Canada's Political Ice Storm

Even for those accustomed to northern climates, an election in the dark of Canadian winter can try the soul. On Jan. 23 Canadians will vote for a new Parliament, and in this normally unflappable nation there's a restless and angry mood that bodes ill for the governing Liberal Party. With two weeks remaining before the vote, Prime Minister Paul Martin was running second in opinion surveys behind Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper, whose right-of-center platform of taxation, gun control and same-sex marriage (he doesn't like any of them) until recently seemed to place him well outside the Canadian mainstream.

Why the turnabout? Because Canada is having a nationwide attack of virtue. Corruption scandals have steadily eroded the government's grip on power — in direct proportion to its impressive longevity. Canada, famous for hockey, waggish comedians and an unforgiving Arctic climate, is also home to one of the world's longest-ruling political parties. Canada's Liberals have reigned over the landmass stretching from the 49th parallel to the Arctic Ocean since 1993. In fact, the Liberals have held nearly unbroken power for most of the 20th century — a record that bolstered their claim to be the "natural" party of government.

But even natural parties come to a natural end. The tipping point came from disclosures in 2004 that funds from a $250 million federal scheme to buy the loyalty of separatist-leaning Francophones in Quebec were siphoned off in illegal kickbacks to Liberal Party operatives. Opposition parties competed in expressions of high dudgeon. "This is a dark time for democracy in Canada," declared Jack Layton, leader of the left-wing New Democratic Party. The first postscandal attempt to unseat the government, in June 2004, left Martin's Liberals clinging to a shaky minority. Push came to shove in November, when Martin's 17-month-old government was shattered by a no-confidence vote. At the outset, most of Canada's chattering classes shared their PM's view that a grueling 56-day election spanning the holiday period was unnecessary, not to mention an assault on Christmas. "Ambition has overwhelmed common sense," said Martin, who had already announced he would schedule an election during the February doldrums. But the opposition parties, who held 173 seats of 308 in the House of Commons, decided they would never have a better opportunity to strike. For Harper, 46, a longtime Tory firebrand who began his career in Calgary in the oil-rich western province of Alberta, it was a date with destiny. The media-averse leader is staking his second and possibly last try for high office on the gamble that Canadians are finally ready to change political course.

The gamble might pay off. Canada appears to be waking up to the fact that a long, comfortable period in its national life is coming to an end. Canadians are justly proud of their record of assimilating large numbers of immigrants from Southeast Asia and Africa over the past decade into a thriving multicultural society. Smart economic management, fueled by eight successive federal budget surpluses, has given this otherwise modest power an influential voice at the G-8 and international institutions like the United Nations.

But those halcyon days are ending. Canada is losing ground — and influence — to competitors overseas, and some worry that the country's safe, even smug society could fall prey to the same ethnic tensions that afflict Europe and the U.S. Meanwhile, the lingering threat of secession from the French-speaking province of Quebec has been given new life by the recent election of a determined young separatist named André Boisclair to lead the province's still formidable sovereign party.

That's why an election that started out as a mere annoyance may pull the curtain down on a political era. According to one survey, 60% believe the government can't fix the cronyism that permeates the federal bureaucracy. For the unlucky Martin, it has become the perfect storm. One of Canada's most accomplished Finance Ministers, Martin, 67, had long groomed himself for the national stage. The names in his personal Rolodex range from international bankers to Bono, the rock-star poverty crusader. But when he became PM in December 2003 after staging an internal party coup that swept his former boss, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, into retirement, he inherited an exhausted, divided party with its glory days behind it. Perhaps, conceded one party official in Ontario, Canada's most populous province, "We [Liberals] need a time-out." As the ice in Canada's political landscape begins to crack, they may get one.