Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 14, 1973, Winnipeg, Manitoba 20 Winnipeg free priss. Saturday. Uly 14. 1973 a regional analysis focus recent patterns of Manitoba voting by Toji Peterson it is injuriously easy fur i academic to Tell others what they to doing wrong or what should do. In deed it ii o in for anyone to rive advice especially with Pic advantage of Hindsight. Then1 arc familiar terms such As monday morning quarterback or a r m chair general describing those who con i pc fitly offer expert Ai Vicc i o ii the Safe Side lines. The. Purpose Here is nol to Hie role lit an Ivory town politician. It is merely to present a relatively Independent perspective Iii the last two elections based on regional analysis of the voting results. The nip has made its greatest Gai is in the North. In 19g9, i win four Ridings there and fits time it won All five. Its vote in creased 39 to 50 per cell. Tin. Was mainly at the expense of the conservatives which is to lie expected because the constr Vii pcs in recent years have been stronger there and hence had Inorg to lose. The result tins year is fairly typical of the North. In the past it generally sup ported i k is Vern moist in of fice. Turro. Admittedly have been excisions to this. In and 1945, the Pas elected a Kcf member in opposition to the government and in 1969, beginning with a by Ciccion Churchill in fell r it a sync North began protesting evidently against what it re As the in Sypal Hulic policies of he Weir government by voting for thend similar Iro Lisl Lias expressed in recent Feder Al ill traditionally the North Given Large majorities to file provincial and ibis ten Dency was assisted by the now discontinued practice of tinkling deferred elections there. Tin1 North s support for the to Vernnie to have Little in Iii Wilh ideology. Like Mosi relatively poor Frontier the North has urgent Roq it monks which ran be forgotten by Hose living More do vol of cd areas a Ron lick regions usually a govern men. In the Hope of fairer Sircal Mcnol which translates politically into More direct Access to special Grants but l c r housing schools and roads Csc. The North s support for the nip should therefore be fairly reliable so Long As the nip forms Llic government and does nol Start taking the North for granted or regard ing Ilas a Remote Colony existing for the Benefit of the South. But if the nip should weaken or Start suffering de foals in the South its present Northern support will be in jeopardy. The North would then be less Able or inclined to afford to continue support ing the nip in opposition. Hence the North s political allegiance May Well be determined by parly fortunes in lie South. In Hie Southern part of the province i t appears that nip gains Are closely related to the gains or losses of the Liberal party. 11 is now easy to forget thai the Liber Al party then known As the Liberal progressive party ruled inc province in periodic coalition with other Par tics for some 26 years from 1932 to 1958. Before that from 1922 to 1932, the prov Ince was governed by the progressive party which largely consisted of former Rural liberals who preferred t o disassociate themselves fro in the Federal Liberal parly. Thus in various forms Liberal progressives were tile leading parly in the prov Ince for about 35 years. On june 8, 1953, the Liberal progressives t h. E n u n d c r the leadership of Douglas Campbell won their sixth consecutive Victory. It was the last Liberal progressive Victory in Manitoba. In 1958, the Liberal progressives were narrowly Defeated by the conservatives led by Duff Koblin. Since then the parly has declined. 11 lost again to the conservatives in 1959, 1962, and id ii. In 1961, in dropped he progressive part of its name and be came More closely asocial cd Wilh the Federal Liberal party. But this appears not to have helped it much in provincial politics. Indeed some Liberal progressives including Jar. Campbell have been reported As indicating a belief that Llic this distribution 01 the Manitoba vote table 1 the Over All pattern North Roll he Brandon Winnipeg pc 1973 31 23 .13 Liberal nip 2r 1973 50 3r table the Rural vote pc Southw Osi 50 Northwest 39 Southeast 3 i Intel Lake 3 1 table 3 Idt 53 Liberal 1973 13 nip 19g9 19 17 3c, 37 the vote in7 Winnipeg pc 1973 33 Liberal 1973 23 27 nip 19g9 19t3 29 s. Winnipeg -17 23 27 29 31 w. Winnipeg 3fi i 29 2-1 31 30 e. Winnipeg 25 33 30 22 -15 -15 cent. 32 25 20 2-1 .17 is n. Winnipeg 23 30 13 12 13 5t note figures for this year Are based on 1he Cana Dian press results while Hose for 19g9 Are Rak Ula Lod from the report of the province s chief electoral Ollick a. Percun Lac locals do not always add up to 100 because of the rounding of Decimal Points and in some cases