Bernard Lord: An Election Too Far

Shediac, New Brunswick: Three years ago, New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord was the toast of Canadian conservatives, who saw him as the man who could lead them out of the wilderness at the federal level. Now Lord could be four weeks away from defeat at the hands of the voters. New Brunswickers go to the polls in a general election on September 18.

I watched Lord this morning campaigning in the crowded food market in Dieppe, the French speaking east end of greater Moncton. Lord, who still looks more like an executive assistant than a premier, has become a relaxed and skilled campaigner, very much at home making his way through the throng.

In 1997, even though the young Bernard Lord did not have a seat in the provincial legislature and was only a few years out of student politics, he decided to contest the leadership of the New Brunswick Progressive Conservatives. To the astonishment of many, the inexperienced candidate, who had been born in Quebec, to a Francophone mother and an Anglophone father (from New Brunswick), won the party leadership. He went on to win a by-election that put him in the legislature and then led his party to power in the 1999 general election.

The perfectly bilingual Lord was not at all like the last Conservative premier of the province, Richard Hatfield, the Red Tory who served as premier from 1970 to 1987. He was soon being courted by the neo-cons. Brian Mulroney arranged for his old friend George Bush Senior to come to New Brunswick on a fishing trip to meet the young premier. For a time there was a great deal of speculation that Lord could replace Joe Clark as federal PC leader. Then came the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the PCs and the rise of Stephen Harper.

Reality intruded on Lord’s parade in the provincial election in the spring of 2003. Complaisant going into the campaign, the Conservatives soon found that they were facing a tide of anger because of rising auto insurance bills that were particularly directed against drivers who were seen as high risk or drove old cars. Especially in the Acadian regions of the north, insurance rates had spiked and were cutting into the already tight budgets of poor families. Lord won the election, but it was a squeaker. The PCs won 28 seats, to 26 for the Liberals and 1 for the NDP.

Since the general election, Elizabeth Weir, the NDP leader, has resigned her seat and the party lost the by election and now has no representation in the legislature.

In this election, the hot button issue is gasoline prices, which soared above $1.20 a litre level in recent weeks and have fallen back now to about $1.10. To take the edge off the issue, the Lord government recently brought in a system of gasoline price controls, which has been more show than reality. The government’s tinkering has had little effect on the price at the pumps.

In New Brunswick, where most individuals and families struggle to get by, the price of gasoline, and of fuels (often electricity) to heat homes in winter, and of auto insurance, are make or break questions. If the voters decide that Lord is doing nothing for them, they could punish him and drive his party for power.

So far, Liberal leader Shawn Graham, a man never accused by anyone of having charisma or being a visionary, has fiddled with the issue by saying he would get rid of price controls on gasoline if he is elected and would reduce the provincial gas tax. Throwing the people of the province back on the mercies of the market, will do nothing to ease their gasoline prices, however, and cutting gas taxes just invites oil companies to do more gouging. Graham could benefit from the issue, though, just by talking about it, on the theory that the people will take out their wrath on the sitting government.

Graham or the NDP could consider upping the ante in the gas price debate if they had the courage to do so. Graham could announce that if he is elected he will demand the convening of a First Ministers conference to discuss the urgent issue of energy prices and their impact on Canadians. He could point out that the oil companies and Alberta coffers are fattening at the expense of everyone else. He could say that it is intolerable for Canada to tolerate an internal OPEC in the country that is doing little to redistribute the take from soaring petroleum prices. He could demand that new federal policies be put into place to deal with the widening social and regional gaps that are the consequence of today’s do-nothing posture by Ottawa. Finally, he could point out that Bernard Lord is the political ally of Calgary’s Stephen Harper, the man who suits Big Oil just fine as prime minister. I’m not holding my breath for either opposition party to do much of this.

Keep an eye on the New Brunswick election. The province is often a cauldron of populist fury, where voters signal the emergence of issues that will soon take hold elsewhere.