US embassy cable - 04HALIFAX101

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HALIFAX 000101 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
FOR WHA/CAN 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, ECON, CA, Paul Martin, Elections 
SUBJECT: ATLANTIC CANADA:  PRE-ELECTION SOUNDINGS 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED -- PROTECT ACCORDINGLY 
 
1.  (SBU)  SUMMARY:   The consensus of opinion among political 
observers in Atlantic Canada is that Prime Minister Martin will 
call an early summer election.  While the region's 32 seats in 
Parliament are a relatively small bloc, they could make the 
difference in a close election between a minority and majority 
government.  Liberals think that Paul Martin will be much more 
popular tan Stephen Harper in the region, and that they will be 
able to steal some Conservative seats.  Both Conservatives and 
the NDP think voters are tired of the scandal-plagued Liberals 
and ready for a change.  However, our early guess is that there 
will not be any seismic shifts in party alignment as a result of 
the general election.  END SUMMARY. 
 
2.  (SBU)  The possibility of a federal election call in the 
near future has Atlantic Canadian parties and politicians 
nominating candidates, filling the campaign coffers and 
positioning themselves to be ready when the writ is dropped. 
The timing of the election is of course known only to the Prime 
Minister, but the expectation in this region seems to be 
generally for an early summer contest.  Federal Infrastructure 
Minister Andy Scott, for example, told CG that he does not 
expect Parliament to be recalled after the Easter recess, 
implying a late May/early June election.  A prominent Halifax 
Liberal who recently met with the PM said that Martin was upbeat 
about the party's prospects and recent polling data showing that 
Liberal support is recovering after a dip caused by the 
sponsorship scandal; our contact thinks the election will be 
held -- barring some unforeseen new scandalous revelation -- by 
the end of June at the latest.  Others expect the election to be 
called just after the Prime Minister meets with the President, 
although some cite the PM's desire to attend the 60th 
anniversary ceremonies for D-Day as a reason that the election 
call will not be made until early June. 
 
3.  (SBU)   Atlantic Canada has 32 MPs and over half of the 
region's seats are currently held by Liberals.   The top-of-mind 
issues for most Atlantic Canadians are health care, the economy 
and jobs, similar to the rest of the country.  Smaller but still 
significant groups watch developments in federal fisheries and 
environmental policies closely.  The region as a whole tends to 
be "small c" conservative on many social issues, particularly in 
rural areas (as an illustration, Nova Scotia does not have 
Sunday shopping and it is unclear if a promised referendum on 
the issue will change that), but topics like gay marriage and 
the gun registry do not excite the same level of passion that 
they seem to in other regions.  "Small l" liberalism is 
concentrated in the cities, which are growing in population 
relative to the countryside, something that has been reflected 
in re-drawn riding boundaries for the next election.  Atlantic 
Canadian voting patterns can be contrarian, as the recent 
Conservative Party leadership showed -- the region bucked the 
national trend toward Stephen Harper and generally supported 
Belinda Stronach. 
 
PAUL MARTIN: TARNISHED BUT STILL POPULAR? 
 
4.  (SBU)  Selection of candidates is important in many parts of 
the region, and voters are often more comfortable with a 
long-serving local politician or other community figure who is a 
known quantity.  Nevertheless, a popular national leader can 
have long coat tails as well and tip the balance in close races. 
 Liberals in Atlantic Canada will run a campaign emphasizing 
their leader, Prime Minister Paul Martin, whom they believe to 
be the major party leader most trusted by voters in the region. 
In addition they have a slate of experienced MPs, most of whom 
will be running again. 
 
5.  (SBU)  The Liberals are also making maximum use of 
incumbency by doing their part to spread government largesse in 
the area in advance of an election, with Liberal cabinet members 
prominently announcing in recent weeks new federal funding for 
university research and Halifax harbor cleanup, among other 
items.  The recent announcement of a 55% increase in the 
allowable snow crab catch also will not hurt their chances at 
the polls with people who make their living in the fishery. 
 
