Canada: Backroom Deal Aided Grits, PCs

In return, the Liberals agreed to throw the vote in the Calgary Centre riding of then-Tory leader Joe Clark. In what may have been a series of similar deals, sources say, the Tories also agreed to "stand down" to help Liberal Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan hang on to her Edmonton seat, which she won by only 733 votes. Sources refuse to divulge details of what, exactly, the Tories agreed to do for the Liberals. One would say only that the deal "without question, helped them (the Liberals) nationally. "They got what they wanted ... They were able to do some things right away (in the campaign) that they otherwise couldn't have done. The benefit to them was far beyond Calgary. The election was effectively over after the first week." TORY NEOPHYTE If a backroom pact got McLellan elected in 2000, she is in dire trouble this time around as Liberal popularity tanks in Alberta. With the Liberals and Tories splitting much the same vote in 2000, all the national PC organization had to do to help McLellan was nothing. A strong Conservative candidate supported by the national party could well have stripped away the 734 Liberal votes from McLellan that would have given the riding to the Canadian Alliance candidate, Betty Unger. Instead, the Tories acclaimed Rory Koopermans, a then-25-year-old political neophyte with almost no money or organization, to run. Koopermans says he knew nothing of any backroom deal, and that he campaigned hard, even though he had "absolutely no chance" of winning and got barely 6% of the votes cast. But he does admit he got no financial or organizational help from the national party, and not even an encouraging phone call from the Tory leadership. "If that happened," Koopermans said of the deal, "that's just terrible. It's wrong." A reliable source with direct knowledge of the arrangement affecting Clark's riding and the Liberal national campaign said "very, very few people knew of this -- like fewer than the fingers on my one hand." The senior officials involved in the deal deliberately told neither Clark nor McLellan anything about it. BIZARRE CAMPAIGN The source would not divulge specifics of the deal, only that it was "fairly straightforward and it was honoured on both sides." Clark had entered the campaign with abysmal polling numbers pointing to an almost certain defeat. Instead, the former Tory leader won by 4,304 votes after a bizarre campaign in which a group called "Liberals for Clark" suddenly popped up from nowhere to back him. With a week to go in the campaign, an Ipsos-Reid poll showed former Liberal supporters were stampeding to Clark. Grit candidate Joanne Levy won only 17% of the vote on election day. Levy vigorously denies she was part of any plot to throw the vote, and says she knew little of the mysterious group of "Liberals" who came to the former Tory leader's rescue in mid-campaign. It is impossible to say how much all these backroom deals changed the outcome of the election. Perhaps McLellan, Clark and dozens of other candidates had their fates sealed by a backroom handshake two weeks before the election even started. We will never know. Other papers that ran this story London Free Press (CN ON) Calgary Sun, The (CN AB)