ABSTRACT

TORONTO NEWSPAPER COVERAGE OF THE
1975 ONTARIO PROVINCIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN

by

Nick Chandler Stout

As scholars and others try to explain the surprising
results of the l975 Ontario provincial election, i.e., the relative
success of the New Democratic party and the relegation to minority
of the governing Progressive-Conservatives, they doubtless will
consider the influence of the news media. This study considers
the role of the Toronto press in the campaign. It involves a
quantitative analysis to determine the amount of attention paid to
each of the three major political parties: the Progressive-
Conservatives, the Liberals and the New Democratic Party. It also
provides a qualitative assessment to shed light on the attitudes
of the Toronto press, such as the way it regarded party leaders,
interpreted campaign news and implied electoral preferences. The
findings are the result of a meticulous examination of the §1992_

and Mail, Toronto Star and Toronto Sun in which campaign-related

 

articles were measured and assessed for their partisan value.

Nick Chandler Stout

The study shows that the Tories were given considerably
more space than the opposition parties, but that the socialist-
leaning NDP tended to receive the best treatment from writers of
editorials and commentaries. Moreover, it is shown that the NDP
became the centre of attention during the final phase of the
campaign and gained a strategic advantage by the prominent news
coverage it was given at that time. In a general sense, more
attention was paid to the images of the party leaders than to the
issues for which they stood. The Toronto press seems also to have
had a penchant for describing the campaign as a road show--as a

series of events--rather than as a discussion of issues.

Accepted by the faculty of the School of Journalism,
College of Communication Arts and Sciences, Michigan State

University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

gimm/

Di(ector oft [They/(s

Master of Arts degree.

 

TORONTO NEWSPAPER COVERAGE OF THE
1975 ONTARIO PROVINCIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN

by

Nick Chandler Stout

A THESIS

‘submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment‘of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

School of Journalism

T977

PREFACE

This study was generated by my own involvement in the T975
Ontario provincial election campaign--as a reporter for Broadcast
News Limited assigned to the New Democratic Party tour. I had lived
in Canada not even a year at the time, after having landed here
quite by chance, and my knowledge of Canadian affairs was primitive
at best. The study was undertaken as an extension of an adventure-
some and educational experience, and to help me better understand
the environment in which I was working. If it removes the albatross
of an unfinished M.A. degree, it also enriches, if slightly,
journalism scholarship in Canada. And I am pleased to contribute
because Canada is a country for which, despite my brief stay, I have
developed a profound affection. But most important, I have now
repaid a long-overdue debt to the late Professor w. Cameron Meyers--
without whom, suffice it to say, there would have been no thesis;
indeed, without whom I very probably would not be practicing

journalism today.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ................... l
The Study (l)--The Setting (l2)
CHAPTER II. NEWS AND COMMENT ................ 22
A Quantitative Analysis (22)
A Qualitative Assessment (38)
CHAPTER III. EDITORIAL REACTION ............... 62
CHAPTER IV. THE DEBATES ................... 74
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION .................... 89
BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................... 98

Table

TO.
IT.

12.

LIST OF TABLES

Distribution of news stories . ..... . . . . . . .

Amount of space given to news stories ........

Number of news stories appearing on front pages

Amount of space given to photographs .........
Average size of photographs . . . ..........
Distribution of photographs . . . . . .......

Photographs appearing on front pages . . .......
Distribution of letters to the editor ........

Amount of space given to letters . . . . .....

Distribution of opinion columns or ”commentaries'

Distribution of opinion columns according to

major columnists .................

Distribution of editorials ........

iv

37
63

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The Study

Whether historians will view the Ontario general election
of September, 1975, as a watershed or a temproary aberration in the
course of Canadian provincial politics is an open question. It is
still too soon to know. What already is certain is that they are
bound to regard it with intense interest in that it broke the spell
under which the Ontario Progressive-Conservative Party held the
province for three decades. It is true that Ontarians1 stopped
short of expelling the party from power, but they denied it the
majority to which it had become so accustomed in the provincial
legislature; not since 1945 had the combined opposition outnumbered
the Progressive-Conservatives at Queen's Park.2 Equally as stunning
was the success of the socialist-leaning New Democratic Party. That

the NDP could supplant the centrist Liberals as the Official

 

1About 65 percent of Ontario's 4.8 million eligible voters
cast ballots. Toronto Star, Sept. 19, l975, p. l.

2Home of the l25-seat Ontario legislature in Toronto.
Standings after Sept. l8, l975: Progressive-Conservatives 5l,
NDP 38, Liberals 36. Standings at dissolution (ll7 seats): PCs 74,
Liberals 23, NDP 20.

Opposition was to many a signal that a shift was taking place in the
political climate of the province. For Stephen Lewis, the ambitious
leader of the NDP, the election was a savoring triumph. "There's an
amazing change that's happening in Ontario," he was quoted as saying
shortly after assuming his new role as Opposition Leader, "and when
I look down the road I don't feel precarious anymore."3
As scholars, political analysts and party strategists
endeavor to explain what happened, they no doubt will consider the
influence of news media on voters. While news media generally are
believed to be relatively ineffective in directly affecting voting
behavior,4 political campaigns seem always to be organized around
them. A benchmark study involving the U. 5. presidential campaign
of 1940 found that people manage to avoid things they do not want
to read and hear and that "the people who did most of the reading
and listening to the campaign were the most impervious to any ideas
which might have led them to change their vote."5 Yet scholars
concede that news media often may reinforce or even strengthen the
pre-determined intentions of voters. Joseph T. Klapper acknowledges

that I'minor attitude change appears to be a more likely effect than

 

3Ed Hailwood, ”The Feast of Stephen," Toronto Life,
December, l975, p. 38.

4John P. Robinson, "Perceived Media Bias and the 1968
Vote: Can the Media Affect Behavior After All?" Journalism Quarterly,
LXIX (Summer, l972), 239.

5Paul F. Lazarsfeld. Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gandet,
The People's Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presiden-
tial Campaign (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), p. l25.

 

 

 

 

conversion and a less likely effect that reinforcement" but he adds
that "this is not to say . . . conversion does not occur nor that
under certain circumstances it may not be widespread."6 Klapper's
conclusions suggest that it would be irresponsible to dismiss news
coverage of the 1975 Ontario election as irrelevent in explaining
its eventual result. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest the
effect of the news media on the voting behavior of Ontarians was
substantial.

The press is a vital part of every civic election regard-
less of its influence on voters. Since news media in Canada sub-
scribe to the social responsibility theory of the press7 they argue
that self-government is impossible without a press independent of
government to enlighten the public. In theory, they pledge to
provide information, discussion and debate on public affairs. More-
over, freely-elected politicians clearly depend on the press as a
forum in which to make their ideas known and to strike down those of
their opponents. They also, conversely, use the press as a sounding
board to gauge the general acceptance of those ideas. Colin Seymour—
Ure observes in his analysis of the British press vis a vis the
British political system that "there seems no doubt at all that

politicians do believe newspapers have an impact on the attitudes

 

6Joseph T. Klapper, The Effects of Mass Communication (New
York: The Free Press, 1960), p. 11.

7As outlined in Fred 5. Siebert, Theodore Peterson and
Wilbur Schramm, Four Theories of the Press (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1956):

 

and behaviour of the mass public."8

Indeed, they seem always to be
seeking ways to manipulate the media to their own advantage yet
habitually complain about their eventual treatment.

It is therefore not unusual for political candidates to
blame the news media for their personal failures; the press often
is accused of distorting U.S. presidential campaigns. Sometimes the
accusations can be turned into advantage as in 1948 when Harry S
Truman successfully incorporated the "one-party press" charge into
his winning effort. But they usually serve as alibis as in 1975
when the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, Robert Nixon, held
the press largely responsible for his party's third-place finish.9
Nixon complained that the news media failed to give proper attention
to the way his party addressed certain issues and that they
apparently believed the NDP to be more knowledgeable and more
sincere than the Liberals. Whether a remark such as this is in fact
a weak alibi for a poorly-conducted campaign or a well-founded com—
plaint is a question that need not remain open. This study will
provide evidence upon which to judge the validity of Nixon's remark
and upon which to further assess the performance of the news media
in the 1975 Ontario general election.

The three Toronto dailies were selected as the sample for

the study. The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and the Toronto Sun

 

 

 

8Colin Seymour-Ure, The Press,_Politics and the Public: An
Essay on the Role of the National Press in the British Political
System (London: Methven, 1968), pp. 285-86.

9Globe and Mail (Toronto), Oct. 6, 1975, p. 7.

 

were the only dailies to staff the campaign tours of the three party
leaders from the outset (although the Canadian Press wire service
assigned a correspondent to each tour throughout the campaign). For
this reason, Toronto newspapers were free to explore various angles
of the campaign; they were not restricted to Canadian Press dis-
patches. Furthermore, the Toronto papers probably were as represen-
tative as any other combination of Ontario dailies. The Globe and
the Star_are distributed throughout the province; their influence
spreads beyond the boundaries of the city and into the rural corners
of Ontario. The Sun, a tabloid founded in 1971 following the demise
of the Telegram, is one of the few Canadian papers to publish on
Sundays. Moreover, its average daily circulation of 115,000 is
attained almost entirely by newsstand sales, which implies that

most copies sold are, in fact, read. A third reason for making
Toronto dailies the focus of the study has to do with the surprising

10 the NDP did much better than

election returns from the city;
expected in Toronto. Finally, by focussing attention on newspapers
within a single city, a comparison can be made between media in
direct competition for readers.

According to researcher Jae-wan Lee, "campaign news can

be viewed as the attention the press accords to the political news

sources and . . . how the news is presented can be viewed as an

 

10The NDP took 14 of Metropolitan Toronto's 29 seats for
a gain of 7. The Conservatives dropped 3 seats to 12 and the
Liberals dropped 1 seat to finish with 3.

indication of the attitudes of the press."H

This study will be
founded on both of Lee's axioms; it will involve a quantitative
analysis to determine the attention paid to news sources and it
will contain a qualitative assessment to shed light on media atti-
tudes. The findings presented herein and the conclusions drawn

from them follow a meticulous examination of each issue of the

Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and Toronto Sun during the campaign

 

 

period of August 12 to September 18, 1975. Each news story, edi-
torial, commentary, letter to the editor and photograph was counted
and the partisan value of each recorded. Moreover, each news story
was measured in column inches and each photograph in square inches
to determine the space afforded each party. Because of the dis-
parity of column widths within and between newspapers, all measure-
ments of news stories were adjusted to conform to the 10-pica
column generally used. Each article--whether it be news story,
editorial, commentary or letter--was read and evaluated in an
attempt to determine a general sentiment; a composite message of
the way the press felt about the campaign. Subjective analyses of
this kind always are open to varying interpretations, but it will
be shown that trends were evident in respect to the way the Toronto
papers defined and interpreted campaign news, drew images of party
leaders and spelled their electoral preferences.

It should be made clear at the outset that this study

 

11Jae-wan Lee, "Editorial Support and Campaign News:
Content Analysis by Q-Method," Journalism Quarterly, XLIX (Winter,
1972), 710.

 

does not propose to impugn individual journalists or their newspapers.
It is intended rather to show how the reporters went about doing
their work and to suggest ways in which voters were influenced by
the media. Lee suggests three problems inherent in covering a

political campaign:

First, what is called news in political campaigns
largely relies upon opinions of news sources, and the
opinions are highly-purposive. Second, the sole purpose
of political news sources is to enhance the politicians'
candidacies. Third, candidate eXposure in election cam-
paigns is an attempt to enhance positive values.12

The way journalists deal with these problems would seem to depend on
factors impossible to measure, not the least of which are the indivi-
dual relationships reporters establish with the candidates and their
aides. Journalists are bound to trust the judgments of some more
than others. Moreover, it would be unfair to criticize a reporter
without taking into account the 20-hour days, smoke-filled buses,
nauseating air travel, deadline pressures and other factors that
might adversely affect otherwise diligent journalists on any given
day.

The morning Globe and Mail generally is considered as

 

Canada's newspaper of record. It traditionally supports the Conser-
vative Party and did so in 1975 (its own disclaimer notwithstanding:
"ourselves, we prefer the word independent, in that we have no con-

tinuing affiliation to any party or person in politics."13).

 

Ibid.

 

13912133., Sept. 9, 1975. p. 6.

The reputation probably stems from the Globe's affinity for the
Tories in the 19405 during the tenure of Conservative Premier George
Drew who maintained a close friendship with Globe publisher George
McCullagh and who eventually married McCullagh's wife not long after
the publisher died. The Glgb§_assigned six reporters principally
to cover the 1975 Ontario election: Robert Williamson, Peter Mosher,
Mary Trueman, Christie Blatchford, Thomas Coleman (who since has
become publicity director for NDP leader Stephen Lewis) and Jonathan
Fear. In addition, Queen's Park columnist Norman Webster provided
his assessment of the campaign almost daily on the op-ed page.

The afternoon §3a3_supported the Liberal Party as it had
done in every provincial election after World War 11 except in 1963
when it supported the Tories led by John P. Robarts and in 1959
when it remained uncommitted. It is ironic that the only real
success of the Ontario Liberal Party in this century--the depression-
era reign under Mitchell Hepburn--was attained without the support
of the friendly Star, Then-publisher J. E. Atkinson intensely dis-
liked Hepburn and refused to support his party even as he led it to
glory. The Star called primarily on Charlotte Montgomery, Andrew
Szende, David Allen, Stef Donev, Daniel Stoffman and Brian Valee to
report on the 1975 provincial election. Robert Miller provided a
regular commentary on an inside opinion page.

The Sun; a morning tabloid with a penchant for exploiting
the sensational, has yet to establish a firm precedent in provincial
politics but, unlike many tabloids in the United States, its edi-

torial tone generally rings conservative. In 1975, it called for

a Conservative government but recommended an NDP Official Opposi-
tion.

It is difficult to compare the §Efll§ coverage of the
election with that of its two Toronto competitors because of the
unique way it approached the event. Instead of providing daily
news stories of campaign activity, the §un_assigned Connie Nichol-
son, John Downing and Queen's Park columnist Claire Hoy to rotate
among the party leaders and write daily commentaries on their feel-
ings about the campaign. The three columns were displayed together
on a common election page but they gave §un_readers an opinionated
and subjective, if not distorted, view of the campaign. In
addition, John Slinger's "Scuttlebut“ column provided daily election
humor and gossip.

While studies of press performance are not uncommon in the
United States, they are virtually non-existent in Canada. The most
recent Canadian research relevant to this study is the 1974 effort
of Stephen Clarkson, professor of political economy at the Univer-
sity of Toronto. While trying to determine the effectiveness of
the Liberal Party in communicating its platform during the previous
Ontario election in 1971, Clarkson monitored four broadcast stations
and two Toronto newspapers during the final four weeks of that
campaign. He found that in 1971 news media tended to pay more
attention to the governing party, i.e., Progressive-Conservatives,
than to others; that party leaders were afforded considerably more
coverage than local candidates and that news media tended to limit

the capacity of parties to communicate their platforms by stressing

10

only a few major issues.14 It might be premature to infer from
Clarkson's study alone that election coverage of political cam-
paigns in Canada generally is "limited and distorted"15 as one
scholar has done but there is not much else on which to make judg-
ments. While these findings are only incidental to Clarkson's
primary objective, they constitute the best available Canadian
material on which to base the ensuing study. Indeed, Clarkson
prefaced his report with the reminder that "the existing literature
is extremely sparring concerning what political information actually
gets communicated during elections or between them and how this is
done, with what types of consequence."16 The Canadian literature
on the mass media, he said, is thin.