 
THE HARPER FACTOR 
 
6.  (SBU)  Although he has stressed his family's New Brunswick 
roots, and has appointed a Nova Scotian as his deputy leader, 
Conservative Stephen Harper is still viewed with some skepticism 
in Atlantic Canada, primarily for his comments about the 
region's "culture of defeat."  He generally ran poorly in 
Atlantic Canada during the leadership contest, although he did 
well in ridings where he was either endorsed by a sitting MP 
(such as NB Southwest's Greg Thompson) or where he was able to 
campaign in person (such as Halifax).  Harper has made the 
effort to reach out to the region, making early trips to New 
Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and has tried to clarify and soften 
his earlier call for the elimination of the Atlantic Canada 
Opportunities Agency. 
 
7.  (SBU)  How well Harper plays in Atlantic Canada will be a 
key to how well the Conservatives do here in the next election. 
Conservatives in all four provinces profess to be delighted with 
the party merger and with Harper's clear emergence as leader. 
They say the party can now stop splitting the conservative vote 
and unite to face entrenched Liberals.  Nevertheless, there are 
many "red Tories" in the region who are privately still somewhat 
ambivalent about Harper's Reform Party background.  Furthermore, 
since Reform/Canadian Alliance never polled significantly in 
Atlantic Canada, uniting the right as a practical matter will 
not help Conservative fortunes much since the vote here was not 
seriously split.  New Brunswick MP John Herron has gone public 
with his concerns about the merger, refusing to join the new 
party and sitting in the House as an "Independent Conservative" 
until the next election when he will run as a Liberal. 
 
A PROTEST VOTE FOR THE NDP? 
 
8.  (SBU)  Newfoundland and Labrador NDP leader Jack Harris told 
CG that "optimists" in his party are predicting 60 federal seats 
in the next election, many the result of a protest vote against 
the scandal-plagued Liberals.  Harris clearly thought that 
estimate was high (COMMENT:  So do we.  END COMMENT), but he was 
confident that the party would pick up seats nationwide in the 
next election.  Nova Scotia NDP leader Darrell Dexter, while 
uneasy predicting a specific seat total, says he thinks a 
minority government is a real possibility after the next 
election.  As one who is the leader of the opposition to a 
minority Tory government, he is not enthusiastic about the same 
thing at a national level. 
 
9.  (SBU)  Jack Layton, at least as of now, does not seem to be 
registering too strongly with voters in the region.  Only in 
Nova Scotia does the NDP have a noticeable presence at the 
provincial level; and one of the party's sitting federal MPs 
(Wendy Lill of Dartmouth) will not run again because of health 
concerns.  On balance the NDP's chances of significantly 
improving its seat total in Atlantic Canada do not seem all that 
great. 
 
PROVINCE-BY-PROVINCE 
 
10.  (SBU)   NOVA SCOTIA 
 
The region's most populous province has 11 federal MPs: five 
Liberals (including Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan, former 
minister Robert Thibault, U.S. relations czar Scott Brison and 
Parliamentary Secretary Mark Eyking), three Conservatives 
(including Deputy leader Peter MacKay) and three NDP (including 
former leader Alexa McDonough).  Conservatives will target their 
former member Scott Brison who crossed the floor to sit as a 
Liberal; Stephen Harper has already appeared at the riding 
meeting to select Brison's Conservative opponent and has said 
that he would "pop in" more than once during the general 
election to campaign for Brison's Conservative challenger and 
return the riding to it's "traditional" blue.  The NDP, usually 
strongest in the cities, will go after Geoff Regan's Halifax 
West seat and the Conservative-held South Shore riding where 
they perceive a weak candidate. 
 