because of a slight Vole for Independent or social credit candidates. While the figures for this year s election Are not final and a few results May be altered by recounts this will nol. Significantly effect the percentages. The distribution Manitoba Ridings table i the Over All pattern pc Liberal nip 1973 1973 1973 North 00 on 4 5 Rural 13 1-1 i i s Brandon ii 00 11 Winnipeg s i 2 3 it table the Rural Ridings 18 pc j9g9 19t3 Liberal 19g9 19t3 Southwest Northwest Southeast tale Lake nip 1909 1973 0 0 1 2 table the Ridings in Winnipeg Liberal 1973 nip 19li9 2 s. Winnipeg 3 3 0 0 w. Winnipeg 12 11 i ii k. Winnipeg 21 ii . O o i 5 u n. Winnipeg 0 ii on 77 because Rale Independent and one sorial or oilily came Irdale were Elei cd in hip seals i Slid above for add up to nol also Hie Riding a Sulls May in Al lured in East and Central Winnipeg by re Chi inns in is. Hon Faro and Wolseley. Local Liberal parly has been Hurt More than in Lias been bellied by ils closer association with Federal liberals. By the late 1960s, the pro v i n c i a 1 Liberal party appeared to consist of two Dis 1 a r a t e groups an Urban Wing in Winnipeg that was mainly Federal in ils Orienta Tion and a Rural Wing hat was mainly provincial in ils background. There was an uneasy partnership Between these two groups. Each group s View of Llic other As easily occurs ill anyone s at i Ludo toward someone who is different could descend to stereotypes. Tile Urban liberals could be. Distrusted by the Rural group As Loo stylish and articulate and perhaps capable of placing heir fed eral ambition above the in Terest of the province. There was a Long tradition of Rural suspicion that Winnipeg was a parasite flourishing at the Farmers expense and there was also mistrust of Eastern Canada and of the Federal govern ment As a tool of Eastern Canada using the West to enrich Toronto and Montreal. These views traced their Ori gins Back to the 1880s and such deeply rooted altitudes would nol readily disappear. With a different background the Winnipeg Liberal group tended to regard these fears As unfounded and anachronistic. Indeed the old Liberal progressives to the new Urban liberals could readily seem to be living in the past an embarrassing reminder of the party s rustic beginnings. At the Federal level John Diefin Baker and Pierre Elliot tru d c a u symbolized these two different political traditions. To the Rural Wing of i h o Manitoba Liberal parly or. Diffen Baker was engaged in a just and heroic contest with Mie old enemy i h e Eastern establishment. Hence some liberals in Rural areas began voting conserva Tive in Federal elections. To Winnipeg liberals in con Trast or. Diefin bake r seemed incomprehensible Hie wave of the future Clear who exemplified the sophisticated skills needed to Deal with the complexity of an increasingly u r b a n society. Thus the two groups went their separate ways. The Urban liberals made gains in Federal politics notably in when they won three Winnipeg seals in he South Ern Eastern and Western sections of the City. But it was the Rural liberals the old Liberal progressives who kept Llic provincial parly alive. While the Liberal party suffered repealed provincial de teals its Rural Vole declined Only stubbornly holding fairly constant from 19.18 to j9w, at nearly -10 per cent. Tic last two provincial Liberal campaigns have been run by these iwo Liberal groups not together but alternately. I n under Robert Bend Iho party ran in effect As the old Rural Liberal progressive parly. This year however under Izzy Asper he new Urban Liberal group direct cd the Campaign. Each time the nature of the Liberal Campaign helped to determine the election out come. For reflecting the two different groups in the Liber Al party there appear to be iwo different kinds of parly Competition occurring in provincial politics. In the Rural areas Llic conservatives Are holding fairly constant and the primary Competition is occurring Between the old liberals and Llic nip. In Winnipeg the nip is hold ing fairly constant and the primary Competition is be tween the new liberals and the conservative parly. This can he demonstrated from regional voting results in the last iwo elections. The most prosperous Rural re Gion according to census data on farm investment and income is the Southwest including ten Ridings. In 19ii9, Iho conservatives won eight of these and this year they won nine slightly increasing i hair vote to 53 per cent. The liberals narrowly retained one seat in both elections but i hair Vole dropped j2 per cent which roughly Corre sponds to the nip increase in Llic area. It appears unlikely Ihal Llic to do Oan gain any seals in ibis area. This year the parly had exceptional assets resurgent farm Prosperity Llic Prospect of a Good