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On October 25, 1993 the Progressive Conservative party suffered the biggest political defeat in Canadian history. Under the leadership of Kim Campbell, the Progressive Conservative Party was reduced from one of the biggest majority governments in Canadian history to only two seats in the House of Commons. It is said that a lot of responsibility for this loss lies in the faulty government of Brian Mulroney. However, Kim Campbell was given the rare opportunity of running a country. For a period of seven months, Kim Campbell made all ultimate decisions that lead to the fate of Canada. Kim Campbell was the first female Prime Minister of Canada and even this fact alone could be used to draw votes from Canadians.
In Fact, Kim Campbell had high approval ratings when her party chose her to be the leader of the Progressive Conservatives: Poles said how well a renewed Conservative Party would do in an election, specifically with Kim Campbell as the new Tory leader. She would, said one of the first poles, win 43 percent of the vote compared to 25 percent for Jean Chrtien. How did she manage to lose these ratings? How did she manage to bring the Progressive Conservative Party to its lowest number of seats in history? Brian Mulroney was not responsible for the Progressive Conservative Partys defeat in 1993, unlike many would make him out to be. In the election, Canadians no longer needed to consider the power or opinion of Brian Mulroney.
The fact is that on the date of the election, Canadians had a choice between Jean Chrtien and Kim Campbell to be the next Prime Minister of Canada. It was Kim Campbells actions that lead to the devastating defeat of the Progressive Conservative Party on October 25, 1993. Kim Campbell was not elected Prime Minister of Canada by the Canadian people because she had a massive ego that offended the Canadian public, and she did not run a smooth and successful election campaign. Throughout her career in politics, many people were offended due to Kim Campbells obvious idealism that she was better then the average person. Kim Campbell had a large ego and let it be known through her actions words during her career.
She had a strong past record of being unable to see any other points of view on something she felt strongly about. This factor was definitely considered as Canadians took the polls in 1993. Kim Campbells feeling of superiority was shown in reflection to her defeat on the Charlottetown accord. Instead of accepting the decision that the Canadian people had made through a democratic vote, Kim Campbell decided to insult the people who voted against her. She told a Harvard University audience that only the civically competent people decided to vote yes on this referendum: They simply cannot relate to what it means to allow a provincial government to do something as opposed to the federal government... The yes side had a very, very preponderant representation of people who have responsibility for decision making.
These were people that played elite rolls positions of responsibility in Canadian society. [Their vote] reflected the attitudes of people who had a specific competence (The Politics of Kim Campbell, 53). Campbell was so confident in her own opinion on the situation that she failed to even consider the idea that she could be wrong. She spoke of how the people who voted yes, like herself were of a much higher intellect level and understood the issue more, while the no voters were simply ignorant and unable to process the information. Kim Campbell also showed this suspicion of the ignorant Canadian people at a municipalities convention in Whistler. John Turner, the leader of the Reform Party, was criticizing the Canada-U. S Free Trade Agreement.
Since Campbell did not agree with what he was saying, she found herself in need to protect the ignorant Canadians who she believed were not worthy of their own opinion and would absorb anything that John Turner said. Campbell recounts her thoughts as she listened to Turners speech: I sat in the audience and realized that the people around me had no basis to judge what he was saying I couldnt stay outside that fight. (The Politics of Kim Campbell, 26) Once again Kim Campbell shows that she believes she is more intelligent and more educated than other Canadian people. Kim Campbell not only believed herself to be more intelligent than the average Canadian person, but also more intelligent than those among her in politics. This was shown during her campaign for the Vancouver Centre Riding against Liberal candidate Tex Enemark. During a televised candidates debate, Kim Campbell shut down Ted Enemarks in a condescending manner as she tried to avoid a question he asked of her: The TV host, Jim Hart asked her about her partys promise of a national child care program. She replied, Its not a promise, its a commitment.
When asked to explain the difference she replied, A promise is a promise, a commitment is a commitment. I said, Wait a minute- a promise refers to something in the future and a commitment is for something that has already been provided for. Theres no money in the fiscal framework for this program- and its too big to be hidden anywhere else. She just sneered. You dont know what youre talking about. (The Politics of Kim Campbell, 29). At the threat and realization of being proven wrong, Kim Campbell was unable to admit it and instead decided to simply disagree with her fellow candidate.
