Orangeville, Ont. — As the good citizens of Orangeville head out today to cast their ballots, they bear dark thoughts that should make the country's political leaders squirm with embarrassment. "It's messy. It's disgraceful. They are just like a bunch of kindergarten kids," snapped Bernice Moore. She was not at all sure for whom she would cast her vote.
"They keep shouting, he did this, he did that," Edith Leonard said. "To me, that's not politics."
Jim Lean tells a visiting reporter that the election campaign has been all mudslinging, that it's been cheap and dirty, and that he does not like it at all. "I think it's a shameful way to run a campaign."
The only kind word from Mr. Lean is for Conservative Leader Joe Clark. He's one of the best, but why would you vote for him when he doesn't have a chance?
Of Liberal Leader Jean Chrétien, Mr. Lean is totally contemptuous: "Chrétien is a liar living in the shadow of Pierre Trudeau. And there'll never be another Pierre Trudeau."
Orangeville, a town of 20,000, 75 minutes northwest of Toronto, is the kind of place politicians worry about. It may well prove to be a barometer of how Ontario and perhaps the country are voting.
The surrounding riding of Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey votes Conservative provincially; it votes Liberal federally. But what makes the riding similar to many other Ontario ridings is that the votes cast for the Conservatives and the Reform Party — now the Alliance — added up to more than the Liberals got in 1997.
The whole gamble of folding the Reform Party and creating the Alliance was somehow to unite the right, to put together a voting coalition that could bump the Liberals from power.
On the streets of Orangeville, the prospects of that kind of coalition were not at all clear. Mr. Lean, with his reverence for Pierre Trudeau and his contempt for Mr. Chrétien, thinks he might vote for the Alliance — if he votes.
What's certain is that he would have voted Liberal if Finance Minister Paul Martin were leading the party. But since Mr. Martin is not the leader, and he won't vote for Mr. Chrétien, it's Stockwell Day and the Alliance or nothing.
Three visits to Orangeville over the space of five weeks make it clear that Mr. Day is no longer the virtually unknown figure he was when the campaign started. However, that does not mean that Mr. Day is everyone's favourite.
People like Karen McKay would rather vote even for the Liberals — "in spite of Jean Chrétien" — than vote for Mr. Day and the Alliance. But she is voting New Democrat and would never vote Alliance.
Ms. Leonard is tired of politicians making promises that never materialize. She thinks she will vote for the local Liberal candidate, but there is a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that perhaps Canada needs a change of government. On the other hand, she does not want to vote for that guy — Mr. Day — who keeps making nasty comments about Mr. Chrétien. Of the Alliance Leader she offers little comment beyond the observation that "he's got some weird ideas."
Yet she is not really enthusiastic about Mr. Chrétien: "We haven't done badly by him. But we do need a change."
As an overnight snowfall turns to grey slush on the streets of Orangeville, political reputations were not faring much better.
Ms. Moore said she had been intending to vote for Mr. Day and the Alliance. But then Mr. Chrétien said that Mr. Day was planning two-tier health care "and that kind of scared me." Now she is not sure which way she will vote.
Even when people are sure about their voting, it is not entirely flattering for the politicians.
So as he climbs into a panel truck outside his home-heating shop in the small plaza, Don Roper says he kind of likes what the Alliance has to say, and he feels that the Liberals are just lying again. "The Alliance is a new face. They haven't lied to me yet."
Seven years after he promised to abolish the GST and renegotiate free trade, Mr. Chrétien has not been forgiven — even by some who are going to vote Liberal — for betraying those promises. Still, Mr. Chrétien's opponents would find scant consolation in the view that not telling the truth does not make the Liberal Leader unique.
So, as bus driver James Woods was explaining that he is not thrilled by the Liberals but actually voted for them in the advance poll, his colleague Debbie Markle interrupted sharply to say "Chrétien is a liar."
Mr. Woods paused for a moment, shrugged and said, "Yes, but they all are."
Like others, Mr. Woods was impressed by the performance of Mr. Clark during the campaign. And like others he shrugged off the thought of voting for Mr. Clark because "he has no chance."
A morning talking to voters in Orangeville is a sharp reminder that in politics, love and admiration are scarce commodities.
Kathryn Hollands has watched the campaign with some attention. Her only change of mind, she explains, is that she now has even less respect for Mr. Day than she did at the start of the campaign. She calls the Alliance Leader scary.
Mr. Day cannot resist a cheap shot, she says. But then she adds by way of an afterthought that all politicians are always dirty fighters. Ms. Hollands will be voting for the Liberals, but she has no particularly high regard for the party leader.
"I don't think Jean Chrétien has made any points with anybody. If anything, he's looking more tired, as if he should be retiring. He looks washed out. Why didn't he step down before the campaign?"
As other uneasy Liberals have done throughout the campaign, Ms. Hollands acknowledged that she would be much happier voting for the Liberals if Mr. Martin were leading the party rather than Mr. Chrétien.
