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Graham Liberals stepping away from McKenna
legacy
Liberal Leader Shawn Graham says he'll shove private industry out of health care, beat back rising auto insurance premiums with tough new legislation, give seniors a better deal on drugs and nursing home care, lower class sizes for young students and keep NB Power in the hands of taxpayers. His campaign promises will cost those taxpayers somewhere in the neighbourhood of $94 million if he's elected - a small price to pay, he says, for a kinder, gentler New Brunswick. But anyone who lives here, and has a memory, might wonder what happened to the Liberals they used to know.
The big red machine spent 12 years in charge of this province, most of that time under former premier Frank McKenna, who pleased Bay Street with a deficit-slashing, union-squashing race to the bottom line. McKenna created a debt-control model copied by Conservative governments in rest of Canada. He froze public sector wages, held the line on health and education spending and improved New Brunswick's credit rating on the New York bond markets. McKenna's personal charisma helped sell the plan, inspiring New Brunswickers to stand up for themselves, feel proud and demand respect instead of federal handouts. In this election, Graham has tossed out the tough talk of the past, appeasing voters with spending promises and a pledge for bigger government. Graham has lifted his party up by the scruff of its neck and placed it down squarely in front of the political left. "You could say they have shifted to the left or you could say they've gone back to their natural place," explains political scientist Don Desserud. "But they really have to hope the voters forget, because it is the most vulnerable part of their campaign and they know it." Call it whatever you want, but it has become clear that voters have lost their appetite for the hard line, right of centre Liberals of the 1990s, and are seeking a more moderate point of view. The reinvention of the Liberal Party began around 1999, about the same time the Bernard Lord Tories handed McKenna's successor, Camille Theriault, a stunning defeat in the provincial general election. Theriault was a senior cabinet minister under McKenna, in charge of business development. He won the Liberal leadership in May 1998, promising to bring so-called Liberal values back to government. In a series of soul-searching roundtable discussions, Theriault consulted with people on the effects of cuts to health and education budgets, promising to make up for the financial hardships caused by his former boss. It didn't work, though, and frustrated voters tossed his government out on a protest vote over proposed tolls on a privately built, publicly owned highway. It is ironic to some that the Liberals are now campaigning on less private sector involvement in government - when it was the McKenna Liberals who introduced the idea. Under their stewardship, private companies built schools, a youth jail and took over the province's seniors' drug plan. The McKenna Liberals also contracted management consultants to make welfare and justice programs more cost-efficient - with limited success. Liberal government also invited a private company to take over food services at the Saint John Regional Hospital, serving patients eggs, toast and hamburgers that were cooked in Toronto, and then shipped to New Brunswick to be reheated through a radiation process. The "rethermalized" food was awful, the hospital lost 50 jobs, and health care workers lost faith in the Liberal Party. CUPE national rep Bob Hickes is trying not to be skeptical, and says he's relieved the Liberals are changing their tune on privatization. "Do I believe it? It's an interesting concept given their history," he says. "I hope it's not just election rhetoric." Party workers are trying to show that while Shawn Graham respects his party's legacy, he is willing to step away from policies he doesn't agree with. "That was the last century," says campaign manager Doug Tyler, who also served as agriculture minister under Frank McKenna. "I know people would like to go back to the 1990s and talk about that, but Shawn Graham is a new leader, he's been in the job for a year now and he has his own ideas and he puts his own stamp on things." Former party president Jack MacDougall agrees, saying parties must be allowed to change with the times. "Richard Hatfield did things that we can't burden the present government with, and we can't burden Shawn with the past," he says. "We are led by our leader." It's clear that this leader wants his party to represent something different - and is hoping the voters will agree with that on June 9. |
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