Stockwell Day

Leadership of the Canadian Alliance

In 2000, Day chose to run for leader of the newly-formed Canadian Alliance party. After a heavily-publicized campaign, Day came first in the Canadian Alliance leadership election on July 8, 2000, defeating former Reform Party leader Preston Manning and prominent Ontario Tory strategist Tom Long.

Related Topics:
Canadian Alliance - Canadian Alliance leadership election - July 8 - Reform Party - Preston Manning - Ontario Tory - Tom Long

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Day was subsequently elected as MP for the riding of Okanagan?Coquihalla in British Columbia. During his initial days as leader, Day gained much popularity, and appeared poised to mount a formidable challenge to the incumbent Liberal Party. In the period before the September 2000 general election, however, Day attracted the most attention when he showed up at a news conference on a Jet Ski wearing a wetsuit, advocating that Members of Parliament spend less time in session in Ottawa and more at home in their constituencies.

Related Topics:
Okanagan?Coquihalla - British Columbia - Liberal Party - Members of Parliament

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One of his policies was famously satirized during the 2000 federal election campaign by Rick Mercer when he was on the political satire troupe This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Day had proposed that the federal government be required to hold a referendum on any subject if three percent of the electorate signed a petition requesting this. The comedy show riposted by putting a petition on their website calling for a referendum to require Day to change his first name to Doris. Although such a petition would not have been recognized by Elections Canada, the troupe considered their point made when, in the end, the website's counter claimed more than a million signatures - substantially more than the three percent that Day had proposed.

Related Topics:
Rick Mercer - This Hour Has 22 Minutes - Doris - Elections Canada

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Day also ran into trouble with his remark that Canadian jobs were flowing south just like the Niagara River, when in fact the river flows north. The following day, he again denounced the "brain drain" during a press conference at an Ottawa software firm, which was subsequently revealed to have been started by an American entrepreneur who moved to Canada.

Related Topics:
Niagara River - Ottawa

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He was also mocked for holding up a handwritten sign which said "NO 2-TIER HEALTHCARE" in large letters during the televised leadership debate. As props were against the rules, he claimed it was his lecture notes.

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The election resulted in an increase of seats for the Alliance, but the hoped-for breakthrough in Ontario did not occur. The night of the election, prior to Day speaking to party faithful, a producer for the CBC which was covering the speech got into trouble when a live microphone in the control room caught him making a sexually related comment about Day's daughter-in-law, Julianna Thiessen Day, who had once represented Canada at the Miss Universe pageant. The CBC later apologized.

Related Topics:
Ontario - CBC - Julianna Thiessen Day - Miss Universe

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Day also became part of one of the most memorable and humorous incidents in Canadian political history that year, when he was doused with chocolate milk by communist Julian Ichim as he made a grand entrance at the University of Waterloo, about to make a speech in front of students there.

Related Topics:
Communist - Julian Ichim - University of Waterloo

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Although Leaders of the Opposition are occasionally sworn into the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, Day was not.

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After the election, Day ran into problems over the funding by Alberta taxpayers of his defence in a defamation of character lawsuit. It was discovered that the Alberta government had paid $792,000 to settle a lawsuit filed against him. The lawsuit, filed by lawyer Lorne Goddard, arose as the result of a letter Day wrote criticizing following Goddard defending a pedophile. Goddard expressed in public his client had a right to possess child pornography. These views were justified following the ruling of the highest court in British Columbia. (This decision was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada after the Goddard v. Day case was settled out of court.) On the other hand, previous to this case the Supreme court of Canada had found on a number of occasions both school administrators and governments were liable for the actions of pedophiles in their workplace. As such, Goddard, who was both a lawyer and a member of the school board, was open to criticism. He failed to bring to the attention of board members the potential problem and liability faced by the school board when staffing schools.

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Questions also arose over whether Day knew about a private investigator who had been hired by the Alliance to dig up dirt to smear the Liberals.

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During the summer of 2001, a split occurred within the party ranks in which Chuck Strahl and Deborah Grey led a group of dissident MPs who split with the Canadian Alliance and sat as the Democratic Representative Caucus in the House of Commons, entering a short-lived coalition agreement with the Tories.

Related Topics:
2001 - Chuck Strahl - Deborah Grey - Democratic Representative Caucus - House of Commons - Tories

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