Canada's election turns on scandals

By all accounts, Prime Minister Paul Martin has been a good steward of Canada's economy and the federal budget. Very soon he will likely be out of a job. The lesson is simple and plain: Failures of ethical leadership have consequences.

Liberal Party scandals and voter fatigue with tales of corruption have taken their toll. Canada's Conservative Party is set to return to power for the first time since 1993. Canadians are going to the polls Monday because a November no-confidence vote in Parliament ended Martin's minority government. His grip on power had been shaky since a 2004 election haunted by a scandal over big federal fees paid to a Quebec advertising firm for little work, and a kickback scheme.

Martin and the Liberal Party had held their own for re-election until news earlier this month of another Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation into a government leak of information that influenced the stock market.

That was all it took. Canadians who have never completely warmed to Conservative leader Stephen Harper have given him a double-digit lead in polls. He blew a similar lead in 2004, but he has campaigned like a politician who learned a hard lesson. His party is producing a policy announcement a day.

Anxious Republicans in the United States, wondering where the Jack Abramoff scandal might lead their party in 2006 elections, have to be chastened by the Liberal Party experience. Voter disgust with corruption trumps other good news.

Martin has managed a string of budget surpluses and he gets credit for initially taming the federal budget as finance minister. Unemployment is at a 31-year low of 6.4 percent. His bluster toward the U.S. and the Bush administration is popular, too.

The campaign-leading Harper has been easy to pillory in the past, and Martin was good at it. Voters may be skeptical of Harper, but Martin is failing to turn those doubts into support. Martin warns of hidden agendas: Harper, he says, will overturn a woman's right to an abortion, undo legalized gay marriage, support the Iraq war, step back from the Kyoto agreement, arm the crime-ridden border, make nice with President Bush, and support his missile-defense program.

Every change would upset a majority of Canadians, but the fear-mongering is not changing a vote. That is the power of scandal.

Traditional political rhetoric is not making a dent, either. A Toronto Star editorial argues at length that the Liberal Party is the best bet for an increasingly urban Canada, with a myriad of municipal woes that need federal help. Martin has rebated a portion of two federal taxes directly to cities.

His efforts earn no political dividend with voters who have a laser focus on corruption, scandal and ethical performance.

Election results across four parties could be very close, even if the Conservatives prevail next Tuesday. A solid working majority is 150-160 votes out of 308 in Parliament. The Liberals had only 98 at dissolution.

"This could create a Parliament of warring factions," writes columnist Bruce Ward, of the Ottawa Citizen. "It would work like Brad and Jennifer's marriage. As a democracy, we're turning into Italy, only with worse weather."

Journalists and political scientists expect Canadians to be back at the polls within a year, but with the scandal-clad Liberals out of the picture.