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Canada's Rising Star
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11252 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1993 |
2,327 Words |
| Author
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Eric Phillips-Beaudan
Eric Phillips-Beaudan is a senior consultant with the Wyatt
Company in Ottawa, Ontario. He writes about international
affairs and security policy. |
Banners across Canada greeted Kim Campbell's nomination as Progressive Conservative (PC) Party leader, and as de facto prime minister, with distinctly un-Canadian zeal: First Woman Prime Minister. First Prime Minister from Western Canada. First Prime Minister Born after the Second World War.
Could it be that the 46-year-old lawyer from British Columbia, who sagaciously observed, "The difference between me and Madonna is the difference between a strapless evening gown and a gownless evening strap," offers a new brand of Canadianism--outgoing, sincere, and cleverly playful?
If so, the odds are good that in the federal election expected this fall, Kim Campbell will become Canada's bona fide prime minister. Out to stop her is Liberal Party leader Jean Chrétien and the PC's own legacy of hapless leadership under Brian Mulroney.
Campbell took over the office of prime minister on June 25, a week after her hard-fought victory at the PC leadership convention. This has given her less than four months to prove that she is not "Mulroney in a skirt," as her political opponents like to proclaim. She wasted no time in asserting herself by announcing on her inauguration day a reduction of federal departments from 35 to 25, and scoring a foreign relations coup by talking U.S. President Bill Clinton into appointing a senior White House official to handle Canada-U.S. trade issues.
With pundits claiming that "her first few weeks as prime minister are crucial--her execution has to be flawless," Campbell is riding high on her image as an agent of change. "Her victory . . . may mean that it is permissible for politicians to start sounding like normal human beings, which would be a refreshing change for a nation grown weary of public posturing," writes the editor of MacLean's.
Campbell seems well aware that her public appeal is her sharpest weapon. "What people like about me is that I don't talk like a politician," she smartly declares. "I like to socialize with people who read the same things I do and have a similar level of education, but I genuinely like ordinary people."
Having admitted, unlike Clinton, that she smoked marijuana as an adolescent, Campbell has little in common with the Old Boys Club that pervades contemporary Canadian politics. "This means much more than offering a fresh face, modern vocabulary, and a Thatcher-like style. It does mean a fundamental
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