Stockwell Day
Stockwell Burt Day Jr. is a former Canadian politician who served as leader of the Canadian Alliance from 2000 to 2001 and later as a member of the Conservative Party of Canada.
A provincial cabinet minister from Alberta, Day served as minister of labour, minister of social services, and treasurer under Premier Ralph Klein. He successfully ran for leader of the newly formed Canadian Alliance against former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, winning that position on July 8, 2000. Following his election as leader, Day won the by-election to become the member of Parliament for the riding of Okanagan—Coquihalla in British Columbia. In the 2000 federal election, the Alliance under Day only made modest gains, increasing their seat count from 58 to 66. A breakthrough in the East did not happen, and the Liberal Party under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien won a third consecutive majority government.
After the election, Day's leadership of the party was met with criticism, with a caucus revolt taking place. Following the election, Day lost his role as leader, but continued to serve as an MP. He then held several cabinet portfolios under Prime Minister Stephen Harper and was widely seen as a prominent voice for social conservatives within the Conservative Party. Day did not seek re-election in the 2011 federal election.
Early life and career
Day was born in Barrie, Ontario, the son of Gwendolyn "Gwen" and Stockwell Day Sr. He lived in a number of places in Canada during his youth, including Atlantic Canada; Ottawa, where he attended Ashbury College; and Montreal, where he graduated from Westmount High School. He attended the University of Victoria and Vanguard College, then known as Northwest Bible College, in Edmonton, Alberta, but did not graduate from either.His father, who was born in Montreal, was long associated with the Social Credit Party of Canada. In the 1972 federal election, he was the Social Credit candidate running against New Democratic Party leader Tommy Douglas in the riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan—The Islands. Day Sr. supported Doug Christie and was a member of the Western Canada Concept.
From 1978 to 1985, Day was assistant pastor and school administrator at the Bentley Christian Centre in Bentley, Alberta. His school taught the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum.
Career in provincial politics
In 1986, Day was elected to represent Red Deer North in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta as a Progressive Conservative, a position that he held until 2000.In December 1992, newly elected Alberta premier Ralph Klein brought Day into his cabinet as his minister of labour, a position in which he oversaw controversial changes in his ministry, including layoffs in the civil service. In this role, Day was credited with working with all of Alberta's Public Service Unions to achieve an unprecedented five per cent voluntary reduction in their collective agreements. While Day was minister of labour, Alberta had the lowest number of days lost due to labour disputes of any province. As Minister Responsible for the Worker's Compensation Board, Day oversaw the elimination of the Compensation Board's unfunded liability of $600 million. This led to a general reduction in premiums for businesses and a general increase in workers' benefits.
In October 1994, Government House Leader was added to his responsibility. In May 1996, Day was made Minister of Social Services and, in March 1997, he became Treasurer. As Treasurer, Day oversaw a continued paying down of Alberta's debt while he cut taxes, instituting a flat tax rate in 1999.
In April 1999, while Day was still Treasurer, he wrote a letter criticizing Red Deer lawyer and public school board trustee Lorne Goddard for representing a defendant who was ultimately convicted on charges of possessing child pornography. In the letter, Day suggested that Goddard's argument in court that the Canadian Constitution protected his client's right to possess child pornography implied that he himself believed that pedophiles have the right to own such materials and that this further implies that he also must believe that teachers should have the right to pornographic images of their students.
In response, Goddard sued Day for defamation. The suit was eventually settled on December 22, 2000, in the plaintiff's favour. According to an adjudication order from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta, the total settlement cost for the suit was $792,064.40, including $60,000 in damages paid to the plaintiff, costs that were paid by Alberta taxpayers. However, Day eventually paid back the Alberta Government the $60,000 in damages out of his own pocket. Additionally, Day later wrote a letter to a local paper in his riding as a member of Parliament expressing deep regret "that my former friend Lorne Goddard and his family, have been personally hurt."
Leadership of the Canadian Alliance
In 2000, Day decided to run for leader of the newly formed Canadian Alliance party. After a heavily publicized campaign, Day came in first on the June 24 first ballot of the leadership election with about 44 per cent of the vote, in front of former Reform Party leader Preston Manning and Ontario PC strategist Tom Long. In the following runoff election against Manning, held on July 8, 2000, Day received 63.4 per cent.Looking for a way to get into Parliament, Day decided against running in his hometown riding of Red Deer, even though it was comfortably safe for the Alliance. Instead, he ran in a by-election in the equally safe riding of Okanagan—Coquihalla, British Columbia after incumbent Reform/CA MP Jim Hart stood down in his favour—a standard practice in most parliamentary systems when a newly elected leader doesn't have a seat in Parliament. Day won the by-election on September 11, 2000, arriving at his first news conference on a Jet Ski wearing a wetsuit.