She had no basis behind her argument but her ego caused her to try and maintain her pride by continuing in ignorance. The job of Prime Minister of Canada is a position that holds a tremendous amount of power. When democratically voting for the person to run the country, Canadians must consider how the candidates will be able to relate to the Canadian people. Kim Campbell showed Canadians that she thought of herself as more intelligent, better informed and superior in nature to the average Canadian. The election campaign of the Progressive Conservative party did not run well because it was poorly organized and involved an offensive, attack add which caused Kim Campbell to lose her only edge. The organization and inconsideration of details contributed to Kim Campbells loss in the 1993 election.
Although the Progressive Conservative campaign was the most heavily funded, the party could not get literature to the local campaigns, causing these ridings to have to print out their own rushed material and preventing the party from creating a unified message of their ideas and values. Kim Campbell could not even handle her campaign well enough to distribute pamphlets. Her election campaign was simply not thought out as well as the liberals. Kim Campbell was the first woman Prime Minister of Canada and the second women to sit at the table of the Group of Seven. She could have used this to ensure the female vote, and the diversified vote but she did not take advantage of this opportunity. Money was simply not enough to keep things organized.
The Partys platform, A Taxpayers Agenda was considered rushed and substandard to the Liberals Red Book which had obviously had a lot of time put into it. Kim Campbell could not get her act together enough to compete with the campaign that the liberals were fighting with, even though they had a smaller budget. As the election approached and support in the polls dropped, The Progressive Conservatives took drastic measures that would result in the loss of their only edge on the Liberals. At the beginning of the campaign, Kim Campbell was well liked as a person over Jean Chrtien who Canadian voters were not as comfortable with. This gave Kim Campbell encouragement as it was one of the few advantages she had in the campaign: What increased our optimism was that my personal support as leader was 57 per cent, 10 per cent higher than the level of support for Liberal leader Jean Chrtien. (Time and Chance, 352) The Progressive Conservative party was only a few points behind in the polls, and at many points such as September they were actually ahead: Our own polls showed us now six percentage points ahead of [the Liberals] among decided voters- 35 percent to 29 per cent. (Time and Chance, 352) If Kim Campbell could bank on one thing it was that people could not feel a personal relationship with Jean Chrtien like they felt with her. Many Canadians were disgruntled with Brian Mulroney and thus the Progressive Conservative government but believed that the new and friendly attitude of Kim Campbell could solve this.
This was disproved on October 14: Believing they had no other way to keep the Liberals from winning a majority, [The Progressive Conservatives] decided to launch a series of commercials attacking Chrtien. The second ad showed unflattering close-ups of Chrtien with lines like I'd be embarrassed if he were Prime Minister. (Britannica Online) As the backlash from the prejudice and offensive adds poured in, Kim Campbell pulled the adds. However, the damage was already done. Kim Campbell was no longer seen as the friendly Prime Minister she was made out to be. On top of this, she never even apologized for the adds and this gave Chrtien a chance to become more personal with Canadians as well as evoking pity: Chrtien turned the situation to his advantage, comparing his opponents to the children who teased him when he was a boy.
When I was a kid people were laughing at me, he said at an appearance in Nova Scotia. But I accepted that because God gave me other qualities and I'm grateful. Chrtien's approval ratings shot up. (Britannica Online) On the other hand, Progressive Conservative support plummeted into the teens as the only benefit left to Kim Campbell was now gone due to her lack of supervision in her campaign. Only eleven days later, the Conservatives lost 175 of their seats in parliament and were left with only two. The Progressive Conservative campaign was out of control in both organization and ethics and in the end it all comes down to the one person who is in charge of the party; Kim Campbell. Kim Campbell was given a lot of opportunity in her campaign with monetary means, yet she was unable to prosper in it.
In many ways her campaign hurt her more than it helped her. A Prime Ministers campaign is one of the most important elements to be focused on if they are hoping for re-election and Kim Campbell simply could not create a successful campaign. On October 25, 1993, Kim Campbell had ensured the Progressive Conservative Party an overwhelming defeat due to her actions as a politician. The disrespect she put towards Canadian voters at Harvard University and her condescending manner while dealing with fellow politicians were both samples of Kim Campbell as a person as well as an example of what Kim Campbell could be as a Prime Minister. Kim Campbells massive ego definitely contributed to her loss of the election.
While campaigning for the election, Campbells offices were unorganized and the campaign visibly suffered from this. They decided to create offensive ads that Kim Campbell approved, and this caused Kim Campbells approval rating to drop even further. In the election of October 1993, Kim Campbell lost the Canadian public. She suffered the worst loss in Canadian political history and even through only seven months of being Prime Minister, her approval rating plummeted due to her actions. The Canadian public made a good decision by not electing her, because her irresponsibility as a politician and as a person makes her a bad candidate for Prime Minister of Canada.
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