Of all of the world’s great mysteries, the question of who is going to lead the Liberal Party of Canada after November 15 has to rank somewhere near the bottom of the list; somewhere below “What happens when you mix dirt and water?”

Paul Martin never really shut down his leadership campaign after losing to Jean Chretien in 1990. He controls nearly every riding association in the country, his organization has controlled the party for the past decade and he’s got more corporate money than he knows what to do with. Barring an unprecedented meltdown, he’ll be celebrating victory in three and a half months.

Realizing this, potential candidates such as Allan Rock, Herb Dhaliwal and Brian Tobin rejected the idea of running. Dennis Mills boldly set up a “no coronation” website and talked about running himself, before quietly folding his tent and adding his name to the lengthy list of MPs endorsing Martin.

John Manley was a candidate but he concluded after three months in the race that to continue would be “irresponsible” — not to mention, injurious to his future job prospects in Ottawa.

“It is apparent to me that I do not have the sufficient support to win the leadership race in November,” Manley told reporters. “I have offered the party a choice, and the party has chosen — Paul Martin will be the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and the next prime minister of Canada, and I believe he will be an excellent prime minister.”

So, there you have it: it’s all over. But wait, someone must have forgotten to tell Sheila Copps, who is still running and still insisting that she is in it to win.

While still in the race, Manley had belittled her as “not a serious candidate.” Cambridge MP Janko Peric has gone so far as to accuse her of “wasting her time,” but Copps argues (much as Manley did before mid-July) that she must offer Liberals a choice. “I’m in this race until the end. I’m in this race until the 15th of November and I have no intention of pulling out. Nobody has voted yet.”

At first, I thought that Copps’ statements were sheer bravado or, at the very least, carefully planned spin. Clearly, she must know that she will be just a footnote in the story of Paul Martin’s crushing victory.

It does seem odd then that she would be releasing a detailed (for a Liberal) policy document on the heels of Manley’s departure. Entitled Foundations: An Action Plan for Canada, it’s actually a pretty progressive document filled with promises of a national child care program, improved access to post-secondary education and programs to diminish the gap between rich and poor.

But, as the 1993 Red Book proved conclusively, documents don’t govern.

Copps suggests on her website that “We have now had six years of strong economic growth but, despite many recent initiatives, not all Canadians have benefitted equally from this hard-earned prosperity. The changing nature of the global economy and the social and demographic realities of the 21st century require new investments in Canadians and in Canada, if we are to enhance our quality of life and to serve as a role model of economic success and social harmony for the world.”

Unlike Martin, Copps does understand from where the real threat to a fourth Liberal majority comes — not from the right, but from the left. Campaign manager Joe Thornley told CTV News that Copps is representing “an important tradition in the Liberal party& The Liberals should never assume that the NDP are not going to be resurgent — because that is what makes us different from Americans. Canadians believe in government. Government is not a vice, it’s a virtue.”

You’d almost think that Sheila would have resigned from Cabinet on principle if she felt that strongly that the Liberals weren’t meeting the needs of Canadians. Instead, she soldiered along (with the exception of the GST by-election), pretending publicly that the governing party was something other than a group of Tories in Liberal clothing.

At one point while she was Environment Minister, she even blamed the fact that the government had done so little for the environment on the fact that the Canadian Alliance didnt make it a priority in Question Period.

Even if she believes the bold statements that she and her campaign team are now making (as opposed to merely using them as a tool to position herself in contrast to Martin), it’s hard to believe that she would not fold under pressure again.

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Scott Piatkowski

Scott Piatkowski is a former columnist for rabble.ca. He wrote a weekly column for 13 years that appeared in the Waterloo Chronicle, the Woolwich Observer and ECHO Weekly. He has also written for Straight...