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| IN THE NEWS Mulroney: The medium is the misogynist CHANTAL HÉBERT
Even before this week, the Tory establishment that so assiduously courted her in 1993 seemed determined to treat the experience as a regrettable one-night stand. Those efforts reached a new high with the publication of Brian Mulroney's crude assertion that she slept her way to a historic election defeat. The allegation is unworthy of a former prime minister. It constitutes a new low in the already abysmal history of the contemptuous relationship between past and present Canadian prime ministers. It is also a sign of a double standard that continues to endure in Canadian politics. If Campbell had been one of the boys, it would not have crossed Mulroney's mind to use her romantic life to mask his own central responsibility in the Tory debacle. His fear of ridicule would have gotten the better of him. Indeed, had she been male, her election handlers would likely have flaunted her campaign romance as a sign of political virility. Even in the more conservative Canada of the late '60s, the romantic dalliances of Pierre Trudeau were more of an asset than a liability to the Liberal party. To compound the insult with injury, Mulroney's assertion was largely left unchallenged by the legions of ambitious followers who so eagerly jumped onto Campbell's bandwagon 12 years ago. While his cronies took to the airwaves to repair Mulroney's self-inflicted damage to his reputation, Campbell was left to her own devices to set the record straight. It is not the first time. In hindsight, Canada's first female prime minister has paid an inordinate and disturbing price for her failure to perform a miracle for a party that had been speeding toward the next election wall long before she took over. While Campbell lives in exile from the national debate, other high-profile losers command a respectable audience in the arena of public affairs. John Turner, who led the Liberals to a dismal election showing in 1984 and Joe Clark, who clumsily let power slip from his grasp in 1979, each had a second chance to demonstrate that the public had erred in rejecting them. Despite repetitive failures, they have now both been elevated to the rank of elder statesmen. In contrast with Campbell, the architects of the 1993 Tory debacle have also emerged unscathed. John Tory — who had a front row seat in the backrooms of that spectacular defeat — has gone on to become the leader of the opposition in Ontario. Other Tory strategists from the same era continue to be sought after and paid handsomely for campaign advice. Jean Charest, whose leading role in Quebec in the 1993 campaign resulted in a single Tory seat — his own — promptly inherited Campbell's leadership mantle. But given a stronger hand in the 1997 election, (the Liberal government had almost lost the country in a referendum; it had reneged on its GST promise; Lucien Bouchard had left the federal scene), Charest still could not get the party out of its humiliating last place. On that thin basis, he went on to become Quebec Liberal leader and then the province's premier. All of them, of course, have a vested interest in not challenging Mulroney's rationalization that Campbell almost cost the Conservative party its life. Under any other scenario, they would have to shoulder more of the blame for the biggest election disaster in modern federal history. As she ponders her new life as a Liberal, Belinda Stronach — who tried so recently and with the help of the same Conservative backroom boys to follow in Campbell's footsteps — can tell herself that her adopted family is unlikely to treat her more shabbily than her original one.
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