Another study on which this endeavor may be founded
concerns the editorial treatment of the socialist party during the

17

Ontario elections of 1943 and 1945. Gordon Hiseler set out to

determine whether or not the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation

 

14Stephen Clarkson, "Policy and the Media: Communicating
the Liberal Platform in the 1971 Ontario Election Campaign,“
Unpublished paper presented to the 46th annual meeting of the
Canadian Political Science Association, Toronto, June 3, 1974,
pp. 17, 18, 21.

15Frederick J. Fletcher, "Between Two Stools: News
Coverage of Provincial Politics in Ontario," in Donald C. MacDonald,
ed. Government and Politics of Ontario (Toronto: Macmillan of
Canada, 1975), p. 251.

16Clarkson, "Policy and the Media," p. 2.

17Gordon Lindsay Hiseler, "Editorial Opinion of the
Ontario Daily Press on the Provincial CCF Party during the Elec-
tions of 1943 and 1945:.Unrestrained Denunciation or Not,"
Unpublished M.A. Thesis, Guelph University, 1971.

ll

(forerunner to the NDP) was vigorously denounced on the editorial
pages of Ontario newspapers as CCF sympathizers had charged at the
time. He found a large amount of editorial animosity directed
towards the provincial CCF but not so much as to constitute funre-
strained denunciation." Moreover, while concluding that the CCF
might have been more successful had it had more press support,
Hiseler became convinced that "the party received more objective
or favorable treatment than it had a right to expect--given the
place of the papers in the provincial society and the traditional

"18 But Ontario socialism in the

political climate of Ontario.
19405 was a greater menace than in the 19705. The CCF was a
relatively new and unpredictable party in 1943; it represented a
fundamental threat to the existing order. The NDP, on the other
hand, was established in 1975. Its proposals would have necessi-
tated radical changes, to be sure, but it was accepted as a bona-
fide alternative (more so in 1975 than even in 1971); not as a
menacing intrusion into a tranquil status quo.

Whether or not the editorial preferences of newspapers
generally are manifested in their news columns is still an open
question; the vast amount of research on the subject has produced
conflicting findings. Researchers G. Cleveland Wilhoit and Taik

Sup Auk accept the fact that "many studies suggest moderate bias

in the news columns favoring the candidates given editorial

 

18Ibid., p. 147.

12

treatment."19 This might be true, but in a study of the 1972 U.S.
presidential campaign Robert G. Meadow found that the unendorsed
candidate received greater newspaper coverage and suggested accord-
ingly that "candidates who make more news receive more coverage."20
This, he said, leads to "the possibility that an aggressive campaign
is more newsworthy in the eyes of journalists," something that
"raises several questions for political campaign strategists." As

the following study will show, it is the latter assessment that

will prove most applicable to the 1975 Ontario provincial election.

The Setting

 

Everyone knew what was coming when Premier William Davis
called a news conference for two o'clock Monday, August 11, 1975.
Davis had been on a tour of northern Ontario and had spent much of
the weekend at a wilderness training retreat near Thunder Bay con-
ferring with Progressive-Conservative Party officials. When he
abruptly and prematurely returned to Toronto, there was little
doubt the premier would call a provincial election--the second of

his tenure in office. The date had even been leaked and the Monday

 

196. Cleveland Wilhoit and Taik Sup Auk, "Newspaper Endorse-
ment and Coverage of Public Opinion Polls in 1970," Journalism
Quarterly,LI (Winter, 1974), 654.

20Robert G. Meadow, "Cross-Media Comparison of Coverage
of the 1972 Presidential Campaign," Journalism Quarterly, L (Autumn,
1973), 488.

 

 

l3

morning papers accurately predicted September 18.21

The Tories had been through an unsettling spring. A
public opinion poll in February had shown the opposition Liberal
Party riding twelve points ahead of the governing Conservatives.
Moreover, the Tories had lost four recent byelections. It is true
that much of the lost popularity had been regained through the
summer--a poll in July showed that the gap had been narrowed to
three points--but the Tories were nervous and had little choice
but to call a fall election and hope they could wage a successful
campaign. If they waited until spring, the premier would be only
a few months away from a constitutional deadline (elections must be
no more than five years apart although the common interval is four
years) and thereby left with little political leverage. Who could
predict what terrible things might happen in the interim? Since
the last election was in October, 1971, and since nobody savors the
prospect of campaigning in the snow, the election had to be now.

The Conservatives had governed the province almost
continuously since 1905--the only exceptions being a three-year
coalition headed by the Ontario Farmers' Union following the first
world war and the eight-year majority government of Mitchell Hep-
burn's Liberals during the depression. The Tories had not been out

of power since 1943 and their government had been a majority without

 

21This date would prove embarrassing for Davis because it
prohibited Jews from voting in advance polls which, constitution-
ally, had to be held on the fifth and seventh days prior to the
election or, in this case, September 13 and 11, which were the
Jewish Sabbath and Yom Kippur respectively. Davis called the situ-
ation "awkward." Star, Aug. 12, 1975, p. 6.

l4

interruption since 1945. Only the Quebec Liberals (1896-1935) and
the Social Credit Party of Alberta (1935-1971) had exceeded the
reign of the Ontario Progressive-Conservative Party.

Many explanations have been offered for the success of
the Ontario Tories. Desmond Morton, a historian at the University
of Toronto, suggests it was an accomplished balancing act that had
involved "clever political management, an acute sense of public

"22 He

mood and a partially fortuitous continuation of prosperity.
adds that Ontario is "relatively easy to govern" and that "her
industrial and financial growth has been systematically secured by

"23 Professor John Wilson

tariff protection and low cost energy.
of the University of Waterloo points to the fact that the Ontario
Conservatives were able to withstand the industrial transition
better than conservative parties elsewhere and that the provincial
party never had been dominated by one strong person; never dependent

24 Indeed, the Ontario Tories have

upon charisma for success.
changed leaders about once each decade in maintaining their command
of the provincial legislature.

Whatever reasons are attributed to the Tory dynasty in
Ontario, they seemed not as important on the eve of the 1975

election campaign as the fact that it had taken hold and had

 

2ZDesmond Morton, "People and Politics of Ontario," in
MacDonald, Government and Politics, p. 12.

231b1d., p. 5.

24John Wilson, "The Ontario Political Culture," in
MacDonald, Government and Pblitics, p. 213.

 

 

15

almost become an endemic characteristic of the province. The Con-
servatives were comfortable in their castle when, suddenly, they
sensed the bricks about to crumble. They approached the inevitable
showdown with uncharacteristic anxiety.

William Grenville Davis assumed control of the Ontario
Progressive-Conservative Party on February 13, 1971, after a
bitterly-fought leadership convention at Maple Leaf Gardens in
Toronto. Since the party already was in power under then-Premier
John Roberts, the choice of the convention would assume the
premiership immediately. Davis was elected by just 44 votes of
1,580 cast and was left with the task of reconciling a party torn
with frustration and animosity, much of which was directed towards
the premier himself. This he did—-the legend of his patchwork is

25

told well by Jonathan Manthorpe in The Power and the Tories --and

 

with a unified party behind him Davis was able to sweep the October,
1971, showdown in convincing fashion. The victory was a landslide--

the Conservatives won 78 seats, the Liberals 20 and the NDP 19 in

26

the heaviest voter turnout in 30 years --and it recalled an

arrogant remark of John Robarts: that the Tories might well

. . . 2
continue governing Ontario forever. 7

 

25Jonathan Manthorpe, The Power and the Tories: Ontario
Politics 1943 to the Present (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1974).

 

 

26Seventy-three percent of the 4.5 million voters,
Toronto Star, Sept. 18, 1975, p. l.

27

 

Manthorpe, The Power and the Tories, p. 6.

T6

The Conservative landslide of 1971 fell hard on Robert
Nixon and not long after the new government was formed he announced
his decision to resign as leader of the Liberals. Nixon, whose
father, Harry, had been the last Liberal premier of Ontario in the
waning days of the Hepburn kingdom, had become party leader in
1967. At that time, the Liberal caucus was unorganized and marred
with internal dissent. Many Liberals were disfranchised from party
policy, morale was low and some Liberal members of the legislature
openly manifested a personal dislike of Nixon. In anticipation of
the 1971 election, the party held a policy conference which pro-
duced what Nixon called his "blueprint for government." The
document became the party platform for the ensuing campaign but
the legislature was hardly dissolved before the Tories had torn
the blueprint apart at the seams. After they had finished putting
price tags on each of its clauses, the total of which suggested an
enormous expenditure that was doubly embarrassing to a party com-
mitted to fiscal moderation, the Tories had made a mockery of the
blueprint and had doomed the Liberals to defeat. However great the
shock to Nixon, the Liberal leader recovered quickly and began
having second thoughts about his already-announced resignation.
The only thing to do was to become a candidate to succeed himself
at the 1974 leadership convention. He won handily, but not before
he infuriated some of his colleagues who had spent a great deal of
time, money and effort organizing their own campaigns on the
assumption that Nixon would not be an opponent.

If the 1971 election was disillusioning for Nixon, it

17

was a nightmare for Stephen Lewis. The New Democratic Party
leader had been new at the game; he had been a member of the legis-
lature since 1962, but had been party leader barely a year when he
had to go to the people. In retrospect, Lewis described the 1971
NDP campaign as unwisely "strident and absolute and dogmatic."28
The Tories successfully fought the "socialist threat" and Lewis
too was on the verge of resignation following the disastrous
results. He later said the period from 1970 to 1972 was almost
unbearable for him.29
The cloud of confusion that hung heavily over the opposi-
tion parties in the aftermath of the 1971 election quickly blew
down the halls of Queen's Park and settled over the premier's office.
Davis' first full term in office was laced with scandals. There
was the $50,000 donation by the contracting firm of Fidinam
(Ontario) Limited to the Conservative Party at a time when the
firm was negotiating to build a new headquarters building for the
Workmen's Compensation Board. An investigation failed to establish
a link between the donation and the award but the appearance of
impropriety was difficult to wash away. Then there was the con-
tract between Ontario Hydro and Gerhard Moog, a personal friend of
Davis, to build a new Hydro headquarters. Here too, an investiga-

tion failed to prove that the premier had intervened. There were

charges of conflict of interest in respect to various land deals

 

28Hailwood, "The Feast of Stephen," p. 30.

291bid., pp. 30, 32.

18

as well as accusations that government planes had been used for
private trips.

The scandals reached a peak with the Ross Shouldice
affair which implied a government network of political patronage.
Shouldice, a Tory fund-raiser and real estate agent in Sudbury, was
said to have engineered a government land purchase in Oakville in
return for political contributions. The story broke in January,
1975, and presumably was the reason for the Tories' poor showing
.in the public opinion poll of the following month. The Shouldice
affair never was substantiated; indeed it angered Davis so much
that he fought the accusation in unprecedented fashion. In a
speech January 27 to the annual meeting of the Metropolitan Toronto
Board of Trade, Davis called the Shouldice accusations a "crock of
sheer nonsense" and discounted them as "sinister, sordid specula-

"30 His face was said to be uncharacteristically red with

tion.
anger as he announced that he only had begun to fight. He succeeded
in restoring much of his party's lost popularity (among other things,
the government unveiled a budget in April with such attractive fea-
tures as a temporary reduction in sales tax and a monetary incentive
for first-time home-buyers) and by summer the scandals had been
virtually wiped from the public mind.

When Davis called the September, 1975, election he asked

for a mandate to confront "serious responsibilities at a time in our

history that can sensibly be called critical."3] He named inflation,

 

30§£§[; Aug. 12, 1975, p. B3.
31%, Aug' 12: 19759 P. I.

19

unemployment and the general health of the economy as the main

government concerns. He admitted a less-than-perfect record in
dealing with these issues but proposed to run on it nonetheless.
Davis expressed faith in the voters who he said would find that

the government of Ontario had been a "competent, diligent and

dutiful partner in the steady upward progress of their community."32

As Davis spoke, the two opposition leaders waited their

turns to enter the media room at Queen's Park to launch their

33

respective campaigns. Robert Nixon went first and named govern-

ment integrity as the paramount issue of the Liberal campaign. He
resurrected the unsubstantiated conflict-of-interest accusations
against the government during the past four years in an effort to
discredit the Conservatives and assured the electorate that he,
Robert Nixon, was ready for the responsibility of office. The
other prominent planks of the Liberal Party platform concerned home
rule (greater power for local governments), responsible government
spending and responsiveness to the needs of people in jobs, housing

and education.

A___

32.5.93: Aug. 12, 1975, p. 2.

33This practice may require an explanation for American
readers. Canadian provincial (and federal) parliamentary election
campaigns are more cut and dried than U.S. campaigns. They begin
with the dissolution of the legislature at the pleasure of the pre-
mier and end on a date arbitrarily selected. While every local
candidate may not always have been nominated when the election is
called, the party leaders who will tour the province will be estab-
lished and usually well-known. The immediate question concerning
the campaign therefore is not who, but how, and the party leaders
would be derelict in their duties if they did not immediately
counter the premier's reasons for calling an election with explan-
atory statements of their own.

20

The New Democratic Party entered the campaign with no
apparent illusions about its potential. Its dogmatic approach in
1971, which was geared more towards replacing the Liberals as the
Official Opposition than in forming a government, proved disastrous
enough to be discarded in favor of a methodological, clearly-defined
campaign on specific issues. "The NDP will not deal in abstrac-
tions," Lewis said. "Every issue for us has a human dimension and

"34 The NDP

that dimension will be central to everything we say.
leader named four specific issues to which, he said, the NDP cam-
paign would stick religiously: housing, which should be "a question
of social right, not social privilege;" energy, the cost of which he
said was unnecessarily high; land, which he said was either dis-
appearing or not being properly used; and people, whose safety he
said the government had put in jeopardy by ignoring occupational

health hazards.35

Housing, energy, land and people; the acronym
spelled "help" and Lewis vowed to provide it if given a chance.

Such was the setting for the 1975 Ontario provincial
election campaign. The Conservatives were seen as treading pre-
cariously in uncertain waters; the premier insisting his record was
good and asking for a mandate to continue. The Liberals were riding
high on a euphoria generated by public opinion polls; their huge

lead of the previous winter had been trimmed, to be sure, but they

were enjoying a popularity to which they were unaccustomed.

 

34Star, Aug. 12, 1975, p. l.

355tar, Aug. 18, 1975, p. 1.

 

21

Stephen Lewis was proceeding with renewed confidence and promised
to conduct an honest campaign, adhering strictly to the issues he
had set forth. He promised that the NDP would work as hard as it

COVId and "If by chance we form a government, we'll cope."36

 

36§12223 Aug. 12, 1975, p. l.

