Parliamentary International Forum

A Post-Mortem on the U.S. Elections: The Impacts on Canada

Biographies of the Commentators

Thomas G. Weston is Acting U.S. Ambassador to Canada and Chargé d'Affaires with the Embassy in Ottawa. A career Foreign Service Officer since 1969, he was before coming to Ottawa in June 1996 the Director of Studies at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Prior to that, Mr. Weston was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs. During much of his career he has specialized in German affairs, serving in Bonn, Bremen and in the office of Central European Affairs in the State Department. He has also served in the Department's Office of Congressional Relations.

Mr. Weston was educated at Michigan State University (where he later served on the faculty), Georgetown University, and George Washington University.

Richard Dresner is Chairman and Founder of Dresner, Wickers and Associates, Inc. A former Senior Vice President of Louis Harris and Associates, Mr. Dresner has over 20 years of experience as a political strategist and public opinion pollster. He has served as a consultant, strategist and pollster for, among others, Republican Senators Jim Jeffords of Vermont, Warren Rudman of New Hampshire, and Mark Andrews of North Dakota, for Republican Governors Pete Wilson of California, Mike Hayden of Kansas, Allen Olson of North Dakota, for Democratic Governor Ed King of Massachusetts, and for several mayors of both political colourations. Mr. Dresner was educated at New York and Columbia Universities and has taught political science at Hunter College and the City University of New York. He has also conducted studies for Gannett Newspapers, Newsweek magazine, and the American Museum of Natural History, among other institutions.

Graham Fraser, son of the renowned Canadian journalist Blair Fraser, has been Washington Correspondent for the Globe and Mail since 1993, with a distinguished track record as journalist and author. Ottawa-born, he worked first for the Toronto Star (1968-70) and then as Quebec Bureau Chief successively for Maclean's magazine, the Montreal Gazette and the Globe and Mail. He was the latter newspaper's Ottawa Bureau Chief before being posted to Washington, D.C. Mr. Fraser is the author, among other pieces, of PQ: René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois in Power (nominated for the Governor-General's non-fiction award in 1984) and Playing for Keeps: The Canadian Election of 1988 (1989). He took degrees in history at the University of Toronto.

A Background Note

The 1996 U.S. elections - won handily by incumbent President Bill Clinton - massively reaffirmed the status quo with one sole incumbent Senator and only a handful of incumbent Representatives actually losing. It may have also produced a new equilibrium in U.S. politics. Since the Roosevelt ascendancy of the 1930s, the United States has tended to elect Democratic Congresses, usually in both Houses, but at least in one House. The only exceptions were in 1946, 1952, and 1994. This year's election saw the re-election of a Democrat for the first time since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the first back-to-back majorities in Congress for the Republican party since 1928.

It was also an election of checks and balances. Clinton was re-elected with a mandate to protect Medicare and lessen the financial burden on families, while the Republicans won a majority in the House because they are expected to control spending, cut taxes and reduce the deficit. The implicit message from U.S. voters is that politicians should put aside their politics and work together.

Finally, the election was striking for its absence of fervour and for the apathy that with a few notable exceptions characterized voting patterns across the country. The key exception was Hispanic voters, angered by anti- immigrant policies, who registered and voted in large numbers.

What Clinton will try to accomplish in his second term will depend to a great extent on his ability to work with Congress. White House officials are already saying that Clinton will be looking within the ranks of the GOP to fill some key cabinet positions which will become vacant, including Secretary of State, Defense Secretary, Commerce Secretary and Energy Secretary. A key appointment will be that of Secretary of State since foreign policy is one area where the President would normally be less constrained by a Republican Congress. Colin Powell's name has been mentioned as a possible successor to Warren Christopher, as has Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke, Strobe Talbot, and former Senators George Mitchell and Sam Nunn.

Some political pundits predict that Clinton will not try to do much in his second term in part because he learned a hard lesson from the failure of his far-reaching health-care reform, and in part because he is a president who likes to be liked. Clinton does not want to risk his approval rating, therefore he will be quite cautious. Others say that because Clinton has waged his last election campaign, he will use his second term to secure a place in the history books. Clinton would like to leave a legislative legacy by passing bills on deficit control, balancing the budget, campaign financing, education reform, welfare reform and the Families First Program.

On the foreign policy side - which has the most direct implications for Canada - the election results are not likely to produce a major policy shift. Indeed, "more of the same" is expected. If anything, Clinton will become more activist in foreign policy matters because he feels more comfortable on the world stage and also because he has more latitude to act unilaterally. Clinton's first major decision will be whether or not to keep American troops in Bosnia beyond their current pull-out date of December 1996. NATO is expected to recommend a follow-on force in Bosnia at a meeting in Paris this month. It will be a priority for both Canada and Europe to convince the United States to keep some level of troops in Bosnia in order to maintain the legitimacy of the international force. Canada and Europe may also band together against Washington on the Helms-Burton bill, perhaps even bringing a case against the United States at the World Trade Organization. On the issue of NATO expansion, Clinton favours a quick expansion timetable, while the European countries support a more cautious approach.

The status quo result of the 1996 U.S. elections is generally good news for Canada. President Clinton and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien have developed a close working - and personal - relationship over the past four years which is likely to continue into the next millennium (if the Liberals are re-elected.) In addition, the Democratic Party's shift to the political centre means that the Liberals and the Democrats have more in common than they used to. Both parties have been forced to become more moderate in their social policies and pay greater attention to reducing the deficit and cutting government spending. Undoubtedly there will continue to be areas of tension and dispute between Canada and the United States - especially in matters of trade - but these would exist regardless of which party occupied the White House.