11.  (SBU)  Liberals are confident they can gain one or more of 
the Conservative-held seats in the province; the NDP thinks it 
can pick off at least one Liberal and one Conservative; 
Conservatives think Brison is vulnerable.  Progressive 
Conservative Premier John Hamm, who leads a minority government, 
and was careful to stay away from endorsing anyone in the 
leadership race, will throw his weight behind the Conservative 
candidates, which could help in close races. 
 
12.  (SBU)  NEW BRUNSWICK 
 
Six of New Brunswick's 10 seats are Liberal, and John Herron 
will run as a Liberal in the next election.  The Conservatives 
have two seats: one seems relatively safe while the other, 
vacated by the retiring Elsie Wayne, is up for grabs.  One 
notable non-candidate in the next election, former Premier Frank 
McKenna, told CG that he had been encouraged by the Prime 
Minister to re-enter politics, but that the PM was not able to 
deliver a promised Moncton-area riding from which to run. 
McKenna refused to contest a nomination against a sitting 
Liberal MP, citing the negative publicity of the Sheila 
Copps-Tony Valeri food fight, and also said he was not inclined 
to parachute into a riding where he had no local connections, 
like Elsie Wayne's in St. John.  McKenna was very upbeat about 
Liberal prospects in New Brunswick, saying that despite 
divisions and hard feelings among the Chretien and Martin camps, 
"the party always closes ranks and rallies" at election time. 
 
13.  (SBU)  NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR 
 
N-L's seven seats are split four Liberal and three Conservative. 
 Although the provincial government is handily controlled by the 
Tories, Premier Danny Williams has seen his popularity fall 
significantly since last November's election victory.  He is 
currently locked in a tough battle with public sector unions 
over wages and job security, something that might have an impact 
on Conservative fortunes in a federal election.  One of his key 
issues is a new revenue sharing deal with Ottawa for offshore 
energy revenues, something that would sharply boost his 
popularity.  (FYI:  Opposition leader Roger Grimes told CG that 
if Williams pulls off a new deal with Ottawa: "I would vote for 
him myself and urge others to do so."  END FYI.)  A senior 
Liberal strategist told CG that Ottawa is ready to agree to a 
new revenue-sharing formula for offshore energy royalties, but 
won't do so until after the election to avoid giving any kind of 
a boost to Williams (and Tory Premier John Hamm in NS). 
 
14.  (SBU)  Former opposition house leader and current fisheries 
critic Loyola Hearn told CG before the Conservative leadership 
selection that he expected the party to keep its three seats and 
possibly add one in a general election.  But he also said that 
N-L politics are volatile enough that depending on what was 
happening at the time of the election he and his Conservative 
colleagues could potentially all lose their seats.  A Liberal 
told CG that he expects exactly that to happen in N-L -- a 
Liberal sweep. 
 
15.  (SBU)  PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 
 
With only four seats, tiny PEI is too easily overlooked in 
federal political calculations.  Currently all four seats are 
held by Liberals, although at the provincial level the Tories in 
late 2003 comfortably formed a government after taking 23 of the 
27 seats in the legislature.  Conservatives hope to pick one or 
more seats at the federal level, and Premier Binns's deputy 
minister recently stepped down from his government position to 
seek a Conservative nomination to run in the general election. 
 
COMMENT 
 
16.  (SBU)  A week is a long time in politics, so handicapping a 
yet-to-be-called election is largely a notional exercise (except 
for the Prime Minister as he tries to determine an optimal time 
to wrong-foot his opponents).  But using the "snapshot" we've 
taken in recent weeks of some of the key ridings, personalities 
and issues it does not appear at this point that there will be a 
major re-alignment of party fortunes in Atlantic Canada.  Each 
party is confident that it can make some gains, but only the 
Liberals are talking -- privately, to be sure -- of a 
significant  increase in seats, mainly because of perceived 
regional antipathy toward Stephen Harper.  On election day it 
may turn out that they were whistling past the graveyard, but 
they do have the advantage of incumbency and a fairly popular 
leader on their side.  END COMMENT 
 
HILL