crop a popular minister of Agri culture and a Premier whose background and style appear to win Rural approval. The nip Campaign onh Aszod those assets. Cd in the s o n i h w o s i oven Iho in creased n do Oto was Only about half what the Conser v a i i v o s received and in gained no seats there. Tho five a Uriel Ridings in Iho Northwest Are loss established and rather loss Onsen alive. In both Eleo Lions Tho conservatives won tile Throe relatively More prosperous Ridings in my Woski and their Vole in creased to 44 per a Cal Evi Dently in part because of the disappearance of social credit. In Lima the nip won Only one Riding in this re g i o n but gained another from the liberals in a by Clellion in 1971, and retained both i desc seats this year. The Liberal decline in the popular Vole from 20 to 12 tier a Cal again corresponds to the nip increase from Iii to 44 per cent. The conserva Tives and nip arc now air by evenly matched in this re Gion. Should the liberals re Cline further the nip May have an advantage. There is a similar pattern in Llic iwo relatively poorer Rural regions. Of lie four Ridings in Iho Southeast the nip won two in 1969 and this year it won three. The liberals won one Riding Here in but lost in this year while the conservatives by losing one Seal but gaining another still retain one rid ing in he area. In the popu Lar Vole the liberals held up but scr Here Mian anywhere else in the Rural areas and the nip Vole made ils smal lest Rural gain. In the Intel Lake the distribution of scats is unchanged Llic conserva lives have one and the nip has three. But the Liberal vote declined most sharply Here and the nip vote made its largest gain. Thus it appears that in Rural Manitoba the main Competition is occur ring in the poorer areas bet Ween the liberals and the nip. The Urban pattern is the reverse of this. The results i n Brandon s two Ridings have been Llic same in both elections the conservatives have won the relatively More prosperous Riding to Ihu Wool and the Nup has won Llic relatively poorer Riding to the East. The popular Vole shows that the City is now close to a two party system. With a Sharp Liberal decline the conservatives and the nip Are now nearly even. What is sinking about this trend is thai in contrast to Iho Rural area the Liberal losses appear to help Llic conservatives proportionally More than the nip. Winnipeg results arc Simi Lar to those in Brandon. In North Winnipeg where the liberals arc weakest and not offering much Competition to Llic conservatives Hie conservatives arc now gaining at the expense of the nip. In Eastern and Western Winnipeg the liberals declined and the conservatives gained proportionally. In South and South Central Winnipeg where the liberals secured their main Campaign Suc Cess Hoy gained at the expense of Llic conserva lives. Thus it appears Ihal in the Urban areas Llic liberals and conservatives Are com Peting for substantially the same Vole. In summary the voting re sults in Southern Manitoba appear to fall Inlo four categories. Where Llic liberals arc declining in Rural areas he nip is gaining. Where the liberals Are declining in Urban areas the conserva Tives arc gaining. Where the liberals Are already weak in Urban areas the conserva the Nup. And where the liberals by a strenuous Effort have gained in Urban areas hey have Hurt not the nip but the conservatives while the nip vote has hold fairly constant. It May reasonably be of Joe Ted that Many other aspects also deserve invest ligation. Local candidates and local conditions affect the results in each Riding. And lie winning of actual seals Means much More than a n y percentages. The in creased turnout this year May also he significant Al though it appears to have divided in traditional proportions. Extremely Low or High turnouts can have startling results but in Ordinary circumstances free from crisis Perici iced Here in the last four ele Lions tend to be comparable to one another w i i. H tile reduced or in creased vote not diverging greatly from Normal trends. In any Case what is presented Here can Only be preliminary general analysis. Any conclusions Are tentative. On this basis it appears that the future of Manitoba politics to a Large degree depends on the future of the provincial Liberal party. Re g a r d i n g that future two facts in this year s election seem especially significant. Despite a major Campaign in the Rural areas the nip gained Only one additional farm Riding Emerson. And do spill a major Campaign in the liberals securely gained Only one. New Seal fort Rouge. These meagre results from such concentrated efforts demonstrate the Force of traditional voting patterns. They do not change easily. This suggests Ihal the nip is now near ils Rural limit and