Paul Martin and the Common Sense Gang

I recall standing with a one-term Ontario New Democratic MPP on Pine Street in Burlington.  It is a beautiful spring day in 1995.  A newly built non-profit housing project, Wellington Terrace, was celebrating its grand opening.  Balloons, refreshments and there is a ribbon is ready to be cut. 

“You know if we aren’t reelected there will be no more places like this built,” he told me.

No more built, I thought.  While I was sympathetic to his perspective, the view seemed more self-serving hyperbole than realistic forecast.

But the MPP was right. You know the story. 

Following World War II the federal government jumped into the housing field in a big way. Polices were slanted towards home ownership. While social housing and creation of rental housing weren’t high priorities, there were some initiatives.

Major cuts to government funding for social housing began in 1984. The Brian Mulroney government slashed national affordable housing spending by almost $2 billion. In 1993, Mulroney’s successor, Kim Campbell, cancelled all new funding for affordable housing.

Then things worsened with Paul Martin’s 1995 budget. 

Paul Martin

On February 27 that year, Martin put on his budget boots and kicked responsibility for social housing down to the provinces.  He cancelled all spending on new social housing projects. The Finance Minister hung his hat on many of the popular clichés of the day calling for “hard choices” and “real change,” “smaller and smarter government,” bucking the status quo and “simple common sense.” 

The rhetoric mattered not at all to those who were struggling to find housing that was safe and affordable. What really mattered, as we have discovered, was that Canada now had no housing strategy; the only developed country without such a plan. 

Back to that spring day in 1995:  As I enjoyed the opening of one of the last non-profit housing communities built in Ontario, we were just months away from more cuts from the new Mike Harris government.  Their idea of common sense (in fact, they called it a revolution) included the cancellation of 17,000 units of co-op and non-profit housing that had been approved but not completed.

Grandpa Tells us about Politics

It is one of those hot, lazy August days at the cottage.  Grandpa has his nose in a book of Canadianisms* - words and expressions from the past.  Later that day over a cocktail, his memory enhanced, Grandpa takes it upon himself to explain an important time in Canadian history - the summer of 2002.

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Kids today spend too much time playing video games and not enough time learning about their country’s past. Well kids the summer of 2002 was a crazy time in Canadian politics.  So, I’m going to tell you about it.

I am older than footprints and I thought the day I saw buzzards saying grace before meals was the day that I’d call the Liberals fiscally responsible.  But in 1993 this guy Paul Martin comes along and not only balances the books but has money left over.

Our Prime Minister back then was a fella from Shawinigan Quebec named Jean Chretien.  He’d been around since hell was a grass fire and he believed that Martin was about as slippery as a walrus on an ice flow.  Early in the summer he sacks him.

This leaves the country all up in the air – like a dog between two trees.  Throughout June and July, the public is hung up by the tongue of the garrulous media who, in their wisdom, tell us that the country now needs Chretien about as much as a kangaroo needs a purse.

One thing everyone had to admit about Jean Chretien was that he was quick on his skates.  He realizes that this chances of succeeding at the February leadership review were slim and none and slim was visiting Alberta.

Overnight Chretien concocts a plan that could sneak sunrise past a rooster – or
Paul Martin anyway.  He will retire, but he’ll do it in his own time – more than 18 months down the road.  Well now, that made the cheese more binding. (1)

Now Martin comes out the next day looking like he’d spent the night on a clothesline. (2)   This millionaire son of a politician clearly doesn’t know whether to swallow his watch or wind his food.

Martin declares the PM a great leader.  That was just too much candy for the penny (3)  - if anyone had asked me.

There is no need to connect the dots on this one.  Martin had a problem – a leadership race that’s going to go on longer than the time served by several Prime Ministers.

He has one thing going for him though.  His rivals aren’t so reckless that they will get off the ladder before they reach the ground.  Besides too much competition for the top spot might see them kicking stones down the road.(4)

Anyway you look at it; Martin’s big victory party was a long way off.  His supporters were well advised to put the big pot in the little pot and boil the dishrag. (5)  The little guy from Shawinigan wasn’t done yet. 

                  Notes 

1. An interesting turn of events.

2. A Quebec expression indicating a hard night had been had.

3. A metaphor from the penny candy store era

4. An Ottawa Valley expression that counsels good behaviour when work is scarce.

5. A sarcastic expression from the Depression.  There will be no party tonight.

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*Dunnville author Bill Casselman’s book Canadian Sayings, 1000 Folk Sayings used by Canadians (McArthur and Company – Toronto 2002) has inspired Grandpa and this writer.