2000 election
A few weeks after Day entered the House of Commons, Jean Chrétien called a snap election for November 27, 2000, which would not give the newly formed Canadian Alliance time to consolidate itself. Nonetheless, the new party went into the election with high hopes, as Day was expected to appeal far more to the crucial Ontario voters than his predecessors.There were few, if any, important issues when the election was called; nonetheless, the Liberals frequently alleged that Day had a hidden agenda, identifying Day with the Christian right, and drawing attention to his past comments about homosexuality and abortion.
In an interview published in the alternative weekly Montreal Mirror on June 8, Day addressed some of the perceptions that he was homophobic. He began by denying that he had ever referred to homosexuality as a "mental disorder". He acknowledged having gay staff working on his campaign: "First of all, as far as my campaign, I don't ask people if they're homosexual, lesbian or heterosexual. People who are working on my campaign are doing so because they believe in me. That doesn't mean that they necessarily agree 100 per cent with everything I believe. But in principle they're saying we think you can take this Alliance to the next step and we think you'd be good for Canada. So I don't ask. Nobody has to pass a sex test to be on this campaign." But the statement that made headlines in newspapers across the country was Day's acknowledgment that he would indeed consider using the Notwithstanding Clause to block a Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, then a distinct possibility that was unnerving many social conservatives. After being pressed by journalist Matthew Hays on the Notwithstanding Clause question, Day replied "Yes, and the reason I say that is because such a significant number of constituents would reflect concern on that and would want the discussion. The Alberta position on this is that the definition of marriage changing would allow for the use of the Notwithstanding Clause. That's because the sense of the elected officials in Alberta is that the people would be significantly motivated on that issue."
Liberal activist Warren Kinsella mocked Day's belief in young Earth creationism by pulling out a Barney doll during a television interview and stating that "this was the only dinosaur ever to be on Earth with humans". Media covering the Day campaign bus, nicknamed "Prayer Force One", hummed The Flintstones theme song to mock the idea that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.
During the 2000 election, the CBC ran an extended documentary purporting to review Day's religious beliefs. In this documentary the CBC interviewed Professor Pliny Hayes, Chair of the Department of Natural Sciences at Red Deer College, who reported that Day said in a speech at the college that there is scientific proof that the world is about 6,000 years old and that early man co-existed with dinosaurs. Day filed a complaint with the CBC for the fact that he was at no time asked for comment on the matter.
When subsequently asked by reporters about his beliefs, Day said he didn't think his beliefs "should be used in any kind of detrimental way in an election campaign." Day's spokesman Phil Von Finckenstein said the Alliance believes that other theories of creation should be taught alongside evolution in schools, but he also recognizes education is a provincial jurisdiction.
The Alliance's direct democracy proposals, which would have required a referendum on any proposal supported by a petition signed by three per cent of Canadian voters, were also frequently targeted as a suggestion of a hidden agenda. Some asserted that "special interest" groups would use the low requirements to put contentious subjects to a national referendum. Day himself never did support the threshold, explaining that he would need to consult with Canadians over what the threshold should be. The proposal was satirized by Rick Mercer of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, where he proposed a national petition for a referendum to demand that Day change his first name to Doris, which reached the threshold advocated by The Alliance.
Another gaffe took place when the Day campaign used the hit single "Ordinary Day" by Great Big Sea at a rally without permission. The band demanded that Day's campaign cease using the song for campaigning purposes.
Day was also a victim of an incident during the election. When making a "grand entrance" for a speech at Conestoga College, activist Julian Ichim splashed him with two litres of chocolate milk from the front of the stage, saying he did it to protest Day's "homophobic, anti-immigrant and anti-poor agenda". Afterward, again on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, actress Mary Walsh jokingly offered Day chocolate milk, saying: "All they had was homo, and I knew wouldn't like that."
Day stumbled during two campaign appearances in the first week. A photo-op at a technology firm meant to illustrate a "brain drain" to the US was undermined when the owner reported that he had moved to Canada from the United States eight years earlier. The next day, at Niagara Falls, Day remarked that Canadian jobs were flowing south "just like the Niagara River", when in fact the river flows north. In mid-campaign, the Alliance candidate in Winnipeg South Centre, Betty Granger, was quoted as voicing concerns about an "Asian invasion" in Canada. And in the televised leaders' debate, Day held up a handwritten sign saying "NO 2-TIER HEALTHCARE" in large letters to counter a newspaper headline in The Globe and Mail earlier in the campaign. As props were against the rules, he claimed it was his briefing notes. Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark retorted, "Mr. Day appears to be running for office as some kind of game show host." The debate went poorly for Day, with the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail describing him as "the big loser" of the night.
At one point, the Alliance was at 30.5 per cent in the polls, and some thought they could win a minority government. On election night, the Alliance increased their seats over Reform totals from 60 to 66 and kept Reform's strong representation in western Canada, but the hoped-for breakthrough in Ontario did not occur, with the party electing just two MPs in that province. However, the Alliance increased their overall vote totals by over one million and reduced the Progressive Conservatives to 12 seats in the House of Commons. The Liberals' attacks on Day ended up decimating the NDP and Progressive Conservatives, as many voters who would otherwise have supported those parties voted strategically for the Liberals to prevent an Alliance victory.