News

Stéphane Dion is being urged by senior Liberals to shift his focus from his Green Shift plan and adopt the winning strategy of the 1993 Chrétien campaign that emphasized “jobs, jobs, jobs” and a strong Liberal team.

“It [the 1993 campaign that delivered a majority for Jean Chrétien's Liberals] basically focused the message on jobs and economic growth while discrediting the competence of the Conservatives,” said a veteran Liberal. “The question is, which team is better equipped to deal with the economic turndown?”

The Liberal says the Grit leader should be taking “ownership” of the economic file in the campaign for the Oct. 14 election, promoting the fact that the Chrétien Liberal government managed the economy with finesse and success.

Although Mr. Dion has recently been speaking more about the economy and the poor economic record of both the Mulroney and Harper Conservative governments, it is not clear that the message from some of his party strategists is getting through.

He is still emphasizing his environmental plan, which would tax carbon and shift the profits to tax cuts. That plan is complicated and difficult to sell to individual voters; some of his team members want him to stop talking about it in so much detail.

“We're still throwing a lot of pasta against the wall, hoping some of it sticks,” a senior Liberal strategist said. “We all keep trying. No decisions, though.”

Liberals are twitchy because Mr. Dion was not seen to have had a good first week of campaigning. The national team has been criticized for getting out of the gate slowly, for not having a coherent message or theme and for having trouble finding a plane. (The plane is now being repaired after it had to make an emergency landing in Montreal on Tuesday night.) Strategists were concerned Wednesday when Mr. Dion refused a couple of times to rule out allowing Ottawa to go into deficit if the economy were to tank while a Liberal government was in office. However, he backtracked later in the day, promising that a Liberal government would never cause a deficit.

The Chrétien/Martin team was always careful to make a no-deficit pledge.

In addition, Mr. Chrétien also emphasized in the 1993 campaign that he had a strong Liberal team – Paul Martin, André Ouellet, Lloyd Axworthy, Sheila Copps and Brian Tobin among them.

Mr. Dion began to campaign with his team members just this week, bringing foreign affairs critic Bob Rae to an event in Halifax on Tuesday.

Former hockey great and Toronto MP Ken Dryden was with him Wednesday, and deputy leader Michael Ignatieff is scheduled to campaign with Mr. Dion over the next few days.

But the economy is becoming the real issue for many Liberals as dire forecasts from the United States dominate the news.

As they go knocking on doors, candidates are finding some resonance from the economic message that the Liberals are the deficit-slayers and the record of the Tories is one of job losses and escalating debt.

Long-time Liberal MP and candidate Maurizio Bevilacqua says that he is reminding his constituents in Vaughan, Ont., that the Liberals are better equipped to deal with a faltering economy. He reminds them of the Chrétien/Martin Liberal record that balanced the budget and slew the deficit.

“Stéphane Dion was an important member of that cabinet that brought about an economic renaissance in Canada,” he says, adding that Mr. Dion should play up this strength.

Meanwhile, national campaign co-chair David Smith, a Liberal Senator and senior member of the campaign teams that delivered the Chrétien majorities, said Wednesday that the team strategy is beginning to develop this week. He said that candidates such as Mr. Rae needed the first week to organize their own campaigns before being able to go out with the leader.

“There will be an obvious showing of the depth and showing of our very strong team,” Mr. Smith said.

He said that he is encouraged by recent polls that indicate the Liberals are closing the gap between them and the Tories.

With a report from Campbell Clark