2000 Federal Election Campaign

Briefing Paper

In the 2000 Canadian federal election, Environment Voters (EV) campaigned in three electoral districts:

• Victoria (British Columbia)

• Edmonton West (Alberta)

• York North (Ontario)

For reasons beyond the control of EV, its 2000 federal election campaign was, in fact, a token affair and not the campaign that EV would have run had adequate time and financial resources been available.

Despite its limitations, the campaign was — from a long-term political perspective — critical to demonstrate to all future governments-of-the-day that EV will be involved in every election. This is a fundamental requirement if EV and its supporters are to achieve their long-term public policy environmental and animal protection goals.

Due to the strategic limitations and scope of EV's 2000 federal campaign, it is unlikely that it had much actual influence over voting behaviors. However, there were significant, even dramatic, responses from the Liberal candidates targeted and the press. And, a great deal was learned from the campaign — lessons that will serve EV well in future campaigns.

The format of this briefing paper is as follows. Each of the major elements of the campaign are outlined, then immediately followed by a brief commentary which puts each element into perspective, explains what was learned, and how future campaigns might be affected.

For organizations like Environment Voters, the 2000 federal election campaign was profoundly influenced by the new Canada Elections Act ("Act") which included new regulations specifically designed to eliminate the effectiveness of "third party" party campaigns — campaigns like those run by EV.

Ostensibly passed to improve democracy in Canada, the Act is a pernicious and hypocritical piece of legislation carefully crafted by the Liberal Party to best serve its electoral, fund raising, and patronage objectives. The Act is designed to give the incumbent party — currently the Liberals — as much control as possible over the political advertising that voters are permitted to see and hear during an election. In particular, the Act restricts the monies "third parties" like EV are permitted to spend on "election advertising" to amounts so low as to insure that their messages cannot be heard by sufficient numbers of people to be of any consequence.

Environment Voters fought vigorously for its and its supporters Charter rights — the right to participate effectively in elections — and against the third party restrictions in the Canada Elections Act: first at the House of Commons and Senate committees considering the Act and, finally, in the courts where Environment Voters was granted intervenor status in a constitutional challenge to the Act in the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench (Harper v. Attorney General of Canada).

The final decision of the Alberta court as to the constitutionality of the Act is still pending. However, in the first few days of the campaign, the Alberta court granted a temporary injunction which struck down the third party spending limitations in the Act. EV based its campaign and spending under the protection of the injunction, but with only two weeks left in the campaign that protection was withdrawn. The federal government was able to convince the Supreme Court of Canada to stay the Alberta Court's injunction. The spending rules were re-imposed mid-campaign and EV had to resort to extraordinary efforts to see its campaign to a successful conclusion.

COMMENTARY: The new Canada Election Act with it's "third party" restrictions, the vigorous support of the Chief Electoral Officer for stifling "third party" involvement in elections, and the easy willingness of the Supreme Court of Canada to quash the Charter Right of Freedom of Expression during the 2000 election clearly demonstrates that there is a determination in the government and Supreme Court to eliminate the effectiveness of so-called "third parties" like Environment Voters during elections.

To campaign freely and effectively in future federal elections, EV will re-organize the financial structure of its campaigns such that its expenditures do not fall under the Act's "third party" spending restrictions. There are numerous ways to accomplish this and remain in full compliance with the Act; the appropriate mechanisms will be put in place well before the next federal election is called.

Whatever one might think of the failures of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's environmental policies, his political skills deserve credit. Not only did he easily put down a leadership putsch by Paul Martin's supporters, but the early election call — a year and a half before necessary — caught all the opposition parties, and Environment Voters, ill-prepared to fight an election. Chrétien's three and a half decades of political experience and machinations, along with the powers and privileges of the office of the Prime Minister, served him well.

When it became evident that the Prime Minister had decided to call an early election, EV had just completed its legal interventions regarding the Canada Elections Act, had started a new television-based fund raising program, had completed its efforts in the House of Commons and Senate committees addressing problems in the Canada Elections Act, and was in the process of re-building its financial resources after the 1999 Ontario election. When the election was called, EV simply lacked the resources to campaign as effectively as would be necessary to fully hold the Liberal's accountable for their disastrous environmental policies.

However, not campaigning would be untenable. If EV was ever to establish the environment as a critical political issue over the long-term, it had to make it clear that it would be involved in every federal election. The fact that EV's campaign would be modest would do no harm to the greater cause as every politician and political party understands the challenges in building a political organization. What might be a modest effort in 2000, after three or four years of building could turn into a powerful political force for environmental progress in the 2004 election.

