Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 5, 1980, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free tuesday feb Katy f focus nudging open Trudeau Cage As grits slip Ottawa the Brilliant the Montreal had a Brilliant one on saturday the Liberal Campaign Jet High in the skies with a comment coming from one of the now Trudeau is waving to the one accounts for the slippage in Liberal support in the polls rather than the Iran its the feeling of annoyance among voters at the audacious Trudeau Campaign strategy of run and its driving voters from the Liber als not to Joe Clark but into the undecided and its going to drive the languid Pierre who been loping about the country like a out into the open a bit More these last two they can hardly keep him under wraps much More or Hes in danger of falling asleep As he almost does during some speeches due to the Carbon monoxide like effect of the prose pressed Between his unwilling lips by his its hard to describe the casual nature of the Trudeau on he left his Toronto hotel for a photo Opportunity at an Energy saving demonstration House run by pollution i a photo Opportunity is a no event staged by politicians for photographers and cameramen to give the impression there doing something there not and for some inexplicable reason the people who run television and newspapers in this country allow them to get away with t left motor running for the phoney staging to illustrate his concern for tru Deau wore a fur a thick Over had the motor of his car run Ning for the near hour spent at the while the buses carrying bored reporters did the he then drove to Peterborough for a 20minute speech and recorded a to interview with Peter that his handlers will not allow him to sit Down with a print journalist this Allan Fotheringham Coutts opening Cage a tinge on saturday he had one event a noon speech in Sudbury which he delivered possibly his most astonishing line of the crying out that canadians must put a Stop to Joe Clarks arrogant treat ment of one observer thought he detected even his aides Blush at that the same aides who Are conducting n this stately Waltz across the country and didst have their Man leave Ottawa until the Middle of the after noon contradictions its hard to detect How much of the casual Pace is dictated by Trudeau Hamlet like contradictions on his born again leadership state and How much is the programmed strategy of the Coutt Davey tandem not to expose their Tiger too much their big Lead in the polls what is Clear is that an increasing number of people now Are thinking clearly it seems to them that the Man Doest want to but he does want its government by Goldfarb and Gallup and a Public put to the Trou ble of a Winter election at least wants to see a its one there starting to Back of the liberals without necessarily going to the the ctr poll sunday night con firming one done forthe Toronto Star shows that while voters Are pulling Back from the Only two per cent of them went to the the largest group headed for the thickets of the it would despite tory that the credit for the Iran caper is going to new Glamor boy Ken not to Joe As the massive Liberal Lead the Trudeau packagers have problem they want to give the appearance that heis stepping up the but they dont want to expose him too much where his prickly personality alienates voters As it did last the solution Send him to where he wont do the dead liberals any but will still get Media coverage from the trailing Barren territory Trudeau will spend most of today and tomorrow in Calgary and de absolutely Barren Why spend a Good chunk of a week in a place where there will be no Liberal seats see one gets the impression of Jim Coutts and Keith Davey with one Eye on the polls and one hand on the Gate of the Cage containing their aging with each slip of the Hes allowed to Edge out a tinge what if he gets Al the Way out and we discover he Hast got it any More on to nip fights in Quebec the Dps perfect record in Quebec will Likely remain intact silent Trudeau Speaks As a Media it didst quite match up to the time John Cabot bumped into new or at least into offshore Rock surrounded by or the time Jacques Cartier dug a wooden Cross into a Gaspe neither of those occasions attracted eight to camera one of them All the Way from France More about that later and 50 or so some of whom had flown the 480odd Kilometres from the trip really was worthwhile not for the Content but for the Pierre it turns really can he can that to report he Doest say but then he Doest say anything at his nightly but if you ask him a youll get an answer a Long answer which bears Only a tangential relation ship to the yet which nevertheless actually does contain and even Para Midway through the first press con Ference Trudeau has Given since he began his Campaign this being the historical context of the occasion which inspired All the Media attention a French to reporter slipped in a ques in a modulated parisian accent that made even Trudeau French sound like Eugene whelans he asked whether Trudeau 11 years in Power had changed after a tension building tru Deau his answer was the Only Richard Gwyn Graceful one he gave Dur ing the 50 or so i Hope i have gained in although i May have lost some not a great answer but not at All a bad at least part of the Wisdom that Trudeau has acquired during his Long years in Power is How not to answer before the press conference Coutts bounced about in the Back of the radiating nervous he have tru Deau spun out his answers so there was time Only for 10 he handled them with the unruffled Langor of a hibernating my own which with megalo maniac immodesty i commit to was As follows you have said your Oil Price will be Iwer than you have said also that you cant say what your Price will be be cause you Haven done the algebra on How can you say your Price will be lower than Clarks if you dont know what your Price will be not a great a trifle but not a dumb to print Trudeau reply would re quire the rest of this he attacked Clarks Oil which he said could following carte set up to perhaps a he said Clarks 18centsagallon excise tax would be a Burden to he said higher prices didst necessarily promote about the Only thing Trudeau didst say was if he didst know what his Price would he knew it would be lower than the one time Trudeau did seem Ruf fled was when he was asked whether he had not been irresponsible to have attacked Clark in the commons about his handling of the iranian situation he Trudeau knew about the six refugees in our Trudeau replied Many words pre ceded and succeeded this particular phrase at the Carter was crying to the world for and All i was doing was trying to make sure Canada played its As tru Deau counterattacked by pointing out that a conservative Campaign organizer has claimed he was told of the Tehran affair a month if one Cabinet minister has committed a quite scandalous breach of in his Trudeau missed the Chance to admit that he ought not to have asked the questions he did in the he should have performed there As he did at his press conference saying nothing but then if Trudeau Ever once admitted error remember wage and Price it really would be an historic occasion to match