that the Liberal Prospect however vigorously in so Ruggles to escape in is Bleak. Should the Liberal Vole continue to drop in Rural areas the nip May pick up one or two More seals in the poorer regions outside the which seems securely conservative. On the Oiler hand if he Lihen l party resumes its decline in Urban areas the conserva live. Party could pick up scr tonal support base that Llic nip is now most vulnerable. It was said at the outset thai the purpose Here was nol to offer advice. But if one were disposed to give advice and simply wan cd to beat the nip he would try to persuade the provincial Liberal parly to concentrate ils Campaign in the poorer Rural areas where it com petes the nip and a s i a i n from Urban areas where it competes with the conservatives. Neither Liberal Leader in the past two ele Lions has done this. In 1909, under or. Bend the liberals competed mainly with the conserva Tives in the Rural Southwest. This enabled the nip to get p o o r c r Rural areas. This year under or. Asper the liberals again competed mainly with the conserva lives but this Lime in the Southern Western and East Ern sections of Winnipeg. This prevented the conserva Tives from winning Urban seals from Llic nip. Thus the liberals deserve part of the or Ceil or blame for pulling and keeping Iho nip in office. On he other hand if anyone wanted to help the nip government to survive lie would advise in to Start reinforcing ils base in Winnipeg in order to Wilh land Tho. Possibility of fur ther Liberal decline. For it the Liberal party expires in provincial politics the Small nip Rural gains in those poorer Ridings which it has not yet won could be More than offset by Urban losses. No doubt if anyone presumed to offer such advice however All the parties should properly consider it Unwar ranted. One further possibility de serves mention. The Provin Cial Liberal party May undergo an recovery. Stranger things have happened in politics before. If it should recover a new analysis would clearly be come necessary. And in poli tics anything can happen. It i s perennially fascinating precisely because in does not follow predictable patterns. Tom Ptterson is usso tale pro lessor of political science Al universally of dangers of big governments hidden Springs of watergate Samuel Beer watergate cannot be under stood apart from the a Century he has been the Erich von Stroheim of Hie liberals Man you love to Hale so i am probably not the person to assess his character fairly. Gloomy intelligent Arili social he makes me think of those medieval Kings Tho chroniclers condemned As suspicious suspicious meaning both causing suspicion and ready to suspect lacking Trust in others. I see him As a Man ready to by i Csc that he is ringed with enemies whom a higher duty Calls upon him to destroy by any Means whatever. I expect him Lobo attracted to subordinates who would not be Loo Dainty in combat ing those they regarded As Llic enemies of their cause of their country. 1 can believe o h n Dean hardly a source of god s honest truth when he says that despite Fri reports to the contrary Nixon persisted in believing that demonstrations against him could nol be Spolane Ous. But must have been orchestrated b y democratic party leaders. This conspiratorial View of politics goes Back to Nixon s earliest campaigns when be professed to find communist influence in Mie unlike list Charters. During the period of the various watergate activities whatever his specific knowledge of them such an Outlook could Only sustain Tho. Atmosphere of conspiratorial politics in which these activities originated a n d flourished. Cyl if we arc to understand Walcer Gale what it really is and Why it happened we must look beyond such purely personal factors. What the authors of he break in did was despicable and from some angles laugh Able. But if it is also a bit frightening the reason is the Power accruing to he presi Dency from the management of a huge modern Industrial stale. There is the external part measured by an million defence budget. But the main and Ever growing part is Domestic. Govern in c n t employees number nearly 10 million. Federal subsidies alone amount to More than million a year. From documents submitted by John Dean it appears that at least Dean himself dreamed of using this immense machinery of influence and coercion to pay Olf the president s political opponents. Hut judging by Dean s testimony although his ill will w a s far reaching and in genious his accomplishments wore slight. Bal although the actual h a i m resulting from Tho b r o a k i n and the Olhorn schemes was negligible Iho Iii lotion of people in High positions to make such mis uses of Federal Power gives Walo Gale ominous overtones that would have been absent if