Expect A Bit Of An Anti-American Election Campaign

"All the indications are that Prime Minister [Paul Martin] will welcome the opportunity to take advantage of Canada's antipathy toward the Bush administration. The fact that he's been taking shots already in public places over softwood lumber indicates that we might be in for a little bit of an anti-American election," says Kim Nossal, head of political studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont. "And there is no Conservative who is going to defend the policies of the Bush administration. So Conservative leader Stephen Harper is going to have to fit negatively with Bush, but not with the United States necessarily." This fall, Mr. Martin began using strong rhetoric to warn that U.S. resistance to repaying illegal duties on softwood lumber from Canada undermines free trade. Foreign policy experts say the Liberals will reinforce the message on the campaign trail, hoping to appeal to the political left by underlining the party's key policy differences with U.S. President George W. Bush. Canada's refusal to join the U.S.-led war in Iraq in 2003 and Mr. Martin's recent decision to stay out of the American ballistic missile defence plan are considered leverage points for the Liberals. "It's a George Bush issue," says pollster Michael Marzolini, of Pollara Inc. "The Conservatives don't want to seem too close and too non-critical. And the Liberals tend to go overboard in being critical, trying to squeeze NDP voters by appealing to them." Mr. Marzolini expects the election to be the most "volatile" since free trade dominated the election debate in 1998. "The Liberal campaign looks like it's going to be another negative, demonizing one, and the Conservatives are going to be scandal-mongering." In the last election in 2004, the Conservatives proposed a "made in Canada" foreign policy and vowed to mend fences with the United States, including the appointment of an ambassador in Washington with Cabinet level standing. At the time, Mr. Harper was forced to defend comments he had made a year earlier that suggested he would have backed the U.S. effort to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein -- an unpopular move with the Canadian public. Mr. Harper later claimed that his statement was a call for moral support, not the contribution of military personnel. This time around, analysts say the Conservatives will be highly critical of the Liberals for poorly defending Canadian interests to the south. Meanwhile, the NDP will say they are troubled by Canada's deep integration with the United States, and vow to promote the nation's distinct identity on the world stage. http://www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2005/november/30/election/ [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on December 3, 2005]

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