CHAPTER II

NEWS AND COMMENT

A Quantitative Analysis

It is clear from Tables 1 and 2 that Toronto newspapers
were one in affording considerably more space in their news columns
to the Progressive-Conservatives than to the opposition parties
during the Ontario election campaign of 1975. This finding,
together with Stephen Clarkson's similar finding in respect to
the 1971 campaign, suggests that news media do in fact tend to
regard a party in power more highly than the opposition, at least
during election campaigns.

Specifically, the Conservative Party was the primary
subject of 203 news stories which comprised 3,025 column inches.37
In contrast, the Toronto papers published 129 stories about the
Liberals (2,109-1/2 column inches) and 151 stories (2,072 column
inches) about the New Democrats. What is significant here is that
the Liberal Party's rank of Official Opposition did not win it any
more coverage than that given to the third-place (at that time) NDP.

In fact, the Liberals were the focal point of fewer stories than

 

37The tabulation does not include columns appearing regu-
larly in the Star and Globe as "news briefs" or under a similar
heading.

22

_23

Table 1. Distribution of news stories.

 

 

 

Globe and

Nature of Story Mail Star Sun Total
Progressive-Conservatives 90 97 16 203
Liberals 59 61 9 129
NDP 69 76 6 151
Communists 3 2 O 5
Independents l 2 O 3
General 44 147 40 231

Total 262a 374 67c 703d

 

a8 stories treated the Liberals and Conservatives

equally, 2 stories for the Liberals and NDP and 1 story for both

the Conservatives and NDP.

b2 stories treated the Conservatives and Liberals
equally, 2 stories for both the Liberals and NDP.

cl story treated all three parties equally, 1 story

for both the Liberals and NDP and 1 story for both the Conserva-

tives and Liberals.
d

Reflects adjustments mentioned above.

24

Table 2. Amount of space given to news stories adjusted to the
lO-pica column inch.

 

 

 

Globe and

Nature of Story Mail Star Sun Total
Progressive-Conservatives 1,407 1,445- 172- 3,205
Liberals 958- 1,022- 128- 2,109-
NDP 992 1,002 78 2,072
Communists 33 6- O 39-
Independents 9 8 O 17
General 942- 3,092- 343 4,378

Total 4,208- 6,351 643 H.202-a

 

atotals adjusted to account for stories that were rated
equally for two or more parties.

25

the New Democrats although they were given slightly more space.

In comparing the patterns of the individual papers, it
should be recalled that the Globe and Mail editorially endorsed the
Conservatives, the Star_supported the Liberals and the Sun called
for a Conservative Government with an NDP Opposition. (The edi-
torial reaction to the campaign will be discussed in detail in
Chapter III.) The tables show that the Glgbg_paid much more
attention to its preferred party, the Conservatives, than to the
opposition. They show also that the paper wrote more frequently
about the New Democrats than the Liberals and accordingly gave the
NDP more total space. The Star weighted its total news coverage
in favor of the Conservatives, its editorial choice notwithstanding.
And while it afforded its preferred Liberals more space than the
NDP, it wrote fewer stories about them than either the Tories or
NDP. The Sun_ran little hard news about the campaign; most of its
election coverage was signed commentary. Of the sixty-seven news
stories that did appear in the §2n_during the five-week campaign,
forty were of a general nature and did not deal with any particular
party. It ran more stories about the Conservatives, whom it
endorsed, than of the other two parties combined but it gave the
Nixon Liberals, whom it editorially detested, considerably more
space than the New Democratic Party on whom it called to form the
Official Opposition.

The proportions were similar in respect to front-page
appearances (Table 3). The Conservatives appeared on the front

page more times (48) than the opposition parties combined (45).

26

Table 3. Number of news stories appearing on front pages.

 

 

 

Globe and

Nature of Story Mail Star Sun Total
Progressive-Conservatives 24 23 l 48
Liberals 9 16 O 25
NDP 10 10 O 20
Communists 0 O 0 O
Independents O O 0 0
General 11 25 1 37

Total 50 70 1 121a

 

aTotals adjusted to account for stories that were rated

equally for two or more parties.

27

The disparity was most lopsided in the Glgbg_where the Tories
dominated front-page news stories twenty-four times compared to
nine for the Liberals and ten for the NDP. The Star_gave the
Liberals more front-page coverage than the NDP but not nearly as
much as it afforded the Conservatives. The §3n_ran virtually no
news stories, only headlines and photographs on its front pages.

The upshot is that the evidence does not really support
the assumption that editorially-preferred parties receive more
attention than others. It is true that the pattern of the Globe
and Sufl_would seem to make a case for the validity of the assump-
tion but it probably is better argued, especially in light of the
fact that the Staerollowed the general pattern of covering the
Tories more heavily than the opposition parties, that a party in
power is inherently more newsworthy and commands a disproportionate
amount of attention in spite of its editorial acceptance. Indeed,
the fact that the Star ran fewer stories about the editorially-
endorsed Liberals than the other parties and that the §3g_paid
more attention to the Liberals, for whom it urged demotion to
third-party status, than the NDP indicates that factors other than
editorial preference dictate the manner in which parties are
covered during an election campaign.

A final note on news coverage concerns the conspicuous
exclusion of the Communist and Independent candidates. The tables
reveal how the thirty-three Communist and thirty-four Independent
candidates (and even thirteen candidates for the Social Credit

Party which did not qualify as an official party for the election)

28

went virtually unnoticed by the Toronto press.

An analysis of the photographs38 shows no clear-cut
pattern. Tables 4 and 5 show that the Star_and G19b§_tended to
print larger photos of the Liberals than of the Conservatives and
New Democrats and that Conservative photographs were smallest of
all in the Globe, But both papers printed more photos of Tories
than of Liberals and more of Liberals than of New Democrats
(Table 6). The Sun_tended to print much larger photos of Tories
and Liberals than of New Democrats but the distribution of its
pictures was relatively even.

Few election-related pictures appeared on the front
pages but of the twenty-one that did, nine featured Liberals, six
were of Tories, five concerned New Democrats and six were of a
general nature (one was NDP/Liberal and one was PC/Liberal).
Again, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that a governing
party logically commands more attention. There is no evidence
of any other kind of bias.

The distribution of the letters to the editor (Tables 8
and 9) was interesting in that it tended to be contrary to the
editorial preferences of the newspapers. The Globe ran more
letters denouncing the Conservatives than praising them but its
distribution of letters concerning the other parties was even.

The Star ran more than twice as many letters criticizing the

 

38Not included in the tabulation of photographs was a
two-and-a-half page spread in the Star of Sept. 12, 1975, that
featured pictures of 105 of the 123 local candidates, all of which
measured 1 x 1-1/2 inches.

29

 

 

 

Table 4. Amount of space given to photographs measured in square
inches.
Globe and

Subject of Photo Mail Star Sun Total
Progressive-Conservatives 613.5 1,558 529.5 2,701
Liberals 628 1,056 570.5 2,254.5
New Democrats 461 844.5 315.5 1,621
Communists 0 3.5 O 0
Independents O O O 0
General 192 ' 783 670 1,645

Total 1,895 4,151 1,948 7,994.5a

 

aTotals adjusted to account for photos in which more than

one party was featured.

Table 5. Average size of photographs in square inches.

 

 

 

Subject of Photograph Globe and Mail Star Sun
Progressive-Conservatives 21.1 23.9 52.9
Liberals 26.1 27.0 51.8
New Democrats 23.0 18.7 28.6

 

30

Table 6. Distribution of photographs.

 

 

 

Globe and

Subject of Photo Mail Star Sun Total
Progressive-Conservatives 29 65 10 105
Liberals 24 51 ll 86
New Democrats 20 45 ll 76
Communists O l 0 l
Independents O O O 0
General 22 61 105 188

Total 95 222at T36b 453c

 

aIncludes one photograph in which both the Liberals and

NDP were featured.

bIncludes one photo in which both the Conservatives and

Liberals were featured.

CReflects adjustments mentioned above.

31

Table 7. Photographs appearing on front pages.

 

 

 

Globe and

Subject of Photo Mail Star Sun Total
Progressive-Conservatives l 4 1 6
Liberals 4 3 2 9
New Democrats 3 l 1 5
Communists O O O O
Independents O 0 O 0
General 1 l l 3

Total 9 8 4 21a

 

aTotals adjusted to account for photos in which more
than one party was featured.

32

Table 8. Distribution of letters to the editor.

 

 

 

Globe and
Nature of Letter Mail Star Sun Total
Supportive of P05 6 5 , 6 17
Critical of PCs 8 24 14 46
General Comment on PCs l 1 O 2
Progressive-Conservatives 15 30 20 65
Supportive of Liberals 2 3 1 6
Critical of Liberals 2 8 6 16
General Comment on Liberals O O O 0
:Liberals 4 11 7 22
Supportive of NDP 2 3 l 6
Critical of NDP 2 3 O 5
General Comment on NDP 2 O 0 2
New Democrats 6 6 1 13
General 23 41 17 81
Total 48 87a 44b 179C

 

aIncludes one letter equally supportive of NDP and
critical of Conservatives.

bIncludes one letter equally supportive of the Conserva-
tives and critical of the Liberals.

CReflects adjustments mentioned above.

33

Table 9. Amount of space given to letters measured in 12-pica
column inches.

 

 

Globe and
Nature of Letter Mail Star Sun Total
Supportive of PCs 19 35.5 23 77.5
Critical of PCs 30 72 57.5 159.5
General Comment on P05 7 4 O 11
Progressive-Conservatives 56 111.5 80.5 248
Supportive of Liberals 9 7 3 19
Critical of Liberals 9 39 ll 59
General Comment on Liberals O O O 0
Liberals 18 46 14 78
Supportive of NDP 6 8.5 2 16.5
Critical of NDP 15 14.5 0 29.5
General Comment on NDP 14 O 0 14
New Democrats 35 23 2 60
General 62 5 134 5 50 247
Total 171.5 312 144.5 628a

 

aTotals adjusted to account for letters showing equal
bias towards two or more parties.

34

Liberals as it did those supporting the party. The ratio was even
more lopsided in respect to the Tories but the NDP was given as
many favorable as unfavorable letters in the Star, The Sun, too,
ran a preponderance of letters critical of the Tories and Liberals.
The only letters appearing in that paper concerning the NDP were in
support of the party. All this suggests an effort to manifest
objectivity by providing ample space for views other than those of
the editorial board. The comparison in terms of total inches tells
essentially the same story.

During the course of the campaign, 191 articles appeared
in the Toronto press that could be labelled "commentary." These
usually were regular columns by well-known journalists. Table 10
shows that each paper ran more commentaries about Conservatives
than of the other two parties and that most of these were neutral,
i.e., they were judgmental columns about the progress of the campaign
rather than pieces of praise or condemnation. But enough opinion-
ated pieces did appear to show a significant attitude of dissatis-

faction with the Tories. The Globe and Mail did not run a single

 

commentary distinctly favorable to the Conservatives but it printed
four that spelled reasons for discounting them as an attractive
choice. The Star ran one favorable but three unfavorable commen-
taries about the Conservatives and the ratio in the Sun_was five to
eleven. In total, there were three times as many commentaries
downgrading the Tories (18) as praising them (6).

The Liberals were even less fortunate. Only five of

forty-eight commentaries about them were supportive while twenty

35

Table 10. Distribution of opinion columns or "commentaries."

 

 

Globe and
Nature of Column Mail Star Sun Total
Supportive of PCs O l 5 6
Critical of PCs 4 3 11 18
General Comment on PCs 7 9 17 33
Progressive-Conservatives 11 13 33 57
Supportive of Liberals 2 2 l 5
Critical of Liberals 4 4 12 20
General Comment on Liberals 3 3 17 23
Liberals 9 9 3O 48
Supportive of NDP 3 2 4 9
Critical of NDP O O 4 4
General Comment on NDP 3 4 16 23
New Democrats 6 6 24 36
General l6 19 23 58
Total 39a 45b 107C 191d

 

aIncludes two commentaries equally critical of Liberals
and Conservatives and one which was equally supportive of Liberals
and New Democrats.

bIncludes one commentary equally critical of Liberals and
Conservatives and one which treated the Conservatives and New
Democrats equally in a general way.

CIncludes two commentaries equally supportive of Conser-
vatives as they were critical of Liberals and one which was equally
critical of Conservatives and Liberals.

dReflects adjustments mentioned above.

36

took them to task for one issue or another. The Sufl_was especially
vindictive of the Liberals; it printed just one commentary support-
ive of the party while running twelve in opposition to it.

The New Democrats had less written about them in the
opinion columns than did the Tories or Liberals but they fared
better in the nature of attention they did receive. The NDP drew
more favorable commentaries (9) than unfavorable (4) and, more
significantly, neither the Stgr_nor the Glgbg_ran a single commen-
tary that could be deemed generally critical of the NDP. The Sun_
ran more commentaries than the Globe and Star combined but this
was in accordance with its predetermined format. The Sun replaced
normal news coverage with the three daily opinion columns, thereby
giving the reader an opinionated picture of the campaign, albeit a
picture shaded differently depending on which columnist was report-
ing on whom.

The most notable aspect of these findings is the absence
of criticism of the New Democratic Party. In fact, an analysis of
the major columnists (Table 11) shows that only Claire Hoy and
Connie Nicolson, both of the Sun, wrote columns that could be
deemed generally critical of the NDP. It suggests that the efforts
of the party generally were accepted if not applauded by the
Toronto press. This overall tendency of the opinion columnists to
write negatively of the Tories and Liberals while positively of
the NDP will be manifested more clearly when the actual content of
the commentaries is analyzed. Similarly, the news stories, whose

sheer spacial allocation seems unimportant, take on significance

37

Table 11. Distribution of opinion columns according to major

 

 

columnists.
Nature of Webster Miller Hoy Downing Nicolson Total
Column (Globe) (Star) (Sun) (Sun) (Sun)
+PCs O O 2 1 O 3
-PCs 3 2 1 7 1 l4
Neutral to PCs 7 6 7 3 4 27
PCs 10 8 10 11 5 44
+Liberals O l O O 0 1
-Liberals 3 2 7 2 1 15
Neutral to
Liberals 3 l 3 6 4 l7
Liberals 6 4 10 8 5 33
+NDP 2 l 1 3 0 7
-NDP O 0 3 O l 4
Neutral to NDP 3 O l 3 12 19
New Democrats 5 l A 1 5 6 13 30
General 7 8 2 6 2 25
Total 26a 21 27 30b 25 129C

 

aIncludes two commentaries equally critical of Conserva-
tives and Liberals.

bIncludes one commentary equally critical of Conserva-
tives and Liberals.

cReflects adjustments mentioned above.

38

when their substance and manner of presentation are discussed.

A Qualitative Assessment

 

All news is of relative importance. And editors of the
Sun believed there were more pressing items than a provincial
election campaign to display on their front page August 12. The
jarring headline read: ”Bronfman Set to Pay Son's Ransom Demand";
a grammatically incorrect reference to the kidnapping of Samuel
Bronfman, heir to the Seagram's whiskey empire. Immediately below
the head, a photograph occupying nearly the rest of the page showed
the opening of the Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto's national
summer fair. The election announcement was relegated to the bottom.
It was brief and characteristically flippant: "Bill Says Let's Go.‘I
The §un_readers had to turn to the second page before they could
learn essentially that Davis would campaign on "economy, law, order."