similar misconduct had taken place -10 or 50 years ago before the Era of big government. In the Days of Coolidge and Hoover the watergate c p i s o in c would have been shameful but in no Way fearsome. Big government gives watergate its Noval character in iwo ways. It explains the a lure of the threat in our liberties. It also Sheds Light on the motivation of the per pc Ira lors. Ill the american past iwo familiar types of misconduct in Public office have been Van Lily and election fraud. The watergate break in does not Fil either Type. The motivation of ils Prin Cipal actors was nol Money but Power. Moreover i h e operation was radically different from he traditional Effort to influence an election by illicit Means. Typically those at tempts arc made by political Bosses whose ethics May lie weak but whose sense of re Lily is Strong. One of the most baffling aspects of he bugging of the democratic Headquarters was ils indifference to obvious poll Cal realities. Any politician should know Ihal Given the nature of american political parties i talc of electoral value could be Learned by listening in on the conversations of parly officials i hero. Ii was this Cle Mcnary fact of american political life that led most observers to laugh off the break in of Lune 17 As a caper and to disbelieve locally Ihal anyone As politically a Lule As a member of a while House staff could be implicated in in. Bui Pul Lical ideology once in fastens on a Man s mind has a Way of blinding him to fads not o mention conventional morality. And in is the odor of ideology in ils More rigid and emotional forms unit has floated up from some of the evidence. The loading exhibit is the so called National so curly plan which was designed by i h c right Wing ideologue Tom Huston and from which the More restricted operations that included the break in descended. Sonic of Tho i c s i i in o n y of Mcl Ord Barker Magrudor and Dean is also relevant particularly suggestive Are Tho a Lompis to reconstruct whal is called the atmosphere of the while Tho sense of being besieged by Lemon so razors the fury Al being unable to Slop them by lethal moans he whiff of paranoia Over foreign influence among the radicals. The specific relevance of this mentality to the break in appears in Mccord s Testi Mony where he reflects the suspicion that Radical forces bad fabricated a massive plot to disrupt the Campaign and that some fairly High officials of the democratic party were privy to the plot. Fears of serious disturbances during Hie. Campaign wore not entirely Wilhour foundation. The country had suffered a wave of political bombings in 1.170 thai bad worried Many people. The ideological leap consisted in assuming that the splintered and quarrelling extremists o the Radical left could Orga themselves on a Large scale and More bizarre still that they could find a Wel c in e in the democratic parly. The major problem in understanding Walcer Gale is to explain the motivation o ils perpetrators. The familiar types of political misconduct in Pic . Van Lily and election fraud Are not much help. One must turn to the a Alicr in american explanation of ideology and particularly to he tendency of ideology to produce in the True believer an indifference to reality a disdain for conventional morality and a conspiratorial View of the Politi Cal world. Such an Outlook needless to say. Can be found on the As Well As on the right and in is an irony of watergate that its authors shared i hair conspiratorial View of the world with the very Radical extremists they were Irving to combat. The . Is supposed to be the Home of pragmatic is sunless politics where prac tical politicians and Bard beaded interest groups Domi nate1 Mil scone. If Ever Truo this interpretation has been out of Date since the now heal. Then under the Leader ship of Franklin lion scroll. Government p o i i c y passed from the isolationism and Raissez Faire of Coolidge and Hoover to a now political w o r i d of Incorv Calion Al Home and abroad. The Central question to came precisely the size and role of the Public sector around that familiar and fundamental question our political struggles have been waged for More than a generation. Given his sort of value Laden conflict it is Natu ral although 1 Trust not inevitable that tendencies to ideological extremism s i o u 1 d arise. In this conflict diehard Nixon has Boen for a Genera lion a leading constr Vatu s p o k c s m a n declaiming Agai Osl big government and warning of Tho dangers of Federal Power. Ii is a curious quirk of history Ihal his pro Sidony should to Ilio one to Rivoal so vividly the possibilities of abuse against which Llic Consor Palivos have so Hilli try Ivri Ghod. Of Omufil h in inn it nil soon cart no it Imp Tafti univ Privily ;