Week one of the election: where are the crowds?

By Don Martin
Canwest News Service

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and his wife Janine Krieber depart Vancouver, British Columbia for Ottawa following the first week of the federal election campaign. (Andy Clark/Reuters)

VICTORIA - Ignoring flight-attendant orders to take his seat, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion stood engrossed in an animated discussion at the front of the campaign's time-worn 737 on its final approach into Vancouver late Thursday night.

It had been a gruelling travel day. He'd been flying for six hours with one refuelling touchdown in Thunder Bay after daybreak and luncheon events earlier in Saint John, N.B.

The back half of his plane was rocking with campaign staff and journalists swaying down the aisle in search of refills, with much spillage on the way back. Security guards shed their bulletproof vests, their holstered handguns on slightly squeamish "what-if-that-thing-goes-off" display.

But the most striking image belonged to Dion, still in a buttoned-up dark suit and vest with a tie up tight to the neck. This guy clearly doesn't dress to relax.

That's just the fashion contrast between Dion and the casual-sweater image Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been trying to cultivate as the Mr. Rogers of Canadian politics.

Of course, appearances don't count for much when you have Dion framing the vote as the "most critical election in our history," the caring, sharing, environmentally pure Liberal alternative to the ruthless "laissez-faire, I-don't-care" attitude he aims at the Harper Conservatives.

But as the second week of this five-week slog approaches, the fundamentals that triggered this election a year ahead of its fixed date haven't changed all that much.

The allegedly dysfunctional Parliament has dissolved into a dysfunctional campaign featuring fired candidates, apologies and ousted spin doctors.

The poisoned political atmosphere in the House of Commons has spilled across the country and the Internet as insults and fabrications drown out rational policy debate.

Limp Liberal campaign so far

The polls, while hinting at a slow surge of strength for the Conservatives, do not yet point to a dramatic change in party standings.

So we're left watching party leaders staggering across the country, trying to justify the expense of a $300-million vote that's become an exercise in painting each other as the apocalyptic horsemen of a doomsday machine. 

As someone riding with the Liberal tour, the up-close view has not been pretty, even as the sudden surge in gas prices assists Dion's push for energy conservation, and the stock-market crash underscores his attack on Conservative economic policy.

This much is obvious. Had it not been for the Conservatives and their gaffe-plagued war room with the odd helping hand from Harper himself, this would've been the week from hell for the Liberals.

Dion's struggle to define himself to a public looking for serious definition have failed so far, beyond being the leader pooped on by a puffin, an image that delights the Conservative backrooms even after their leader was forced to apologize for the website smear.

His policy announcements have been relatively modest, with the notable exception of a $575-million green housing scheme revealed Friday that contains interesting and commendable elements overwhelmed by a maze of budget numbers.

His stars, such as Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae, remain barge-poled from the leader's bus, although they are allegedly booked for a tour appearance next week.

Dion has personally outperformed expectations with flashes of passion and emotion, although he still drifts into university windbag mode at times and utters incomprehensible words that even his staff cannot decipher.

Small turnout at campaign events

But where are the crowds? If this is, as Dion says, an election for the ages, placing Canada at the crossroads of a nation governed by a cold, dirty, heartless, self-reliant prime minister or his green and compassionate government, they should be out in force.

By way of a thumbnail week-in-review, consider the list of Dion pitstops with the estimated number of Liberals who showed up to celebrate their leader's triumphant arrival in brackets.

There was the Ottawa kickoff (300), a Montreal event in his own riding with most of his Quebec candidates (200), a morning event at an MP's office (30), another at a longshot candidate's office (25), a barbecue in Napanee, Ont., (75), a rally in Pickering, Ont., for several area MPs (200), a women's forum in west Toronto (50), a Walkerton, Ont., speech (1,000 forced-to-attend students), an airport tarmac event in Thunder Bay, Ont., (30) and a Vancouver green housing announcement (35).

He saved his best performance and crowd for Friday afternoon at a University of Victoria town hall, but perhaps it was almost too successful. About 200 students overflowed the classroom and left another 200 disappointed students outside. He then had his biggest rally a few hours later (1,000). His Saturday luncheon, where he introduced his immigration plan, and which should have attracted a large crowd in this heavily ethnic riding, attracted
only about 100 lunch guests.

Not to quibble, but given that student enthusiasm, one wonders why there's not more support from the tree-huggers and planet-savers spooked by the alleged Conservative climate-change-deniers now commanding an early lead. If this is indeed a titanic showdown between good and evil in the struggle to
curb greenhouse gases, they should, at the very least, be disrupting the Conservative campaign's easy ride if they can't bring themselves
to support Dion.

There's always next week for things to get better, of course.

The worrisome thing for Liberals is that Harper will learn from his mistakes and quickly correct the flaws inside the party. The really bad news for the Liberals is that the mistakes of their enemy happened early enough to be forgotten by voting day.