The §E§£.a"d the Glgbg_had a different set of priorities
and regarded the forthcoming election as the main story of the day,
although they differed in approach. The Star_announced that "Davis
chooses election targets: Nixon, Trudeau"--a head that was
immediately contradicted by the lead: "Premier William Davis today
insisted he is not using the Ontario election campaign to pick a
fight with the federal Liberal government." The story dealt mainly
with Davis' speech inaugurating the campaign and, to be fair, it is
true that Davis did refer to the federal and provincial Liberals
repeatedly as "kissing cousins" during the course of that speech.

The Globe displayed the most insight into the immediate character

39

the campaign would assume. It turned to Robert Nixon's opening
remarks in announcing in its lead story that "integrity" would be
an "early campaign issue." In so doing, the Glgbg_accurately pre-
dicted the topic around which discussion would revolve during the
first couple of weeks of the campaign.

Writing in the Glgbe, Robert Williamson reported that
Nixon surprised reporters by citing integrity as a major issue.39
It was true that the premier had become involved in several
‘ scandals during his first term in office, but he had been exoner-
ated in each of them and reporters seem not to have been out of
line in calling on Nixon to be specific. Perhaps the Liberal
leader had some new evidence of political corruption. Nixon's
insistence on challenging the government's integrity also
bewildered NDP leader Stephen Lewis, a fact not left unreported.
"Integrity is a slippery road," Lewis was quoted as saying at the
time, and any party that claims more integrity than any other is
"more self-righteous than the NDP at the worst of times."40

The call for the Liberal leader to put his cards on the
table rang louder than Nixon probably expected. In a speech
Tuesday night (August 12) in Sault Ste. Marie at the nominating
meeting of then-Transportation Minister John Rhodes, Premier Davis
said the challenge to the integrity of the government was "nothing

41

more than obsequious, evasive slander." He angrily challenged

 

39§129§, Aug. 13, 1975, p. 5.

40Globe, Aug. 12, 1975, p. 1.

41§£239 Aug. 13, 1975, p. 1.

4O

Nixon to "put up or shut up"--a phrase seemingly tailor-made for

42 dutifully

headline-writing copy editors. The Star:§_red line
reported the next afternoon: "Put Up or Shut Up on Integrity, Davis
tells Nixon." The Globe, characteristically, used an additional
preposition that refined the remark into a polite warning.
Subordinating the story to the Bronfman affair, the Glgbg_announced

that "Davis tells Nixon to put up or to shut up."43

Thep§un
handled the premier's speech on page four but, remarkable, the
reporter travelling with Nixon at the time, John Downing, devoted
his entire commentary to the issue of educational spending and did
not mention integrity at all.

The style of Davis' retaliatory speech was as newsworthy
as its substance. David Allen of the Star_called the address "the
toughest Davis has made in four years as premier," and added that
it "marks a peak in the personal feud brewing between Davis and
Nixon for three years.“44 Peter Mosher agreed in the Glgbg.that
Davis had made "the toughest speech of his political career."45 and
an unsigned news story in the Sun_called the speech a "bitter

personal counterattack" on Nixon.46

 

42The "red line" is the headline of a major story (but not
necessarily the lead story) which is printed in red ink and which
appears daily, often above the masthead, in the Toronto Star.

4§§199g5 Aug. 13, 1975, p. 1.

44%: Aug. 13, 1975: pp- 1, 3.

4591.922, Aug. 13, 1975, p. 1.

45%, Aug. 13, 1975, p. 4.

41

The confrontation was accentuated in Thursday's papers.
In a boxed item flanked by photographs of the two party leaders,

the Star reported on its front page that "Nixon refuses to 'shut

47

up' on integrity." The story by Charlotte Montgomery quoted the

Liberal Party leader as saying
We're talking about the Davis government--the whole
collection of ministers which over the last four years
wasted our money, made bad administrative decisions and,

in fact, had been caught up in the Conservative network
of patronage which is costing the taxpayers money.

Montgomery then reported that Nixon had emphasized that he was
not questioning the personal integrity of Davis, an angle also
picked up by the Glgb§_which reported that Nixon's attacks on
integrity were "directed at the government, not Premier William

Davis himself."48

The Glgb§_also solicited the reaction of
Stephen Lewis who it quoted as saying that the Liberal campaign
against the premier's integrity indicated a "lust for extinction."
Lewis said he never had seen evidence of government corruption and

that he had "no evidence of a dishonest premier who lacks integri-

ty The Sun, in its opinion column format, ran an article by

Connie Nicolson--traveling with Lewis at the time--that said
essentially the same thing: Lewis believes integrity is_a non-

issue.50

 

47Star, Aug. 14, 1975, p. 1.
48Globe, Aug. 14, 1975, p. l.

491bid., p. 4.

50Sun, Aug. 14, 1975, p. 3.

42

Nixon never did produce any evidence of government corrup-
tion beyond that which already had been disproved. In fact, his
insistence on rekindling burnt-out fires was the cause of some
embarrassment to the Glgbg_and Star, The Glgbg_had printed a
Canadian Press dispatch on August 14 which quoted Nixon as saying
that retiring legislator John Yaremko was one of three Conservative
cabinet ministers who had had a conflict of interest during the
previous term. Nixon said his information was based on old news-
paper reports rather than on Liberal Party research. The actual
newspaper accounts upon which the charge was based were discovered

two days later and prompted the Globe to write in retraction

The Toronto Star carried a report in January, 1974,
about some land dealings of Mr. Yaremko in the Niagara
escarpment. The Star subsequently apologized for any
suggestion in that story and in later ones that there
had been any impropriety on Mr. Yaremko's part.

The Canadian Press and the Globe and Mail regret
any embarrassment or inconvenience caused by the CP
report last Thursday.51

The §tar_made amends by pointing out Mr. Yaremko's good record in
an editorial August 15.

Nixon's failure to relent in his campaign against the
integrity of the government clearly failed to impress the public
and, more importantly, it invited the scorn of the news media who
were asking for specific incidents that Nixon did not (assume:
could not) provide. Charlotte Montgomery revealed her frustration

when she wrote in the Star that "Last night, Nixon gave another

 

5‘Globe, Aug. 16, 1975, p. 4.

43

tough speech on integrity which was hastily prepared and delivered
to him as his campaign bus made a one-day swing through Niagara on
the way to a nomination meeting in the riding of Hamilton Mountain."52
Moreover, Nixon's apparent contradiction during his half-hour inter-

view with Fraser Kelly on CFTO-TV53

made reporters even more
uncertain of the Liberal leader's intentions. When Kelly had asked
Nixon, probably for clarification, if he was questioning the per-
sonal integrity of the premier, Nixon replied: "The premier's and

the government's. The subsequent headline in Monday morning's

Globe announced that "Nixon Questions Personal Integrity of Premier

Davis."55

The afternoon Star, after having had time to contact
Davis, front-paged the story that Davis was "angered" by the attacks
on his personal honesty.56 Robert Miller reported the incident as
being "the first time Nixon had gone so far as to question the
premier's personal honesty, and it left Davis sounding both hurt and

angry."

 

SZSEQE, Aug. 14, 1975, pp. 1-2. (This brings to mind a

comment of Edwin Newman who wrote in Strictly Speaking (New York:
Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1974) pp. 70-71, that "we in the news busi-
ness are being unfair to [speech] writers, and inaccurate as well.
For years we should have been reporting, 'President Kennedy, in a
speech largely written by Theodore Sorenson [sic] and Arthur Schle-
singer, Jr., said today . . .' and 'President Nixon, using words and
ideas principally supplied by Patrick Buchanan, said today . . .")

53Nixon was to debate Lewis on CFTO-TV but got the entire
half-hour to himself when Lewis, angered that the press would not be
permitted to accompany him to the studio, backed out at the last
minute. This incident and the two debates that did take place will
be explained fully in Chapter IV.

 

54Globe, Sept. 1, 1975, p. 1.

551bid.

 

56Star, Sept. 1, 1975, p. 1.

44

The next day, under the head "Nixon defends attacks on
Premier's integrity," the Liberal leader was quoted in the Star as
saying his foray was not new and that he did not mean to imply
that the premier was corrupt. When asked to define integrity as
he saw it, Nixon said: "We're talking about bad judgment in
government, misleading policies, political and intellectual
integrity."57

The apparent turnabout--the notion that Davis' personal
honesty was as suspect as the government's--seems to have brought
reporters to the premier's defence. Political columnist Robert
Miller, who earlier58 had said integrity always is an issue and
had called on Nixon and Davis to unabashedly state and defend

their positions, now, apparently, had made up his own mind on the

matter. He wrote that

Liberal Leader Robert Nixon is frequently described
as the Mr. Nice-Guy of Ontario Politics.

Why?

His weekend attack on the personal integrity of
Premier William Davis was neither honest nor nice.59

When Miller's assessment of the integrity issue is compared with
earlier comments of his counterparts at the Glgbg_and Sun, the
ineffectiveness of the Liberal campaign thus far and the media
response to that ineffectiveness becomes clear. Norman Webster

wrote in the Globe that:

 

57Star, Sept. 2, 1975, p. 6.

58$tar, Aug. 14, 1975, p. 7.

59$tar, Sept. 3, 1975, p. 01.

45

He's a quality man, Mr. Davis. He is in political
trouble at least partly because of gutsy, long-range
decisions that have angered groups concerned with short-
term and their own narrow interests. There are good
reasons to replace a government that has sat for 32
years, but William Davis' integrity and character are
not among them.60

Claire Hoy, who never tried to hide his intense dislike for Nixon,

said essentially the same thing in the Sun;

Let's face it, apart from oodles of petty patron-
age, this government on a major scale, has been
remarkably clean. That's a tough fact to face when
you're trying to make integrity stick as the campaign
biggie.61

It may be argued in retrospect that news media over-
played the integrity theme, especially since they apparently agreed
with Stephen Lewis that it was not an issue relevant to the elec-
tion. What probably sustained it as the centrepiece was the
delicious confrontation it prompted between Davis and Nixon. When
Nixon first suggested that he really was not calling the personal
honesty of Davis into question, for example, reporters probably
stumbled over each other to get the premier's "reaction." They no
doubt were delighted with his frank response ("the hell he wasn't
. . .62) for it provided additional flavor to an already juicy story.
A penchant for providing a running account of the campaign road show
seems to have impeded the media in its effort to discuss the issues

they saw as being most relevant to the election.

 

69§122§, Aug. 17, 1975, p. 7.

61§ug, Aug. 18, 1975, p. 8.

62$tar, Aug. 14, 1975, p. 1.

46

The party leaders, to be sure, were discussing issues
other than integrity during these first three weeks of campaigning.
Among other things, Lewis was urging Davis to extend the freeze on
oil and natural gas prices that was due to expire at the end of
September. He was proposing budgetary cuts in Ontario Hydro, the
provincial electric utility, and he was calling for more housing
starts with a pledge to force developers to build or relinquish
their land. Nixon also urged a review of oil and natural gas
price increases and criticized the government for allowing what
he believed to be a shortage of hospitals in the province.63
Davis, for his part, promised more gun control legislation and
vowed to enact a Sunday-closing law that would affect most retail
establishments.

While these issues were discussed as they were brought
up by the candidates, their appearance in the media was sporadic
and usually in isolation. They would seem to surface and then
disappear, as a goldfish comes up for food, without undergoing
full exposure or causing too much attention. Nixon did manage to
briefly shift the focus of the campaign to the quality of education,
an issue that probably could have won him votes had he not crossed
his figures and prompted the press to take more interest in his

handling of the issue than in its intrinsic merits.

 

63Not long after the election the minority Conservative
government closed some hospitals in the province to cut costs in
the health ministry. The NDP strongly opposed the move and motioned
a vote of no-confidence on the issue. The Liberals, who had just
elected a new leader and thus were not prepared to go to the hust-
ings, supported the government to avoid a spring election.

47

Nixon maintained that the quality of education was declining in
Ontario and vowed to return the three Rs to the classroom. Speak-
ing to the Ontario Public School Men Teachers' Federation, he
promised an administrative shake-up that would save the education
system $50 million. But, as Charlotte Montgomery pointed out in
the S333, "Nixon didn't explain how he arrived at that figure."64
As it happened, Nixon meant to say $11.27 million; his original
figure had included some non-education-related savings. When the
mistake was made clear, the Star_so reported it in the following

head: "Nixon mistaken in saving, aide says."65

But the Glgb§_
propagated the misinformation by announcing in a headline that
"Nixon promises to cut $50 million from school costs" while
reporting in the ensuing story that "a Liberal Party researcher
later questioned Mr. Nixon's statement and said cutting out the
[regional] offices could only result in a saving of $11 million.“66
John Downing, writing in the Sun, recognized the issue as impor-
tant and devoted an entire column to praising Nixon's concern with
it. But he lamented that "an able performance is ruined by a goof"
and said that "most won't know he did well." Downing gauged the
public mood accurately when he said people would remember that

Nixon "didn't keep his facts straight on a major issue."67

 

64Star, Aug. 15, 1975, p. 3.

65§£gr, Aug. 16, 1975, p. 3.

66Globe, Aug. 16, 1975, p. 1.

57§ug, Aug. 17, 1975, p. 6.

48

Indeed, Nixon's campaign to restore the three Rs would hereafter be
prefaced with the advice that the Liberal leader first brush up on
his own 'rithmetic.

The education issue never would receive the attention it
probably deserved and Nixon's estimates on costs and spending would
be suspect for the duration of the campaign. Robert Williamson
later would write in the Glgb§_that "it was only under questioning
by Toronto reporters that [Nixon] disclosed a $7-million price tag
on one of his alternatives."68 And when Nixon charged in a speech
September 8 that Davis had let the economy slide, Charlotte Mont-
gomery would write in the §3a3_that "it was the first time in the
campaign that Nixon volunteered detailed figures to support his

statements."69

Mary Trueman of the Glgbg_was more persistent in
this instance and asked the Liberal leader to interpret the "six
pages of Statistics Canada figures" in his own words. She wrote
that "he pointed to the figures and replied: 'I don't know what
that means. It's supposed to back up what I say in the other part
. sorry Mary!‘" The early-edition headline to the effect that
Nixon could not interpret his figures prompted a telephone call
from the party leader who was quoted in later editions as saying:
"Frankly, I thought she was joking. It's incredible to me that she

didn't understand them." The late editions also said that Nixon

insisted he really did understand the statistics but that he would

 

68Globe, Sept. 2, 1975, p. 5.

69§£gfia Sept. 9, 1975, p. 6.

49

not say that Trueman had misquoted him.70

Nixon's fumbling with figures and apparent political
rhetoric about integrity contrasted sharply with Stephen Lewis'
precise and articulate campaign. Late in August, John Downing

would observe in the Sun that:

The NDP right now is backing its issues with more
research than the other parties. There is substance
to their [sic] attack. And whether or not you agree
with their arguments, you can't fault them for not
being specific.71

The real significance of Nixon's b1undering--the story it seems to
have told the media and the public--probably was best put by the
Globe's Norman Webster who observed in respect to Nixon's error on
education costs that "you just will not see Stephen Lewis making
the sort of goof Robert Nixon did."72

Lewis' reliability was augmented by an image of sincerity
that reporters found hard to ignore. After the NDP leader had
addressed the issue of occupational health at a uranium mine in
northern Ontario, and had been clearly moved by his conversation
with a miner who was dying of cancer, Robert Miller wrote in the
Star_that Lewis' "issue-oriented campaign . . . reached the height
of drama at Elliot Lake . . . where Lewis made a brilliant and

"73

emotional speech to 250 miners. Similarly, Jonathan Fear noted

 

70§122§, Sept. 9, 1975, p. 1.