An emergency fund raising program was immediately implemented. EV supporters across Canada were telephoned and asked for their help. Their enthusiastic and generous response enabled a campaign to be formed. EV campaigns are based on the idea of rewarding politicians and political parties with good environmental records while in government and punishing those with poor ones. The Liberals have a devastating record, but limited time and resources meant running effective campaigns in two dozen marginal electoral districts which would have the best chance of defeating Liberal incumbents would not be possible. (For a more detailed description of this kind of campaign see the report on EV's 1999 Ontario election campaign.)

A different strategy was chosen. EV would campaign in three electoral districts held by prominent Liberal incumbents with a connection to the environment and animal protection. And rather than running a campaign that would have the greatest potential for shifting votes which takes a great deal of planning, research, and funding, the EV 2000 campaign would be designed to meet the following goals:

• emphasize the political importance of the environment to the Liberal party, which was likely to win the election

• impress upon the candidates that EV would be making the environment an issue in all elections,

• raise the failures of the Liberals environmental policy with the press,

• increase public awareness of the Liberal's environmental record.

It should be noted that while many groups run the kind of public awareness campaigns described above during elections, experience has shown that they usually have little or no effect on actually shifting votes. Normally, EV would not embark on such a campaign, preferring the well-researched, highly targeted, local campaigns which actually influence voting behavior. While EV cannot compete dollar for dollar with the major political parties nor many of the interest groups which participate in elections, it can use supporters’ funds in the most effective, cost-efficient way possible by relying upon proven political and campaign practices which have demonstrated their utility in influencing public policy after elections.

COMMENTARY: EV must be prepared well in advance of any election. This was not possible for the 2000 federal election due to extraneous factors beyond EV’s control and the quality of the campaign suffered. As the Prime Minister showed, for political advantage an election can be called at any time. For EV this means having in place — as an on-going process — all the necessary voting history and campaign research to effectively identify and target marginal electoral districts. It also means that campaign fund raising must be based on a membership of dedicated supporters willing to commit to a modest, monthly giving program. As EV's overhead and personnel costs between elections are so low, just a few thousand people — as few as 6, 500 — contributing as little as $20 per month would provide the necessary campaign funding for EV to be a significant and potent political force for environmental and animal protection in any future federal or provincial election. Liz White, an EV founding director, is in the process of implementing a comprehensive fund raising and member recruitment plan to meet this goal.

Karen Kraft Sloan was the Liberal incumbent in York South. Ms Sloan had demonstrated a deep and heroic commitment to the environment going so far as to publicly criticize and vote against her own party's poor environmental legislation. Ms Sloan is such a good Member of Parliament and so well-respected in her electoral district that her re-election was never in doubt. Consequently, Environment Voter's campaign in York South was very modest, intended only to say "Thank You" to Ms Sloan for her environmental record and demonstrate that, true to its word, EV would campaign in favor of legislators with good environmental records.

The EV campaign was based on organizing a core of volunteers to help Karen Kraft Sloan's campaign team canvas door-to-door in York South to get out the vote. Sloan won her constituency with, as expected, an overwhelming majority.

The cause for strong environmental protection is well-served with Ms Sloan's return to the House of Commons and EV is proud to have been able, in a small way, to help in her re-election.

COMMENTARY: It is important that politicians of every political stripe who work to protect the environment are supported during elections. EV has been actively encouraging other environmental groups and individuals concerned about the environment to join the campaign teams of good politicians. And, happily, there has been some success in this area. Helping good, pro-environment politicians is something every person can do; it often requires only a few hours volunteer work during a campaign — knocking on doors, manning phone banks, placing signs, etc.

The Minister of Justice, the Hon. Anne McLellan, ran for re-election in Edmonton West. Prior to the election, Ms McLellan introduced important changes in the Criminal Code which would, if enacted, greatly improve legal protections for domestic animals. The voting history of Edmonton West showed that the race would be very close. After receiving assurances from the Minister's office that after the election she would aggressively move to have her Criminal Code changes protecting animals enacted, the decision was made to help in her re-election effort.

A basic research program was instigated that suggested that EV could best help by encouraging people concerned about animal welfare to vote for Anne McLellan. McLellan's own organization was very strong; there was little point in EV simply duplicating its efforts.

The EV campaign was based on 60 second radio spots which ran during the last week of the campaign.

The EV campaign was sorely impacted by the Supreme Court's decision to stay the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench injunction which struck down "third party" spending limitations on election advertising. Because of the Supreme Court's decision late in the campaign, EV was forced to scale back its radio time buy to meet the restrictions.

Since the election, McLellan's office has re-iterated their intention to move ahead rapidly with the animal protections contained in the new Criminal Code.

COMMENTARY: Anne McLellan won her re-election by just a few hundred votes. Did the EV campaign contribute to her win? Probably. But unlike EV's 1999 Ontario election campaign where a careful study could be undertaken to measure the effect of EV's campaign, in Edmonton West all that's available is informed opinion.

