How Canada Elects Leaders:

My indirect participation in electing Canada's leaders happened back in the late '60s shortly after I joined the staff at Mississauga News.

Publisher Eric Watt learned the Liberals were presenting a new leader at a private do in Oakville, ON.

We drew straws and Mike Solomon, our Fleet Street-trained reporter (complete with shorthand) drew the short straw. Grabbing an office camera, a 35mm Beseler Topcon SLR with 1/1,000 sec. shutter and 1:1.4 lens, loaded with Tri-X film, Solly scooted off to the address.

There, he was lucky enough to have the camera at the ready when the leadership candidate took a dive off the high board at the private pool and Solly caught him doing a somersault, legs tucked in neatly in true Olympic form on his way down.

It was a good shot. Canadian Press immediately latched onto it and offered it to every newspaper across the whole country. It appeared in at least 40 papers and got a lot of people talking about it.

Wow! a leader who could do a somersault off a high board! Who could match that?

The Liberal spin doctors followed that up with society blurbs of the candidate dating then popular songbird Barbara Streisand, and topped that off with a date with Classical Guitar queen Leona Boyd just to make sure they had the whole social spectrum of the Canadian electorate covered.

Following a suitable pause, the clever handlers followed up with an announcement that this French Canadian candidate was courting the daughter of a prominent English Liberal from the other end of the country (BC). How convenient is that?

Since these were the days of Renee Levesque and other Quebecers who were agitating to get Quebec out of confederation and into their own clutches, this potential blending of the two solitudes looked good, too. A politically correct union was in the making.

Since those days also were the wild days of the Hippies with chaotic youth movements chasing psychedelic (chemical) highs everywhere, someone among the clever spin doctors took the first letters of the new leadership candidate's name and came up with P.E.T--PET. What can be more meaningful to the young voters who couldn't get enough of the shaggy-haired Beatles?

All of these carefully-scripted elements came together to get Pierre Elliott Trudeau elected.

The Liberal handlers were clever enough to make use of available demographics to determine the average mental age level of the electorate to secure a win.

I didn't check to see if Solly ever got over it, but since I was lucky enough to draw the long straw, I don't have to feel guilty.

Last year, they went ahead and did it again, this time courting young stoners with the promise to legalize pot. Only time will tell if that will be of any long-term advantage to Canada.