712111: Aug. 27, 1975, p. 3

72Globe, Aug. 18, 1975, p. 7.

73§£2£3 Aug. 30, 1975, p. 28.

50

in the Glgbg_that the speech "began with a deep sigh and was at
times choked with emotion."74

Lewis' people-oriented campaign was far removed from his
dogmatic approach in 1971 and it brought its own repercussions from
a cynical press. Connie Nicolson wrote in her Sun_column that the
NDP leader was "concentrating on being nice, quiet and reasonable--
making people feel that the old red tide of socialism theme that
marked the 1971 campaign is really just a gentle pink-tinged

75

swell." Nicolson's colleague at the Sun, Claire Hoy, was more

cynical in his description of Lewis' image. After writing about
Lewis as "the new, moderate, loving, friendly, warm, relaxed, less
strident NDP leader," he added parenthetically: "at least that's

"76

what he says. Mary Trueman wrote in the Globe that Lewis' aides

had suggested the following adjectives to describe the NDP leader:
relaxed, witty, mature.77 And Robert Miller wrote in his Star,
column that "the new subdued and faintly jolly Lewis is in direct
contrast to the aggressive Robert Nixon and the pugnacious William

78

Davis, not to mention the old ultra-sharp Lewis." The NDP leader

was not amused by this attention and complained that the press was

discussing his character in "a smart—ass way that offends me."79

 

7491292, Aug. 29, 1975, p. 4.

75_s_u_rl, Aug. 14, 1975, p. 3.
76$un, Aug. 18, 1975, p. 8.

7791222, Aug. 13, 1975, p. 1.
78$tar. Aug. 16. 1975, p. Cl.

7991222, Aug. 14, 1975, p. 4.

51

When a television reporter asked him how much of his campaign was
composed of the real Stephen Lewis and how much was political
manoeuvre, Lewis retorted: "Do you want it in percentages or
fractions?"80

The premier's campaign was primarily defensive; and that
part which was aggressive was directed against Nixon more than
Lewis. The summer polls, after all, had indicated that the Lib-
erals were the party to beat. But the polls also showed that Davis
was preferred over Nixon as premier by 14 percentage points. Per-
haps that is why Davis repeatedly referred to the Liberals as "the
Nixon party."

Davis had little difficulty warding off the Liberal
attack. He emerged virtually unscathed from the defence of his
integrity and was able to win forays with figures that involved
Nixon's cost and spending mistakes. But the premier was not so
easily able to strike down Stephen Lewis. On one occasion, Davis
sought to discount Lewis' contention that prime agricultural land
in Ontario was going out of production at the rate of twenty-six
acres per hour. He said the figure was based on research by
university economists who overlooked factors that would reduce it.
While the Glgbg_ran a story to that effect under the head: "Davis
disputes Lewis figures on loss of prime farmland," it also ran
immediately beneath that story another entitled: "It's a blue

herring, NDP leader asserts," and quoted Lewis as saying that "all

 

80Globe, Aug. 15, 1975, p. 4.

52

this nonsense about a group of U of T professors who studied farm
acreage between 1960 and 1970 is just so much hokem. The NDP never
saw such a study and would never have used it. Talk about a blue

herring."8]

Readers might have been left wondering who to believe;
was the plight of agricultural land really as bad as Lewis said it
was? Those who turned to the §333_that day might not have had
their question answered but they would have been given an indica-
tion of who had a better grip on the issue. Andrew Szende wrote
that "Davis said Lewis' claim that Ontario is losing 26 acres of
farmland every hour is not accurate, but when reporters asked him
for the correct figure he replied he did not know."82

Davis had promised at the outset that he would make no
expensive promises and, for the first three weeks, he kept his word.
So much so that newsmen were beginning to wonder what the Conserva-
tive campaign really entailed. When Davis said he would strengthen
gun-control laws, Claire Hoy berated him in the Sug_for making law
and order an issue in a province that does not have a problem

83

handling crime. When he promised laws that would force most

retail establishments to close on Sundays, David Allen wrote it off
in the Star as "a vague promise" and "action the government has

been studying for years and contemplating for months."84

 

819191111. Aug. 30, 1975, p. 5.
82%. Aug. 30, 1975, p. 28.
83Sun. Aug. 17, 1975, p. 6.

84821. Aug. 25. 1975. p. 1.

53

And reporters seemed always on their guard against the political
trick. Davis was criticized widely for giving $45,000 to North
York Mayor Mel Lastman--a Tory candidate--for an experiment in
transporting oldsters. Glgb§_columnist Norman Webster called the
manoeuvre "cynical politics of a very high order," and said "the
Tories will have to go some to top themselves."85
The restlessness of reporters with the Davis campaign
was obvious. Connie Nicolson observed for her §u3_readers that
“Boring it certainly is, on the campaign trail with Premier William

"86

Davis these late summer days. Stef Donev noted in the Star that

"thousands of people who streamed by Premier William Davis yester-

day gave him scarcely a second glance as he and his aides toured

87

Ontario place and the Canadian National Exhibition." And Star

columnist Robert Miller wrote in apparent frustration that:

for 25 days now, Davis has wandered around Ontario
telling people what they already know: that Ontario
is a fine place to live, work and raise a family.
What he has not done is tell people what they want
to know, which is whether (and how) it will go on
being such a fine place.88

The turning point, the spark that would ignite the cam-
paign into full fury came Wednesday night, September 3, when

Stephen Lewis had taken his entourage of aides and reporters to

 

85Globe, Aug. 22, 1975, p. 7.

86§un, Aug. 23, 1975, p. 3.

87Star, Sept. 1, 1975, p. 6.

88§£§£§ Sept. 6, 1975, p. C10.

54

the small community of Penetanguishene where he spoke at a dinner
sponsored by the Midland Labor Council. The topic of his talk was
familiar, rents, but the reaction to it was most unexpected. To
place the incident in perspective, it should be recalled that the
housing issue was a major plank in the NDP platform and, accordingly,
Lewis had been calling for rent controls incessantly, arguing that
landlords were needlessly and harmfully raising rents by unreason-
able proportions. Just one day previously, Premier Davis had
announced that his government would amend the Unconscionable Trans-
actions Act to allow previously-established rent review boards to

"89 It was a concession

sue landlords deemed accused of "gouging.
to the opposition because before that the Tories were resting on
the belief expressed by the then-Minister of Housing, Donald
Irvine, that the publicity generated by rent review boards would
"shame" landlords into keeping their rent increases in line.90
But neither Lewis nor Nixon was satisfied with the Tory promises;
both kept calling for rent review boards "with teeth."

Lewis finally made himself heard in Penetanguishene. In
a vengeful verbal outburst, Lewis said "most landlords don't know

"9] and he described eight cases of rent

the meaning of shame,
increases which he believed to be so intolerable as to assume an
urgency that precluded the affected tenants from waiting for their

days in court. He named names and quoted figures. For example,

 

 

89%. Sept. 5, 1975, p. 1.
901bid., p. 15.
91

Star, Sept. 4, 1975, p. l.

 

55

Lewis revealed that forty-year-old Kathleen Ridgeway, a single
working mother, had been forced to leave her apartment in Missis-
sauga because of a 53-percent increase in her rent--from $209 per
month to $319--that would have consumed 41 percent of her monthly
income. The NDP leader also told of Paul Forder of Scarborough
who had been given five days to decide whether or not to accept a
rent increase from $244 to $370 per month.92
The following day, the Star ran a front page headline
which read: “'Shameless' landlords increased rents 50% Stephen

Lewis claims."93

The ensuing story, written by Andrew Szende,
outlined each of the eight cases. The Star_went further and urged
in a sidebar that readers register their own rent-related complaints.
The letters came in droves and for the duration of the campaign the
(Star could be counted on to run such hard-luck stories as "Mother,
6 Children moved from tent to motel room" complete with a six-

column by 4-1/2-inch photo of the family.94

The lead story in
Friday's issue centred on a survey in the Toronto borough of North
York; the head read: "Tenant Survey says 92% want rent controls."
The red line on Saturday spelled: "Rent Gouging: Who's Telling
the Truth," but on the second page readers would find an eight-

column head which read: "Lewis renews gouging charges--and tenants

agree." The lead story on Monday told of an eighty-five-year-old

Ibid.

 

gigtar. Sept. 5, 1975, p. 1.

94Star, Sept. 9, 1975, p. 3.

56

widow who was using ninety-three percent of her income to meet her
rent.

The Lewis campaign clearly had found an issue around
which to rally and, apparently, a forum--the §£2£7'1" which to
stage the show. A Star_editorial recalled its earlier stand in

opposition to rent controls but now said:

we cannot ignore the evidence presented by New Demo-
cratic Party Leader Stephen Lewis, documenting cases
in the Metro Toronto area where tenants have had their
rents raised by 50 per cent or more at one blow. This
certainly looks like gouging . . . . A decent society
cannot allow people of modest incomes to be pushed out
on the streets when there is no alternative housing
within their means.95

The Glgb§_was more cautious in its discussion of Lewis'
revelations but recognized the significance of the issue nonethe-
less. It subordinated the story to one on Davis asking Ottawa to
help keep down mortgage costs but dutifully reported that "50% rent

jumps shock audience at Lewis meeting."96

The Globe also reported
the North York survey on the front page of its Friday issue but on

the second page it ran the following story:

Liberals, PCs favor rent review
NDP, Communists want controls

Since the Communist Party had gone virtually unmentioned in the
Globe and other papers as well, it is interesting to observe the
newspaper's penchant for linking the Communists to the NDP on this

vital issue in such a blatant manner.

 

95Star, Sept. 5, 1975, p. 84.

96Globe, Sept. 4, 1975, p. 1.

57

Claire Hoy, who was following Lewis at the time for the
Sun, conceded only partial validity to the NDP leader's arguments.
"Each case clearly represents injustice," he wrote Thursday morning,
"but there is so much of the story he does not tell." Hoy said
Davis was only partly responsible for the injustices and accused
Lewis of making a "blatant overstatement" in asserting that land-

lords have no shame. Hoy continued:

He inevitably moves his audience, exhilarates
them [sic], draws them into the topic, delights them,
scares them and becomes one with them.

But behind all the style there is still the
radical Stephen Lewis, the Socialist who would as he
said last night, freeze rents if he were Premier.97

The Sufl_usually found more important things to display on its front
pages than election news and the rent controversy did not alter that
policy. But with the Star_playing the story to the hilt, no one--
no paper--could ignore Lewis' appeal. The NDP leader now was the
focus of the election campaign--at least in the eyes of the Toronto
press. His preoccupation with individual rent cases seems to have
accentuated the other facets of his campaign, a development clearly
manifested in the series of announcements that would follow from
the premier.

Davis released a statement on Saturday, September 6, in
which he vowed to establish an Institute of Occupational Health to
research problems faced by industrial workers. Although the premier

never referred to the written statement in his speeches of that day,

 

97Sun, Sept. 4, 1975, p. 3.

58

the announcement was considered a major development. Brian Valee
wrote in the Star that occupational health had emerged as a major
issue in the campaign and said in his second paragraph that Stephen
Lewis "has continually championed the cause of those workers at
Queen's Park." Then, in his third paragraph he reported on Davis'
promise to establish the Institute of Occupational Health and
quoted the premier as denying it was an election ploy to blunt the

NDP leader's attacks.98

But David Allen recognized the move as a
possible political manoeuvre and reminded his Star readers that
Davis "last week attacked . . . Nixon for promising to establish

99

new government agencies." And in an editorial September 16, the

Star said:

It shouldn't require a provincial election to
remedy the sorry state of health safety controls in
Canadian uranium mines. But it's questionable whether
anything would have been done of NDP Leader Stephen
Lewis hadn't made a campaign to prevent deaths from 100
lung disaster in the Elliot Lake mines a major issue.

The premier's announcement on occupational health was
followed closely by a new government policy statement on energy
prices. After meeting for three and a half hours with his cabinet
Sunday night, Premier Davis announced an extension to November 15
of the freeze on oil and natural gas prices that was due to expire

September 30. He said the public and the government both should

 

9§§£g[. Sept. 11, 1975, p. 8.

99$tar, Sept. 8, 1975, p. 6.

'OOStar, Sept. 16, 1975, p. B4.

59

have time to study an interim report from the Royal Commission on
Petroleum Pricing that would be released September 24 before any
energy policy was firmly established. Mary Trueman wrote in the
Glgbg_that the announcement "closely follows a call for indefinite
extension of the freeze by . . . Lewis and a statement by . . .

lOl

Nixon that he, too, would consider extending it." Ken Waxman

noted in his lead for the Star that both opposition leaders had

«‘02 And in an editorial.

branded the move as "political desperation.
the Star said that Premier Davis had begun to show his "preference
for public relations over policy'I and suggested that the forty-five-
day moritorium on price increases probably could have been avoided
if Davis had come up with an energy policy to follow the freeze when

103

it first became an issue. The Sun ran a rare news story on its

front page that implied strongly that Davis had granted the price

104 The Toronto news-

freeze under pressure from Lewis and Nixon.
papers clearly were one in seeing the move as a hastily-planned
election ploy rather than a carefully-considered policy decision.
The clincher came when the premier addressed the issue
of rents. He had, to this point, discussed the issue in stages as

outlined previously, revising his position each time in a way that

would bring more pressure on landlords to justify their rent

 

'O'olobe, Sept. 8, 1975, p. 1.

102Star, Sept. 8, 1975, p. 1.

103Ibid., p. C3.

1°4§ug, Sept. 8, 1975, p. l.

60

increases. Now, Davis surprised everyone by saying he had decided

to empower rent review boards to roll back suspicious-looking rent

increases retroactive to July 30 until the matter could be heard by
a court.

Christie Blatchford wrote in the Glgbe_that the announce-
ment could be interpreted in three ways: "as a clarification of the
Conservative position on rents, as an elaboration of it and as a
reversal of policy--depending on the statements being made, by whom
and at what time of day."105 The Star, under the head "Davis in
retreat on rent boards Lewis claims" quoted the NDP leader as saying
the announcement represents "a remarkable flip-flop" and shows the
premier to be "in full and unlovely retreat." The story also
quoted Robert Nixon as saying the Tories are "desperately trying

to restore public confidence in their government."106

The §uni§_
Connie Nicolson wrote in her column that "Lewis is not boasting
when he says that on almost every major issue where he has called
for reforms since the campaign began, Davis has responded."107
And John Downing, writing in the Sun_a day later, said he was
"almost afraid to write about rent review because the Conservatives
might have something new to tell us about their policy at any

minute."108

 

105Globe, Sept. 9, 1975, p. 1.
106Star, Sept. 9, 1975, p. 1.

107§ug, Sept. 9, 1975, p. 3.

1ogéun, Sept. 10, 1975, p. 4.