The important outcome of the Edmonton West campaign, however, was not the number of votes that EV actually moved, but rather a clear demonstration that when a Member of Parliament who is good on environmental and animal welfare issues is in a tight race, EV will be there to help him or her when it matters most.

The Liberal incumbent in Victoria was David Anderson, Minister of the Environment. David Anderson is the Liberal's standard bearer for their environmental policies. On the surface, Anderson cultivates an image of a tough, aggressive environmental activist. His actual record, however, is at odds with this impression.

Like the federal Liberal Party in general, Anderson has been — both as Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and as Minister of the Environment — a disappointment on environmental and marine protection issues. Most recently, Anderson defended the Canadian government's and his department's successful efforts to derail the efforts in The Hague to reduce global green house gases.

To be fair, the failures of the Liberal's environmental policy cannot be wholly blamed on Anderson. He — like every Liberal Minister of the Environment before him — is an insignificant player in the whole process. Environment is a minor portfolio and the Minister does not decide environmental policy on his or her own. That responsibility falls to the Prime Minister and other more powerful cabinet ministers.

However, as Minister of the Environment, David Anderson serves as the cabinet icon of the federal Liberal's environmental policy. So, consequently, to have the greatest political impact possible, EV concentrated the bulk of its campaign budget in the Victoria Campaign. The campaign was ostensibly billed as — and took on the appearance of — an effort to defeat David Anderson, but this was not, in fact, the case.

To defeat a candidate, as EV had done in the 1999 Ontario election, a campaign must be research driven, based on the issues that undecided voters are actually concerned about as determined from quality polling, and highly targeted in the "swing" areas of a marginal electoral district. Usually these are not high profile campaigns that attract much press attention (indeed, press attention is usually undesirable), but politically they are extremely effective often shifting as much as 5% of the vote. 5% is a large enough shift to mean the difference between the incumbent winning or losing in many electoral districts. The real, negotiable political power that can be used to influence public policy is found in these campaigns.

What is usually seen in elections from "third parties," however, are campaigns based on promoting one issue: poverty, environment, abortion, gun laws, education, etc. Billboards are often used, as are various provocative advertisements in newspapers and on television and radio. As high profile and media-attracting as these campaigns might be, they have proven to be singularly ineffective at shifting votes. Indeed, they can often "spook" a targeted candidate who is usually genuinely relieved to discover at the end of the campaign that he or she has miraculously survived the attack unscathed. For its part, the press chronically overestimates the impacts of these campaigns and is always surprised when they fail. Nevertheless, the fourth estate likes to cover them. They are easy to report, often colorful, and provide easy stories to contrast with the carefully controlled campaign rhetoric of the major parties.

Time and budget restraints forced EV to employ the latter form of campaign against David Anderson. It is worth noting the voting history analysis of the Victoria electoral district suggested that although David Anderson would have some stiff competition he was still likely to win the seat. While his main competition, the Canadian Alliance, was well represented in the rural areas of British Columbia, they were not doing well in urban areas like Victoria. Anderson would have to work to retain his seat, but EV knew he should win. Indeed, the research suggested that even with the best campaign that EV could implement, which might shift as much as 5% of the vote, David Anderson would still win. The prime purpose then of EV's Victoria Campaign was not to defeat David Anderson per se (which, admittedly would have been a welcome bonus), but rather to use the campaign as a 'bully pulpit' from which to denounce the Liberal's environmental record and raise the importance of the environment in the election.

The original Victoria campaign strategy was conceived as a relatively simple and straightforward affair, but external factors intervened to not only profoundly change the overall strategy, but also to make David Anderson's re-election effort and EV's campaign to unseat him a national story — all to the benefit of environmental and wildlife protection.

All campaigns should start with research. EV's initial campaign research — based on telephone interviews with interested parties and people in the media — suggested that David Anderson was not a well-liked nor well-respected Member of Parliament. It was reported that he was viewed by many as "Ottawa's man in Victoria" rather than what many felt he should be: Victoria's representative in Ottawa. Anderson, himself, was described as dismissive of alternate viewpoints. His constituency work was reported to be poor and neglectful. Like so many anecdote and interview-based inquiries, the actual truth of this is undeterminable, but for EV's campaign purposes these general, broadly-held perceptions were enough to inform the general tone of its campaign. Towards the end of the campaign as election day loomed, Anderson was forced to recruit defenders to help counter these base perceptions of him. Not surprisingly, they tended to be organizations and individuals who had received or were hoping to receive federal government funding.

EV's research also indicated that in Victoria, Liberal and Canadian Alliance was fairly evenly split. If David Anderson was to beat the Canadian Alliance candidate he would have to earn a sizable percentage of the NDP core vote.