Cabot and the Toronto Star final stride not so easy to take devilishly these metric by by judicious selection of and by astute they Are Able to make it appear As if a senior official of the Canadian football league can hardly wait to convert the game to when in fact the Man in question considers a move toward such conversion As sensible As trying to play the game with a Square to those of us whose football exper Tise is confined to watching the Grey cup and pretending we really know the difference Between a first Down and a the pamphlet the football that bears the Canada metric Symbol on both its English and French sides seems to be both logical and its that a metric Field of 100 metres by 60 metres easily fits into All conventional Canad an and that the playing sur face is Shorter by about the length of a football at each indicates that Fred Cleverley and understanding metric i football would be considerably easier than trying to figure out that minus five degrees celsius Means a possibly pleas ant Day in Winnipeg in the to a casual football the state ment making a first Down in 10 metres requires about an extra does not present much of a perceived prob to the More serious and to the people who Are really responsible for providing in the proposed changes Are More than that extra which the metric commission tosses off so apparently is a formidable obstacle to the player who has to carry it out it in the face of an opposition consisting of 260 Pound individuals who Are intent on preventing him from doing football buffs Are Quick to see the holes in the metric they argue that to add the equivalent of an extra Yard to every first Down would change the whole nature of a game that has been carefully designed to make it possible for a Good offence to make the and to make it possible for a Good defence to prevent the Down from being these people apparently with Good that there is a lot More to converting professional football to met Ric than simply changing the what is certain to throw off the average no football fan is the stature of the individuals who Are credited by Canada metric for the conversion the pamphlet states this Field plan for a simple conversion was the Crea Tion of two men who arrived at the same idea independently Greg Ful ton of the Canadian football league and Al Lenard of Queens universe the wording must have been chosen with an astute Reader will notice that it gives credit Only for the Field conversion but the credit is positioned at the end of All the including the longer first the position Points for converts and the new metric the effect is to have the unsuspecting Reader conclude that Greg the Secretary treasurer of the Canadian football is wholeheartedly behind metric when asked about was he had never seen the Pam in he was most emphatic about opposing any change from the present method of measuring distances in the Canadian he said the changes would not Only Cost millions to but would change the entire nature of the Fulton had indeed produced a plan showing How metric distances could be used to measure a football but that was 10 years when metric conversion was first he said the investigation was carried out to determine Only what was and there was no intention by anyone he knew in football of supporting such a his most telling comment concerned the reaction of the Cal to he said it was All a matter of either for the possible or the Imossi you never he some some government committee May come up with a plan that would Force us to play with Square we would have to plan for prospects believed brighter for party by James Stewart new democratic party has never won a Federal seat in Quebec and come 18 will most Likely maintain its unblemished record of in this As in All Federal elections of the past couple of a Dequebec has hardly any Money to hardly any no big name candidates and has been ail but abandoned by Leader de Broadbent and party Headquarters in yet this almost invisible with out seeming to try or without the re sources to will probably get More votes from Quebe cers in this election than the Homegrown social credit party will despite the Dps failure to win a it has always managed to Field candidates in every Corner of the prov and has almost automatically won the faithful support of six to 12 per cent of Quebec in this election Only the liberals and conservatives have full slates of 75 the nip is with candidates in All but one the rhinos have 68 but the social credit of Fabien steadily declining from their Days of Power could Muster Only 56 the nip is expected to move into third place in Quebec in this Miles behind the of but fairly close to the tories and ahead of social Hope too Strong a word this is not to say that the nip really expects to break its famine and win a seat in even Quebec Leader Jeandenis Lavigne recognizes that Hope is probably too Strong a a couple of second place finishes or a Strong showing in certain regions of the province would be considered a kind of a firs place finish in one or two Ridings is Lavigne sees the party Best chances in the area South of Quebec City where he is running in Lotbini�re and former sacred my Rene Matte in people Are tired of the liberals and disappointed with the says he also expects a Good showing in Hull where the nip believes it has an excellent candidate in Michel nip candidates Quebec Are campaigning on the same themes As their elsewhere in Terest economic Independence of the Impact of the Clark Bud the records and leadership of Clark and but they Are developing a specifically Quebec Industrial strategy rather than relying exclusively on the Central party organizations pan Canadian Quebec Industrial assets and prob lems require special says Broadbent has made one visit to to the Lauzon and was expected to make one More but that is the extent of his campaigning in party facing dilemma he and the party organizers seem to have decided to leave Quebec out of their electoral this is part of the continuing dilemma of the nip in its social democratic posture should find ready support but the party has never been Able to reconcile its economic policies with Quebec nationalism or even with decentralized fed Broadbent himself has remarked that the Rise of the pm in Quebec has absorbed most of the reformist ele ment which might have been recruited by the he seems to have concluded that the polarization in Quebec Between federa lists and separatists leaves no room for the social democratic Federal until the Quebec referendum has been held on and the constitutional question has been set the nip feels it Jan not make a proper Appeal to ail the social demo cratic forces in the the Dps Strong federalist As Well As its insistence on a Strong Cen trial government for economic plan conflict with the main Stream of Quebec political thinking both in the pm and in the Quebec Liberal the a prs Strong federalist As Well As its insistence on a Strong Central government for economic plan conflict with the main Stream of Quebec political thinking both in the pm and in the Quebec Liberal the nip had and still has the problem of remaining a federalist party and holding on to some of its Independence leaning workers and of news service ;