61

The new Tory promises did little to lure the tide of
public support. Indeed, they clearly were counterproductive in
that they focused public attention squarely on the New Democrats
whose daily assaults on the state of the province suddenly
assumed an almost sanctimonious validity. Stephen Lewis had
brought the campaign to his own turf and no amount of political
manoeuvre by either Davis or Nixon could alter that fact. Wit-
ness the way in which the Star backed into an announcement by

Davis of major interest to farm workers.

Claiming that Premier William Davis is running
a "defensive campaign," Stephen Lewis . . . predicted
yesterday that the government would soon announce a
farm income stabilization program "to try and recap-
ture agriculture's support."

Hours later, Davis promised that if the .
Progressive-Conservatives are returned to power,
provincial income taxes will be rebated to seasbnal
farm workers.109

Lewis succeeded in riding the tide through to election
day. He grabbed headlines by naming landlords who gouged, tenants
who suffered, farmers who faced bankruptcy. He showed how a sub-
stantial number of the $1,500 grants to first-time home-buyers
introduced the previous spring were going to middle and upper-
income families (a $120,000 home in the York Mills area, five homes
in North Rosedale at an average of $107,000, etc.). In short, he
campaigned on a plane that voters could reach; he talked about prob-
lems with which people could easily identify. As Lewis made news,
Lewis became news, and the press kept the snowball rolling all the

way to the polls.

 

109Star, Sept. 10, 1975, p. 10.

CHAPTER III

EDITORIAL REACTION

During the five-week campaign for the 1975 Ontario
provincial election, a total of eighty election-related editorials
appeared in the three Toronto newspapers (Table 12), fifty-three
of which were partisan, i.e., they commented directly upon the
attributes or shortcomings of the three main political parties
vying for victory. The majority of these (thirty) dealt with the
Progressive-Conservatives, which is understandable in that the
Government would naturally draw more comment than the opposition.
The fact that more than half of the Tory-related editorials were
critical of the party (only seven of the thirty were supportive)
would seem to indicate a general disenchantment with the pro-
vincial government. But the aggregate statistics are misleading
because two of the three Toronto papers actually endorsed the
Conservatives for re-election. The bulk of the negative comment
appeared in the one paper that did not: the Toronto Star.

The Conservatives fared best in the Globe and Mail,
which ran four editorials in support of its endorsement. The
most convincing of these was the September 9 endorsement itself
which praised the Government issue by issue. Addressing the

economy, the Globe said Ontario had achieved the "highest kind

62

63

Table 12. Distribution of editorials.

 

 

 

Globe and
Nature of Editorial Mail Star Sun Total
Supports PCS 4 l 2 7
Critical of PCs , 4 14 O 18
Generally about PCs 2 3 0 5
Progressive-Conservatives 10 18 2 30
Supports Liberals O 3 O 3
Critical of Liberals 2 l 7 10
Generally about Liberals O O 0 0
Liberals 2 4 7 13
Supports NDP 2 3 l 6
Critical of NDP l 2 O 3
Generally about NDP 0 2 0 2
New Democrats 3 7 1 11
General 13 9 5 27
Total 28 37a 15 80b

 

aIncludes one editorial equally supportive of Liberals
as critical of Progressive-Conservatives.

bReflects above adjustment.

64

of credit rating in the world." In respect to housing, it said
Ontario had done better than any other province. The editorial
noted that the Tories had succeeded in "ensuring that more children
receive more education" and recalled that Ontario was the first
province to freeze oil and gasoline prices "while searching for
means to keep them as low as possible." The Globe_also defended
the integrity of the Conservative Party. It said the Government
had found this issue rough "and we have made it rougher" but that
the Tories had responded with "the tightest legislation in the
country on election financing, and on conflicts of interest for
cabinet members."

In its endorsement, the Glgbg_praised all three party
leaders as being "reasonable, intelligent and industrious" and
while conceding that both opposition parties had offered
"individual initiatives which are sound and attractive," it said
they had not "Shown us how these initiatives would fit into a
comprehensive approach to governing that would enhance the well-
being of the province without tilting an already precarious
economy into deep trouble." The timing of that comment is inter-
esting because it came just as Stephen Lewis was beginning to make
himself heard on rent control and other issues that were central
to the remainder of the campaign. Moreover, the reader needed only
to glance across the centrefold to see the same accusation levelled
against the Conservatives themselves. Whether by design or
coincidence, columnist Norman Webster wrote opposite the editorial

endorsement of the Conservatives that "the Tories have offered

65

precious little of substance beyond their own wonderful selves.

Mr. Davis has scattered some minor pronouncements along the cam-

paign trail, but there has been no articulation of the Government's

plans for Ontario in the next four years."110
The Glgbg_also ran four editorials generally critical of

the Tories--but the criticism, to be sure, was aimed at matters of

limited importance. As an example, the Globe criticized Premier

Davis on the first day of the campaign for his choice of election

date. An election on September 18 not only meant that voters

would be enumerated (registered) during the month of August when

many people would be on vacation, but it also posed special prob-

lems for Jews (see Chapter I). The Glgbg_decided that "this was

not a satisfactory way for the Government to treat the electorate."111

A subsequent editorial voiced disapproval of the way North York

Mayor Mel Lastman was announced as a local candidate: during a

joint news conference with the premier at which a new dial-a-bus

service for the elderly was unveiled. The coupling of the two

"112

events struck the Globe as "being a trifle heavy. The paper

did not hesitate to name Tories it would not support (Ed Havrot,
Tom Wardle) but suggested that, all told, the "record of performance

in the campaign would argue for a Conservative Government."n3

 

11oGlobe, Sept. 9, 1975, p. 7.

'1'Ibid., Aug. 12, 1975, p. 6.

66

The Conservatives fared poorest in the Star but not as
badly as they might have. While praising the governing party for
making Ontario a "splendid place to live,“ the Star said the Davis
government had "run out of bold approaches and ideas."114 Of the
eighteen editorials in the Star that dealt with the Conservatives,
fourteen were critical of the party. The criticism was qualified,
however, and it seems as though the Star_had second thoughts from
time to time. In an early editorial, the Star conceded that "the
Conservatives' long-run record in keeping Ontario prosperous and
growing is undeniably good." Its point of contention was that the
Tories had not demonstrated "new policies to maintain that record

"115

in the face of recession, inflation and high energy costs. It

was equally vague on specifics during the closing days of the cam-

paign when it wrote that

A strong government would manage to stay on course
during a five-week election campaign. Yet the Davis
Government has tacked and veered so much in that period
that it resembles a weathervane rather than the rock of
Gibraltar.

A change is due, not for the sake of change, but
to get rid of an intellectually exhausted government of
expediency, and to replace it with fresh ideas, vigor 116
and new direction in the conduct of Ontario's affairs.

 

H4Star, Aug. 27, 1975, p. 84.

1151616., Aug. 12, 1975, p. B4.
1"31516., Sept. 16, 1975, p. 84.

67

One of the specific issues--if it can be called an issue-—on which
the Star held the Government at fault was "the way it has allowed
the provincial courts in the old city hall to deteriorate."“7

The Sun called for a reduced Conservative majority on the
first day of the campaign and then ran a subsequent formal endorse-

ment. It did not buy the Star's argument for change; the §u3_made

the opposite case:

All in all, Ontario has had effective, able
governments for most of the 32 years of Tory reign.
So we think the voters have no realistic alternative
but to return Bill Davis--but with a reduced majority,
to give the opposition more influence and keep Tory
arrogance subdued.118

The Sun_was more interested in running down the Liberals
than in supporting the Conservatives--and its attacks were venomous.
During the second week of the campaign, the Sun_dismissed the
Liberal leader as incompetent. The editorial was scathing: "Bob
Nixon, whose Liberals had more popularity than the Tories last
winter, has blown it. He hasn't provided leadership, he's too sub-
servient to Trudeau, he has no program, few strong candidates,
Ottawa would play him like a fiddle.“]19 The most vicious attack
came after Nixon, in response to a question by a high school
student, said he could not guarantee not to increase the salaries

of provincial legislators. The §u3_was savage in its editorial

 

1'7Ibid., Sept. 18, 1975, p. 84.
118

§Eflp Sept. 2, 1975, p. 12.

 

H916id., Aug. 18, 1975, p. 10.

68

reaction:

May Nixon get his reward in heaven, because God
forbid that this will win him votes on earth.

He as much as said he'd be favorably inclined
towards a raise for politicians. This statement by
Nixon is as good a reason as any (and there are
several others) to hope that he is never premier.

It is a good reason for voting either Tory or NDP on
Sept. 18.

, The kid who asked Bob Nixon that loaded question
deserves our collective gratitude. He revealed a man
whose values are distorted, who has an exalted
opinion of his trade, who doesn't identify with work-
ing people.120

The Glgb§_ran only two editorials about the Liberals,
both of which were critical. In one of them, it expressed dis-
belief of the Liberal assertion that mineral production in Ontario
was behind that of Canada as a whole. Accusing Nixon of juggling
statistics to prove his point, the Glgb§_said “fun with figures is

one thing, fraud is another."]21

The Glgbg_also jabbed at the
connection between the provincial and federal Liberal parties. In
a remark that seemed to lend credence to Premier Davis' description
of the relationship as one of "kissing cousins," the Globe,
suggested that the appearance of Prime Minister Trudeau at Nixon's
Liberal Party picnic earlier in the summer soldered the connection
between the provincial and federal Liberals--even though both men

vowed at the time that Trudeau's appearance was not politically

motivated. The editorial then confidently asserted that the

 

120Ibid., Sept. 9, 1975, p. 10.

 

121Globe, Sept. 13, 1975, p. 6.

69

resignation of John Turner as the federal minister of finance
during the final week of the Ontario election campaign could not
have been timed better to have "a more wrenching effect on the
confidence in the Liberal capacity to handle the nation's busi-
ness."122

The Liberals enjoyed the endorsement of only the Star_
but, strangely, the paper ran fewer editorials about the party of
its choice than it did of the opposition. Three of the four
editorials dealing with the Liberals were favorable but the Star
seems again to have been uneasy--this time with the rhetorical
nature of the Nixon campaign. After establishing early that "the
decisive factor in the Ontario election is likely to be the assess-

ment the voters make of the three party leaders,"123

the Star_found
itself faced with Nixon's ill-advised attacks on the Government's
integrity. The Star_wound up refuting every one of Nixon's
allegations of impropriety and concluded that "unless Nixon has

new evidence of corruption . . . , we're inclined to agree with
Lewis that integrity is a non-issue in this election."124 And the
paper seems almost to have been begging for credibility when it
wrote that Nixon had "struck a responsive chord with his concern

for the declining quality of education . . . His emphasis on an

adequate supply of housing at affordable prices also touches broad

 

122Globe, Sept. 16, 1975, p. 6.

'23Star, Aug. 13, 1975, 84.

124Ibid., Aug. 14, 1975, p. B4.

 

7O

masses of people."125

The Star apparently decided it could better
defend its editorial endorsement by discrediting the Government,
as indicated by its fourteen editorials to that end, than in
building up the Liberals.

The New Democratic Party was unique in that it was the
only party to receive more favorable than unfavorable editorial
comment in each of the three Toronto papers, although it was the
focus of fewer editorials than the other two parties. None of the
papers felt comfortable praising the socialists but all were hard-
pressed to avoid it.

The §ug_was alone in calling specifically for the NDP to
form the Official Opposition, i.e., win the second highest number
of seats in the legislature, but even it conceded that the notion
”might sound strange to some."126 It argued that the New Democrats
had been the only effective opposition in the legislature for years,127
and reasoned, tongue in cheek, that "at least if trug_socialists
ever got in power, they'd end the nonsense of teacher strikes and
union blackmail. They'd wreck everything else too, but that's
another editorial!"128

The Star had stronger reservations about the NDP but

did concede that it "qualifies admirably as a strong opposition

 

125Ibid., Aug. 27, 1975, p. 86.
126éyfl. Sept. 2, 1975. p. 12
127Ibid.

128Ibid., Aug. 18, 1975, p. 10.

71

Party. "‘29

Turning away from specific issues and towards socialist
dogma in this early editorial, the Star_suggested that the NDP
"would prefer to share poverty equally rather than create a widely
if imperfectly distributed wealth." The editorial went on to down-
grade the NDP because of its heavy reliance on the support of trade
unions, and it warned that "no relief from inflationary wage claims
and industrial and civil service strikes can be expected from that
quarter."

It was shown in Chapter 11 how this early nervousness
dissipated when Lewis began to articulate his issues. The StarLs
editorial reaction to Lewis' campaign against occupational health
hazards and soaring rents was discussed previously and need not be
repeated here. The point is that the Star, after dismissing the
NDP as irresponsible, dramatically changed course and began to
present the party as worthy of consideration.

The Glgbg_also promulgated the evils of socialism and
even suggested that the New Democrats were waging a fraudulent cam-
paign by ignoring the basic ideological thrust of their party. It
said "electors might have been better informed if Mr. Lewis had
undertaken a detailed accounting of how, where and when he would
apply socialist principles to the day to day operation of the

"130

province. But the Globe conceded in the same editorial that

the NDP had "justification for its lament that the Davis Government

 

129Star, Aug. 27, 1975, p. 84.
130Globe, Sept. 17, 1975, p. 6.

72

takes whole planks from its platform and paints them Conservative
blue." It said "the stolen ideas have been good ideas." The
editorial went on to scold the Liberals for appearing "more Offi-
cial than Opposition," and said they "lacked the consistency and

inventiveness essential to a party pretending to be the alternative

 

to a government in power." Was this the Globe's way of joining the

{a .
I

chorus in calling on the voters to consider the New Democrats as

worthy of sitting as the Official Opposition?

 

Such a chorus did appear to be evident. In fact, it was
almost cacophonic as election day drew near. The merits of the NDP
campaign clearly impeded editorial writers partial to the Tories.
They were left to deal with a Conservative Government waging a cam-
paign on NDP issues and, to be sure, the party was duly scolded--at
least in the Globo. But the fact of a prosperous province remained,
and provided enough material with which to build a convincing case
for the re-election of the Government.

The failure of the Liberals to attract significant edi-
torial support can be explained by their misguided campaign--the
epitome of which was their shoddy attack on the integrity of the
Government. This blunder contrasted sharply along side the solid
NDP effort and seems to have led even the friendly §£2£.t0 the
brink of abandoning ship. What support the Liberals had at the
outset seems to have eroded with each mistake.

The New Democrats fought the plague of habitual distrust
and managed, remarkably, to gain respect and attention to which

they were unaccustomed. Perhaps the achievements of underdogs

73

always tend to be exaggeraged but the figures in Table 12 can
speak for themselves. The favorable editorial reaction to the
New Democratic Party should be regarded quite simply as a tribute

to an honorable campaign.

 

 

CHAPTER IV

THE DEBATES

A standing joke among media critics is built upon the
"instant analyses" that television network newsmen usually afford
presidential speeches, debates and other official messages delivered
directly to the public. The viewers, so the joke goes, need the
journalists to tell them what they have just heard. That the people
should require the press to explain a message they were able to hear
for themselves strikes critics as presumptuous and self-esteeming
on the part of the media. Even while they probably would not hesi-
tate to accept the opinion of their doctors on the cause of an
abdominal pain, they concede no contradiction in refusing to trust
professional journalists to dissect political speeches.

