the dubious Mulroney look credible by comparison. By screaming that the pact dooms Canada to becoming a mere colony of the United States, the NDP and the Liberals are following the risky strategy of introducing the Big Lie into a society with a long tradition of fighting its political battles with tolerance and restraint.

THE STAKES are therefore huge. If Canadians reject Free Trade, American and Canadian companies will be handicapped because of limited domestic markets. If, on the other hand, they support it, the capital investment needed to create the big, productive new plants would come along just in time to meet the new foreign competition.

No wonder Ronald Reagan and James Baker fought so hard to save the deal when Canadian negotiators were losing heart in the face of hysterical domestic opposition. No wonder this election counts. Big. Republican Party that has been fielding the most attractive black candidates. Indeed, Alan Keyes, who ran for the Senate in Maryland, was one of the most attractive Republican candidates, period. The thaw that began in the academy with courageous intellectuals like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams is spreading slowly into the political arena.