EV's research informed its campaign strategy: attack David Anderson for failings both as the local MP and as the Environment Minister, with a particular emphasis on broken Liberal promises, and directly support the NDP candidate David Turner.

The media of choice was television: the most effective media for election advertising. A 60 second television spot was produced which had EV director Liz White highlighting Anderson's and the Liberal's failings in serving Victoria and protecting the environment, and urging voters to support David Turner, the NDP candidate. Time was purchased and the spot was scheduled to run on the local Victoria television station during the last week of the election campaign.

Parallel to the television buy, efforts were made to attract press attention to the EV campaign in order to help get out the message about the Liberal's and Anderson's poor environmental protection records. This proved very successful. Stories with headlines like "Enviros take on Anderson" and "Environmentalists force protection issue: Activists focus on getting environment on election agenda" appeared across the country. Two factors helped to stir press interest. One was Anderson's own combative nature which resulted in him making a number of ludicrous accusations about EV. And the other was the building controversy about the 'third party' election advertising spending limits in the Canada Elections Act which as one reporter wrote, " may make this our shortest and most undemocratic election yet."

As the campaign drew to a close and just days before the EV television spot was due to run, the Supreme Court of Canada stayed the Alberta Court's injunction against the Canada Election Act's 'third party' spending limits. EV was informed by Elections Canada that if the spot aired EV would be in contravention of the Act.

The Supreme Court of Canada's easy willingness to suppress fundamental Charter Rights and stay the Alberta Court's injunction was a disappointment. But it was a decision for which EV had already developed a contingency. Citing the Court's decision, EV pulled its television spot. There was no choice. This act alone generated considerable press coverage, including the airing of the offending spot on news programs in British Columbia.

Stephen Best and Liz White, EV founding directors, traveled to Victoria for a 20 November Monday morning press conference — just 7 days before the election, and the day the first spot was to be aired — to announce that the spot and the air time purchased was being donated to the NDP candidate, David Turner.

David Turner and his campaign manager were on hand to accept the donation. That evening and for the rest of week the EV ad ran as scheduled.

While in Victoria, Best and White conducted numerous radio and print media interviews and produced a radio spot that reinforced the same themes used in the television ad.

In the end, Anderson, not surprisingly, was re-elected. The Liberal strategy of demonizing the Canadian Alliance and Stockwell Day was simple and effective. And David Turner, the NDP candidate, was fatally tainted by the collapse of support for the provincial NDP.

COMMENTARY: The Victoria Campaign confirmed a number of premises that have been fundamental to EV's strategic thinking. One is that the highly public, single-issue campaigns conducted with radio and television spots, newspaper ads, and earned media favored by most 'third parties' during elections are singularly ineffective at actually shifting votes. However, they may be useful in signaling the importance of an issue to politicians during elections and might have some use complimenting the truly effective targeted campaigns.

Before, during and after the Victoria campaign EV was the target of criticism — some of it hysterical — from many environmental and wildlife protection organizations. Their fear was that David Anderson and the Liberals would exact retribution for EV's campaign in Victoria by putting in place even worse environmental policies than they already had and by denying groups access to the 'corridors of power' in Ottawa. This understanding of the political process and the nature of politicians is naïve. Politicians work in a world where power is acquired and applied. An environmental group or any group that operates in this manner is simply a matter of course. Undue deference is ineffective. Politicians do not adjust public policy because they like or get along with someone but rather in response to the political pressures that are brought to bear.

The Throne Speech and the Liberal's re-introduction of the Species at Risk Act — a tougher version than the one that died on the Order Paper when the election was called — demonstrate that nothing is to be gained by deference and much from the responsible use of negotiable political power.

Fortuitously, as this report was being finalized, the Governor General was delivering the Speech from the Throne. It is the first Throne Speech by a Liberal government that has ever singled out the environment as an area of concern. It contained broad commitments to clean air and water, the Canadian park system, the marine environment, and the protection of species at risk and habitat. On the first day of business after the Throne Speech, the Minister of the Environment introduced a new, more effective, Species at Risk Act keeping a promise he made in Victoria at the height of — and in response to — EV's campaign.

All of this begs the question: What caused the Liberals — after seven years of dismantling Canada's environmental protection system with political impunity — to suddenly become such ardent advocates for the environment? The only change in the political environment in those seven years has been Environment Voters making environmental policy an issue that can win or lose votes.

Liz White, Director
Environment Voters
Suite 101
221 Broadview Avenue
Toronto ON M4M 2G3
Tel: 416.462.9541
Fax: 416.462.9647
liz@environmentvoters.org

Stephen Best, Director
Environment Voters
PO Box 988
Shelburne ON L0N 1S0
Tel: 519.925.3440
Fax: 519.925.2003
sbest@environmentvoters.org

Environment Voters website: http://environmentvoters.org