The joke may be carried further to include those who
review plays, concerts and other public performances. The witti-
cism would have the theatre-goer eagerly thumbing through the
morning papers to find out whether or not he enjoyed the show.

While there may be some basis for humor here, the fact remains
that people depend upon journalists to interpret political mes-
sages, to differentiate new policy from old, to sift the rhetorical
from the relevant, just as they expect the theatre critic to con-

trast the current performance with past renditions, expose

74

75

less-than-obvious flaws in professionalism and comment on other
factors bearing upon the general merit of the show. It is there-
fore incumbent upon this study to give special attention to the
televised debates between the three party leaders during the 1975

Ontario election campaign, and to concentrate on the way they were

 

discussed by the Toronto press.

Televised political debates are intended primarily as
forums in which policy differences can be accentuated; where the
pledges that emanate from the hustings can be scrutinized. By
stacking the planks of one party platform alongside those of
another, the debate is expected to better prepare the voters to
make their eventual choices. But recent political debates have
taken on the added dimension of confrontation--and in that respect
one expects a winner and a loser. They are contests not unlike
heavyweight boxing matches in which points are awarded by pre-
selected judges for effective "scores," all of which are tallied
at the conclusion of the event. In political debates, the news
media are self-appointed judges and their verdicts have the poten-
tial for affecting voters as much as the debates themselves.

The political debates of the 1975 Ontario election cam-
paign came about after a good deal of biCkering among the three
parties and two television networks. The Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation had proposed one three-man debate--a format preferred
by the Liberals and accepted by the New Democratic Party. But
the Conservatives insisted on the round-robin format proposed by

CTV which called for three debates, each of which would involve two

76

party leaders. The eventual schedule called for a Nixon-Lewis
debate on August 30, a Davis-Lewis debate on September 6 and a
Nixon-Davis debate September 13. These would be taped in the
morning at CFTO-TV in Toronto and broadcast the same evening.
CFTO political director Fraser Kelly would serve as moderator.
The programs would be carried on the CTV network in Ontario and
would be made available to any other television or radio station
that wanted them. That the Tories had insisted on the CTV plan
struck no one save John Slinger of the Goo as being particularly

significant. He observed that

People sometimes forget the warm links between
the CTV affiliate CFTO, which is owned by John Bassett,
and the Dalton Camp-Norman Atkins crew that pilots the
Tory operation. They're the people who engineered the
federal leadership success of Robert Stanfield. 31

It is not clear when CFTO first voiced its intention of
barring the press from the morning tapings, but the policy was
evident enough on the day prior to the first scheduled debate'
between Nixon and Lewis for the two leaders to demand that it be
rescinded. Nixon was quoted as having said on Friday, August 29,
that "it will have to be opened up. I am insisting on it as a

t."132 Lewis took a similar stand. The

condition of taking par
threatened withdrawals had little effect on CFTO, however, as
evidenced by the armed guards at the station gates who had been

ordered to refuse admission to the press. Lewis honored his

 

'3'ogg, Aug. 18, 1975, p. 5.

132Globe, Aug. 30, 1975, p. 4.

77

commitment and told one reporter at the scene: "I don't believe
CFTO should be dictating the terms of the election campaign. They
view the program as a television scoop rather than a legitimate

"133 Nixon, on the other hand, entered

exercise in public affairs.
the studio. The result was a half hour of prime time for the
Liberal leader, who answered questions put to him by Fraser Kelly.

The press reacted on three fronts: the performance of
Nixon, the ethical decisions of the leaders regarding their parti-
cipation and the conduct of CFTO-TV. It generally was believed
that Nixon gained little by snubbing Lewis and claiming the half
hour for himself. §£2£ columnist Robert Miller wrote sarcastically
that "Nixon sounded well-informed, confident and firm handling

"134 Claire

those questions and soft challenges from Fraser Kelly.
Hoy of the Gob, a chronic Nixon-hater, was more vindictive; he
could not forgive the Liberal leader for breaking a promise and
said that "if you ever had the slightest doubt about whether you
can believe Bob Nixon or not, that question should have been

"135 The television critic

answered at the CFTO gate yesterday.
for the Globo, Blaik Kirby, was among the few who were favorably
impressed by Nixon's performance. Kirby said Nixon

had an honest, earnest, serious and never pompous

tone in his answers; you might almost call it a
Stanfield image. These days, that's quite possibly

 

133Star, Sept. 1, 1975, p. 6.

134Star, Sept. 1, 1975, p. 6.

135Sun, Aug. 31, 1975, p. 6.

 

78

more persuasive than cold, flippant, arrogant brilliance.
Nixon is not brilliant.136

 

Lewis was widely praised for his refusal to take part and
most columnists believed he would easily have won in open debate.

The Globe wrote editorially that

Stephen Lewis, to his credit, refused to enter the
station. Robert Nixon, to his shame, tossed principle
and former declarations aside . . .

As a debate, it was no contest; Mr. Lewis won
hands down.137

 

Goo_columnist Claire Hoy said he usually does not agree with Lewis
but described the NDP leader as being "without parallel in Ontario
politics in the art of debating." He said Nixon was not a good
debater and "Simply would have been clobbered."138 John Slinger
was not convinced that Lewis' morals would win him any points. He

wrote in the Gob_that:

Lewis forgets that not many people in the vastness
out there care a tinker's dam for the problems of the
press--who could have seen the debate later last night
anyway--and that a lot of folks are a mite suspicious
of the media and disinclined to sympathize with a
stand on their behalf.139

His observation seems to have been borne out by the cynical letter
to the editor of the Globe. David Turnbull, of Mississauga,

Ontario, concluded that "it is clear the winner is . . . Lewis

 

136Globe, Sept. 1, 1975, p. 5.

13761obe, Sept. 1, 1975, p. 6.

138Sun, August 31, 1975, p. 6.

1391616., p. 3.

79

because he managed to get the press on his side without delay."140

CFTO had cited "technical and professional" reasons for
barring reporters from the scene. It was an excuse §£2£ columnist
Jack Miller deemed to be "pathetically weak."]4] An editorial in
the Globo_said the hiring of three armed policemen to guard the
station entrance "was a scurrilous thing to do--and by a station
that has so little concern for informing the public that during the
first two weeks of the campaign it offered almost no coverage of
the campaigns of the three leaders by its own reporters." The
editorial went on to say the decision was "gross and stupid . . . ,
not least in its implication that the working press is lawless."142
Globo columnist Norman Webster called the CFTO excuse "the purest
brainwash" and urged that steps be taken to ensure it is not
repeated for the Lewis-Davis debate. Webster was especially
saddened that Ontarians were denied the opportunity of seeing
Lewis in debate, saying "they might find that his policies, his
personality, and his ability to skewer flabby answers merit their
consideration."143

Blaik Kirby, the Globe's television critic, was one of

the few who defended CFTO, but even he could not accept the given

explanation. Kirby believed CFTO should have said "It's our show

 

140Globe, Sept. 3, 1975, p. 6.

14'Star, Sept. 1, 1975, p. 6.
142Globe, Sept. 1, 1975, p. 6.

'43Ibid, p. 7.

80

and we want our station to have it first." He reasoned that no‘
newspaper columnist would tolerate CFTO looking over his shoulder

144 That view-

during an exclusive interview with a party leader.
point was shared by the society columnist for the Goo, Joan Sutton.
She called the complaints by the press "petulant and childish,"

saying that CFTO "has a perfect right to ban reporters from one of

its own news events if it chooses to do so." Sutton said she would
never feel obligated to permit other journalists to sit in on an
interview of hers because "that's just the way the game is played."145
Jack Miller of the §£2£ wondered how John Bassett, "the super-Tory
president of the Channel 9 operation," must have felt after allowing

146

Nixon a half hour of prime time and suggested in a subsequent

column147

that Davis demand equal CFTO time for a solo performance.
In defence, CFTO's vice-president for news and public
affairs, E. J. Stuebing, argued in a letter to the Goo_that "this
taping only becomes a public event when it appears on the air."

He called the taping itself "a production of the program in the

”148 In a

studio" which "in no sense can be termed anything else.
parenthetical reply, the Gob'said only that the whole affair "proved

Nixon's principles to be more 'flexible' than Lewis.'"

 

144Ibid., p. 6.

 

'45§og, Sept. 2, 1975, p. 25.

146Star, Sept. 1, 1975, p. 6.
'47Star, Sept. 6, 1975, p. H1.

l4§§ug, Sept. 2, 1975, p. 12.

81

Whether or not Lewis' non-participation won him the first
debate, his philosophical stand left him in a quandary. Unless CFTO
was prepared to change the rules, Lewis would be compelled by prin-
ciple to boycott the second debate as well. A third-place candidate
needs all the public exposure he can get and Lewis' political advisers
were uneasy about the NDP leader missing two rare opportunities to
confront his opponents. The NDP campaign manager, Gerald Caplan,
sought the opinions of reporters on the tour and found that the
votes were split about equally between those who believed Lewis
should debate and those who urged him to resist.149

The dilemma was on the minds of editorial writers as well.
The Globo_urged Lewis to debate Davis and "lay the whole issue of
the conduct of the program before Mr. Davis as the first item to be
debated." It reasoned that "Mr. Davis, who has already called a
royal commission to probe other aspects of television, could hardly

"150

refuse. But the NDP leader came up with a different idea. He

urged the premier in a letter to insist that reporters be allowed
to view the taping, telling Davis that he "could not bring himself--
on simple principle--to enter CFTO premises . . . through a literal

"151

cordon of armed policemen and security guards. The premier's

reply was released to the press and published:

 

149Globe, Sept. 5, 1975, p. 5.

150Globe, Sept. 3, 1975, p. 6.

15IStar, Sept. l, 1975, p. 6.

82

I have given careful consideration to your letter
to me on this matter. It is my feeling that I have
agreed to debate with you under the format and guide-
lines developed by CFTO, which were established follow-
ing discussions with representatives of each of the
parties. I did not attach any conditions then and I
would not think it reasonable for me to attempt to do
so now.

I urge you again, therefore, to change your mind
and debate with me on Saturday. In addition to being
leader of a major party, you are recognized as a skill-
ful debator and it would be unfortunate if the viewing
audience did not have the opportunity of hearing your
views. Surely what matters to the electorate is that
the leaders discuss the issues.152

It is not clear whether Lewis' eventual decisions to go
ahead with the debate was prompted by Davis' letter or the fact
that his political advisers could not bring themselves to forfeit
another half hour of prime time. John Slinger predicted in his Goo_

"Scuttlebut" column that

The explanation will be that the New Democrats
thought they had an agreement with Nixon not to
appear unless the rest of the press could get in
and that Nixon welshed. The NDP will say there
never was such an agreement with Davis so, obviously,
the circumstances are completely different.

The Globo_exp1ained Lewis' decision as the ultimate victory of one
of two conflicting principles: that all events in an election
campaign should be public, and that it is "the clear duty of a
party leader to use every available opportunity to explain and

define his party's philosophy and practice."154

 

152Star, Sept. 3, 1975, p. 4.

'53oog, Sept. 2, 1975. p. 6.

154Globe, Sept. 6, 1975, p. 4.

83

Lewis did argue to the end that reporters should have
been able to watch the taping because it is "good to see what
happens before, what distractions there are during, what it's like

afterwards."155

But there were those, such as Clare Hoy of the Goo,
who believed Lewis had sold out. Hoy reasoned that "the principle
that meant so much to Stephen Lewis a week ago has not changed one
bit. Only the politics of it has." Hoy refused to accept the
argument that the best interest of the electors demanded that the
debate take place because "if that was [sic] true this weekend, it
was true last weekend as well."156

The debate itself centred on issues put forth by Lewis.
The two leaders talked primarily about the loss of prime agricul-
tural farmland, the lack of adequate housing and the increasing
cost of rent. Since a large part of the encounter was a battle of
statistics that could not readily be checked, the debate provided
no clearcut winner.‘ But Stephen Lewis, by virtue of his having

taken command, seems to have come out on top. Star columnist

Robert Miller gave it to the NDP 1eader--but with reservations.

The way I saw it Lewis won. But his victory
was hollow in that he achieved it by default. Davis
was content to defend himself and his policies,
instead of attacking Lewis and the New Democratic
vision of a state-run tomorrow today.]57 Debates,

 

15516ic1.

1555_uh_, Sept. 7. 1975. p. 6.

157A reference to the official slogan of the New Demo-
cratic Party: "Tomorrow Starts Today."

84

like wars, are won by the side that mounts the best
and last offensive.158

Claire Hoy, writing in the format of a news story this
time rather than in his familiar Goo_column, called the Davis-

Lewis debate "a polite exchange of ideas with very little new

I.159

information. Globe reporter Robert Williamson said that

”Lewis, as expected, took command of the debate after the opening
statements . . ." and that the premier "appeared tense and nervous
at the outset . . ..but was well-briefed and armed with statistics
to challenge what have been some of Mr. Lewis's major criticisms

"160

of the campaign . . Globe reporter Mary Trueman polled five

undecided voters whose consensus was that the debate was "good

entertainment but inconclusive." One of the five felt that Lewis

should have buttoned his jacket.]61

The final debate-—between Nixon and Davis-~was "every-

thing it promised to be--and less." The assessment was made by

162

Robert Miller in the Star who perhaps described the event more

 

accurately than anyone else. It was bound to be an explosive
encounter because of the mutual disrespect-~it bordered on hatred-—
that Davis and Nixon were known to have had for each other. A

Globe editorial had warned that "Mr. Davis likely will come to the

 

1585tar, Sept. 9, 1975, p. 01.

'5goog, Sept. 7, 1975, p. 23.

160Globe, Sept. 8, 1975, p. 2.

'6'Ibid., p. 15.

162Star, Sept. 15, 1975, p. 6.

85

encounter angry" because ”he dislikes Mr. Nixon . . . and is deeply

"163

offended by the attacks on his (Mr. Davis's) integrity. That

being so, it is ironic that the Liberal issue of integrity was not
discussed to any significant degree. More important, the social
and economic issues that were raised were quickly overshadowed by
the combative nature in which they were debated.

Daniel Stoffman described the debate in the §£§E as "an
angry shouting match" that developed after the premier accused
Nixon of "running a campaign based on 'misrepresentation, inaccur-

acies and falsehoods. Bruce Kirkland, also of the Star, was

more specific but no more favorably impressed:

A careful monitoring of the exchange disclosed
that Davis asked Nixon seven major questions about
policy that Nixon failed to answer. Nixon asked
Davis five major questions which Davis ignored. .

By the end, both seized on the other' 5 lack of
answers as proof of the rightness of his side. 165

Robert Williamson of the Globe selected a Davis attack

on Nixon as his lead and quoted the premier as saying "the Liberal

5

party and its leader have waged one of the worse election campaigns

seen in politics.166

The story began on the front page and con-
tinued on page two under a headline that read: "Nixon rebuked by

Davis in bitter TV debate." Whether all this implies that Davis

 

 

163Globe, Sept. 9,1975, p. 7.
164Star r, Sept. 15, 1975. p. l.
'5516i d.. p. 6.

