Stockwell Day

Day served as a member of the Alberta legislature for the riding of Red Deer North between 1986 and 2000. In 1997 he was appointed Provincial Treasurer (Minister of Finance).

On July 8, 2000, Day was elected as the first leader of the Canadian federal political party the Canadian Alliance. He was subsequently elected as MP for the riding of Okanagan-Coquihalla, BC. During his initial days as leader, Day gained much popularity, and appeared poised to mount a formidable challenge to the incumbent Liberal Party. In 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.

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. He had proposed to require the federal government to hold a referendum on any subject if 4% of the electorate signed a petition requesting this. The comedy show riposted by putting an unofficial petition on their website to hold a referendum to require Mr. 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 4% that Day had proposed.

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. He was also mocked for holding up a sign which said "No Two Tier Medicine" in large letters during the leadership debate. As props were against the rules, he claimed it was his lecture notes.

After the election, Day ran into problems over the funding by Alberta taxpayers of his defense 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 Goddard for defending a pedophile. 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.

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 next to the Tories in the House of Commons. In a March 2002 leadership race, Day was defeated by Stephen Harper.

Day remains an MP and a prominent member of the Canadian Alliance shadow cabinet.

External Sites

• Canadian Alliance

Referenced By