daysleadershipquestioned

Some in Alliance see groundswell against Day
Party brass expected to discuss leadership at Calgary meeting
Robert Fife, Ottawa Bureau Chief, with files from Robert Remington in Calgary
National Post, January 03, 2001-with files from The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - Members of the governing council of the Canadian Alliance will be asked to adopt a formal motion endorsing Stockwell Day's leadership, amid growing concern from party stalwarts that Mr. Day may not be the best leader for the Official Opposition.
Mr. Day's leadership will be a major topic for discussion at a national council meeting on Jan. 19-20 in Calgary, the first meeting since the Nov. 27 election, in which the Alliance was soundly defeated by the Liberals, winning 66 seats to Jean Chrétien's 172.
The council meeting, which involves about 40 senior party members, will be used to set an early date for a full-scale party convention that would provide a formal setting to allow the grassroots to rally behind Mr. Day.
A number of members of the Alliance national council believe a movement might be growing to dislodge the Albertan as leader of the new party after it failed to make the promised breakthrough in Central Canada, thus allowing the Liberals to be elected to a third consecutive term.
Senior frontbench MPs are privately complaining about Mr. Day's leadership and his apparent reluctance to seek advice from Preston Manning, the former Reform party leader, Deborah Grey, the deputy leader and other experienced politicians during the campaign.
The frustration toward Mr. Day is coming from some of the most senior Alberta and British Columbia MPs as well as other important figures such as Ottawa strategist Rick Anderson, and prominent members of the Ontario Conservative party, including Jim Flaherty, the Attorney-General, and Bob Runciman, the Consumer and Corporate Affairs Minister.
They have suggested a change in leadership because they believe the social conservative views held by Mr. Day outweigh the electoral benefits his fiscally conservative track record brings.
Gee Tsang, the former chairman of the national council, said he will submit a motion at the Calgary meeting to seek a formal endorsement of Mr. Day's leadership.
"I am going into the council in our meeting in January to rally unanimous support for the leader. I am going to do that ... I will make a motion to support the leader. We have to make that kind of declaration," he said. "It is the worst thing for people to change the coach every year. Stockwell Day is a good man. Basically he needs to build a team around him."
Mr. Tsang said the council will also be asked to set a date for an early convention, probably in September, where Mr. Day's leadership will be put to an automatic vote. The Alliance constitution requires a leadership vote at the next convention which was slated for February, 2002, but Mr. Day has said he wants an earlier vote to give him a mandate to prepare for the next election.
"We need to have a convention, too, the earlier the better to rebuild the party and to put a positive tone to it," Mr. Tsang said.
Mr. Day for his part said he is asking his party, and Westerners in particular, to be patient.
"I'm telling them that Ontario has not rejected the Canadian Alliance. We came second there in 80 constituencies. The Liberals lost a seat in the West and their popular vote dropped in eastern Canada. Ours went up in Western Canada but it also went up in Ontario.
"The Canadian Alliance can really bridge the gap of understanding between central Canada and Western Canada. We really can and that's what we will be promoting in the West.
"People in Ontario and the polls are saying that they want to get to know them [Westerners] better, they want to get to know me better and Alliance policies better. We're going to work on that. I'm asking Western Canadians to be patient. Western Canadians have put up with a sense of alienation for so long that I think they'll be ready to do it."
MPs and party insiders, speaking on condition of anonymity, say potential challengers to Mr. Day are Ms. Grey; Tom Long, the Ontario strategist who lost to Mr. Day in last July's leadership race; and Frank Klees, an Ontario Tory Cabinet minister.
Party insiders complain Mr. Day not only failed to seek advice from Mr. Manning but he did not listen to Ontario Tory strategists, such as Mr. Long and Alister Campbell.
"There was one meeting and not even a note taken," one senior MP said of Mr. Day's relationship with Mr. Manning during the election. Mr. Day was also criticized for not reaching out to party personalities such as Ms. Grey.
"You cannot diss the brain trust in your organization and expect to succeed ... I'm not sure he understands just how badly he dissed them. He didn't use anybody ... It was total naiveté."
The National Post reported yesterday that Diane Ablonczy, one of the opposition's most effective critics on the Liberal government's grants and loans record, had expressed doubts over whether Jean Chrétien's role in the granting of a $615,000 federal loan to the owner of a financially troubled hotel in his riding amounted to criminal behaviour. "I don't think that warrants a criminal investigation," she said.
During the election campaign, Joe Clark, the Progressive Conservative leader, and Mr. Day hinted at potential criminal wrongdoing in the Prime Minister's efforts to secure a mortgage from the federal Business Development Bank for Yvon Duhaime, who had bought the hotel from a company in which Mr. Chrétien had a financial interest.
Mr. Clark wrote to the RCMP Commissioner requesting a criminal probe into the affair.
Ms. Ablonczy said yesterday that Mr. Clark and Mr. Day believe the Criminal Code was violated and feel an investigation is warranted. "Then I clearly support that."
But she reiterated her concerns, first reported in the Post, that the credibility of opposition parties is at risk if calls for police investigations are made without sufficient evidence.
"People always say to take politicians with a grain of salt," she said. "So I always like to have as much evidence backing up serious charges as I possibly can."
Yesterday, Mr. Day insisted he and Ms. Ablonczy were "right on the same page" with regard to their work attacking the Liberal government's loan and grants scandal.