166

Globe, Sept. 15, 1975, p. 1.

86

won the debate is an open question but it proves how the selection

of quotations can flavor a story. Williamson went on to say that

Mr. Davis gave the impression of standing on the
right-hand side of truth. He tried to pin Mr. Nixon
down on some of the Liberal research errors . . .

Mr. Nixon tried to stay on the attack, evading
questions and probably confusing viewers with statis-
tics, while not giving much idea of exactly how he
would cut government spending.

CFTO received more than 300 calls after the Davis-Nixon
debate, almost all of which were critical of the party leaders and
host Frazer Kelly. Globo_columnist Scott Young noted that Kelly
had announced that the order of the opening remarks had been decided
by the "toss of a coin" and defended the moderator for his lack of
intervention in the debate. "By letting them go at it," Young
reasoned, "we got a sense of the dislike Premier William Davis and
Liberal Leader Robert Nixon have for one another; we saw them as
they are in stress situations."167

And reporters had plenty to say about this particular
stressful situation. Stoffman wrote that "Davis appeared flustered

toward the end of the debate . . ."168

Indeed, the premier was
caught addressing Fraser Kelly, whom he knew well, as Mr. Fraser.

As Star columnist Robert Miller saw it,

Even staunch partisans were left unsettled by
Davis's uncharacteristic belligerence, by Nixon's
clumsy attempts to be chummy (he kept calling the

 

167Globe, Sept. 17, 1975, p. 37.

168Star, Sept. 15, 1975, p. l.

87

Premier "Bill" even after Davis made it coldly clear
he was not interested in getting to know "Mr. Nixon"
on a first name basis) . . .159

And Claire Hoy, in character, did not hesitate to exercise his full

right of opinion in the Goo;

If there's one impression that strikes me about
it all it's that Davis does manage to convey the aura
of a responsible, concerned leader, while Nixon comes
off as the somewhat whiny school kid who keeps getting
his facts confused even though a few of his points may
be good.170

And Globe columnist Norman Webster, who mused that the debate pro-

vided a sample of everyday routine at Queen's Park, noted that

Two very interesting things were on display--two
things that are central to this campaign and the way
it has unfolded. The first is the Nixon campaign
style.

The Liberal leader has gone steaming ahead with
accusations, statistics and remedies, neither respond-
ing to challenges nor, in public at least, letting
the Davis counterattacks get under his skin. Attack,
attack; never explain, never justify. It has been a
clever tactic.

The other notable thing was the tightness of
William Davis. Mr. Davis was so woundup he jumped
all over the lot, letting Mr. Nixon slip away.1 1

So who won the debate? Most journalists considered the
word "debate" a misnomer and were reluctant to name either parti-
cipant. But for Globe columnist Scott Young, the winner was

obvious: "The main message the debate gave to me could be spelled

 

169Ibid, p. 6.

 

'79§og, Sept. 14, 1975, p. 2.

171Globe, Sept. 15, 1975, p. 7.

88

172

out in two words: Stephen Lewis." Star television critic Dennis

Braithwaite commented similarly that

If these two clumsy, rude, fatuous, opportunistic,
disingenuous . . . ill-informed politicians are the
best the province can offer, then there is indeed no
real choice and very little hope . . .

The winner Saturday? Why, Stephen Lewis . . .173

If the debates were not persuasive, they still were central
to the three campaigns in that they tended to appeal to emotion
rather than intellect. There is evidence that the reaction of the
Toronto press was so inspired. The aborted Lewis-Nixon debate
actually generated a sub-debate on the ethics of the two partici-
pants--and it was on this that the originally scheduled match
ultimately was decided by the Toronto press. Similarly, the open
display of temperament in the Davis-Nixon affair because a larger
issue than any social or economic concern. The only debate that
came off principally as intended was the Davis-Lewis encounter.

It also generated the least excitement of the three.

Perhaps the penchant on the part of the media for building
images explains why they judged the debates on character rather than
on issues. It certainly explains how Stephen Lewis managed to win

two debates in which he did not even participate.

 

172Ibid.. p. 25.

 

1”Star, Sept. 15, 1975, p. 07.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

There lived this ambitious man named Billy
Blue. Now Billy had big plans for his future.
He had been running this kingdom and he wanted
to continue. Just three people blocked his
dream: Mary Public, the princess who owned the
country; and two ugly step-brothers, Big Bob
and Stephen the Clever-tongued, who didn't much
like his succession planning or how he did his
work around the house.

--John Downing, Toronto Goo, August 19, 1975

This caricature serves well to illustrate how the Toronto
press regarded the 1975 Ontario election campaign as a fight among
three party leaders whose respective personalities carried as much
political weight as the issues for which they stood. On election
day, the Globo_pointed out that 127 promises had been made during
the five-week campaign and went on to summarize them. What was not
apparent at the time was the subordinate role these issues had come
to play in relation to the manner in which they had been presented
to the public through the press. It has been shown how Nixon's
fumbling of the educational spending issue led to the fading of
the issue itself while Lewis' skillful presentation of his case for
rent control led the press to build an issue that had not received

much attention when the campaign began.

89

90

In the first chapter of this study, a reference was made
to a remark attributed to Robert Nixon in which the Liberal leader
suggested the press considered the NDP more knowledgeable and
sincere than the Liberals. It seems that Nixon's remark has some
validity (and it seems he might also have used the word "reliable"
since, unlike his own experience, none of Stephen Lewis' statistical
assertions was disproved). Nixon was right in saying that on some
issues the Liberals and NDP were philosophically congruent, at
least in a general sense. Both had called for a reduction in the
cost of energy, both had advocated more housing starts and both had
recognized a need for rent control. But it was Lewis who was able
to convince the people of this by staging a campaign to which the
press could easily respond. The thesis is that the press was more
favorably inclined towards the NDP than the Liberals and even the
Conservatives, not because it agreed with Stephen Lewis' political
philosophy, but because it was impreSsed with the NDP leader's
defence of that philosophy. The evidence presented in Chapters II,
III and IV was intended to Show that this was brought out in spite
of editorial and other arguments to the contrary.

This proposition is not without the implication that
Toronto reporters were unfairly partial towards the NDP (editorials,
commentaries and news stories are, after all, written by different
groups of people), and for that reason it requires closer examina-
tion. There is, to be sure, a basis for believing in an inherent
affinity for the NDP on the part of the press. 'Jonathan Manthorpe,

in his study of recent Ontario politics, wrote in respect to the

91

early 1970s that

Of the three parties in the New Democrats in
general had the best relationship with the Press
Gallery . . . The NDP members and party officials
in general had franker and more open dealings with
reporters than did the other parties. AS a body
reporters like blunt honesty, and the New Democrats
seemed prepared to display that quality.”4

Moreover, reporters on the NDP tour in 1975 made no secret of

their respect for Lewis because of his rare accessibility. The

NDP leader knew most reporters on the tour by name, consulted

them on occasion for advice and rarely was unavailable for question-
ing. Toronto magazine writer Barbara Amiel suggests Lewis cultivated
this rapport himself because he wanted the press and electorate to
”embrace precisely the same policies and person they had feared in

197].u175

 

[emphasis added]
This relationship contrasted markedly with Robert Nixon's
penchant for punctuality that frequently left reporters behind
filing stories while the campaign bus or plane headed on towards
the next stop. And Premier Davis won few new friends by declining
even to ride on the same bus with the reporters assigned to cover
him. Glob_reporter David Allen was so upset about the Tories' poor

campaign planning that he felt compelled to complain openly that

Travel arrangements have been changed without
notice to the media, which pay their reporters' own
way on the tour. Reporters themselves are often
given no time to write and transmit their stories

 

174Manthorpe, The Power and the Tories, pp. 179-180.

 

175Barbara Amiel, "The Remaking of a Socialist," The Canadian,
November 29, 1975, p. 8.

 

92

and Davis made major speeches in out-of-the-way
places without the presence of the TV crews the
party bosses cater to.175

The NDP avoided such criticism, possibly because its campaign
manager, Gerald Caplan, took the time to apologize to the press
corps for the grueling schedule at the outset of the campaign and
to promise that it would not be typical.177

But whatever the relationship between the press and the
New Democratic Party, there is no solid evidence to suggest either
the party or its leader were the beneficiaries of sympathy.
Indeed, the story of this thesis is how the NDP persuaded a
highly-skeptical press to issue what amounted to a subtle endorse-
ment. The evidence presented in the preceding chapters shows that
the press, rather than playing favorites, gave an effective cam-
paign its due. Robert Meadow's conclusion (Chapter I) that "candi-
dates who make more news receive more coverage" becomes applicable
here. While the NDP may not have been afforded as much space in
Toronto newspapers as the Conservatives, it succeeded in gaining a
strategic advantage by grabbing headlines and holding them on up
to the eve of the election. More important, Lewis' success with
his case for rent control created the bandwagon effect that polit-
ical candidates dream about--because the issue then, of course,
swells to include the parade as much as the floats of which it is

composed.

 

'76Star, Sept. 13, 1975, p. 85.

1"Globe, Aug. 14, 1975, p. 4.

93

Lewis had a remarkable sense of the public mood. He
identified the issues with which people were most concerned and
avoided those not on the list. Ronald Rutledge realized this to

his frustration in the Star:

The Conservatives have patched up relations
with the teachers, and hope they have allayed pub-
lic anxieties about basic skills and rising costs.

The Liberals, determined not to be cheated
out of a promising issue are talking about the
erosion of standards, and the necessity for a core
curriculum. . . .

Meanwhile, the New Democratic Party . . . has
chosen to say almost nothing so far about these
issues, presumably on the grounds that the public
is not interested. The most irritating thing of
all is that the NDP appears, on this point at least,
to be right.178

Journalists in acknowledging Lewis' effective campaign
often tried, sometimes desperately, to downplay the NDP leader's
success. In a column generally favorable to the New Democrats,
the Globe's Norman Webster felt it necessary to remind his readers
of Lewis' appearance in debate with Premier Davis in which Webster

'79 This

said Lewis "bent principle for higher political motive."
comment was made after the columnist had called the NDP "the only
party that has run a campaign with real integrity--soundness,
honesty and a package that hangs together," and had described

Lewis himself as "something of a linguistics superstar, an almost
disturbingly articulate man who speaks in sentences that form para-

graphs, pages and then monographs of coherent thought, laced with

humor."

 

178Star, Sept. 8, 1975, p. 63.

179Globe, Sept. 11, 1975, p. 7.

94

Claire Hoy of the Goo_seems to have had the most difficulty
in reconciling himself to the effectiveness of the NDP campaign.
He was adamant in insisting that socialism just could not happen in
Ontario. On September 3, Hoy lauded Lewis' concern over mercury
pollution but concluded that the NDP leader, "for all his humanity,
knows what his chances are." The following day, Hoy wrote about
Lewis' "persuasive arguments" for rent control that were made with
"a frightening command of the language." But again he concluded
that l'even Stephen Lewis, with all his style, cannot sell the mes-
sage of his politics. People are just not ready for him." And on
September 5, Hoy praised Lewis' assertion that oil prices were too
high and said "it's refreshing in these mad times to see anybody
take a serious look at a serious subject." But once again Hoy felt
it necessary to tell his readers, lest they forget, that "he won't
gain very many votes on the issue." What makes Hoy's remarks even
more interesting is the way he turned the argument around in respect
to the Conservatives. In reference to a Tory promise of tax credit
on certain mortgages, Hoy predicted that Robert Nixon would "repeat
his charge that Davis is practicing chequebook politics and buying
votes, which of course he is." But Hoy wondered "how many people
will worry about that when they get their $500 cheque in the mail."180

Lewis was lucky, to be sure. He could not have forecast
the political benefits that resulted from his non-appearance at the

first scheduled debate. Nor could he have engineered the open feud

 

180%, Sept. 12, 1975, p. 5.

95

between Premier Davis and Robert Nixon that worked to his advantage.
And Lewis said after the election that he considered the occupation-
al health issue to have been a bonus. He said it was not an issue A
on which votes normally are won but that "in a sense that gives it
even more importance, because the party was speaking to an issue
about which we felt so strongly that we were willing to plunge in,

l."]81 But as Lewis

even though the electoral implications were ni
saw it, if these were breaks, they were nothing when compared to the
way the Star unexpectedly supported him on the rent issue. The NDP

leader was quoted as saying some weeks after the election that

The great and savage irony is that Beland Hon-
derich [publisher of the Starl, in the middle of the
night, came to the conclus10n that the possibilities
for circulation improvement in his competition with
the Gob for the apartments of Toronto, by playing
rents to the hilt, was more important than the
Liberal party. And so he gave to the New Democrats,
at the psychological turning point of the campaign,
an issue played to the point of obsession, day in
and day out for Six days, as though the Liberals
didn't exist.182

The phenomenon was not unlike the ratings game played by
television networks. A program normally is discontinued when its
audience drops below a certain level-~regardless of its social
value--and replaced with something that generates more appeal.

And often it is the production technique--the polish more than the
substance--that determines success. So it was with the press

coverage of the 1975 Ontario provincial election campaign.

 

181Hailwood, "The Feast of Stephen." P- 35-

182Ibid., p. 23.

96

Stephen Lewis packaged the NDP issues of housing, energy, land and
people so that they would arouse the electorate.

Professor Clarkson, in concluding that the press limits
the capacity of parties to communicate their platforms by stressing
only a few issues, told only half the story. The rest is the story
of how the press selects the issues it does stress. When the
opposition parties became aware of Stephen Lewis' technique they,
apparently unable to duplicate the feat, turned to the very issues
made popular by the NDP. It did not work because the press was less
interested in the new positions of the opposition than in the fact
of their switching. Gerald Caplan, the NDP campaign manager, said
it best when he told reporters on the tour: "Face it, you are our
whole campaign."183

This study does not purport to be definitive. AS a
record of the election campaign itself, it falls short by omitting
a number of incidents--such as Stephen Lewis' beneficial radio chat
with conservative commentator Gordon Sinclair and Robert Nixon's
pledge to dismantle the Royal Commission on Violence in the
Communications Industry. And as a study of the Toronto press, it
affords no opportunity for rebuttal or clarification by the
reporters and newspapers named. But as in all scholarly endeavors,
limits had to be imposed to prevent the study from straying from
the central point, that is, to describe the way the Toronto press

covered the 1975 Ontario election campaign.

 

183Sun, Aug. 15, 1975, p. 4.

97

The study does not explain why the majority government of
the Progressive-Conservative party came to an end in Ontario. Nor
does it examine the issues of the campaign in their social and
economic contexts; that job is left to political scientists and
historians. But if it sheds some light on the role of the press
in shaping political campaigns, if it shows how the press might
sway public thought, indeed make up the public mind, and the fac-
tors that enter into the decision-making process, then it will
have served its general purpose. And if it places the 1975 Ontario
election under a brighter light, if it adds a new dimension to the
interpretation of the election results, then it will have been
doubly useful because it will serve the historians and political

scientists who may want to look further into the event itself.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Fletcher, Frederick J. "Between Two Stools: News Coverage of
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Greenaway, Roy. The News Game. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin and Co.
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Lazarsfeld, Paul F.; Berelson, Bernard; and Gandet, Hazel. lbo_
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100

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Unpublished Manuscripts

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