OTTAWA - With economic turmoil grabbing centre stage in the election campaign, Liberals are turning to deficit-buster Paul Martin and his former top advisers to help burnish Stephane Dion's fiscal credentials.
The team that is helping to prepare the Liberal leader for his debut performance in crucial televised leaders debates is made up almost entirely of members of Martin's one-time inner circle.
And Martin himself has been taking an increasingly prominent role in the campaign.
The former prime minister, best known for balancing Canada's books after years of ballooning deficits, launched a blistering attack Monday on the Harper government's economic management. He used a speech in Toronto to castigate Stephen Harper's Conservatives for squandering the huge annual surpluses racked up by the previous Liberal regime and leaving the country teetering on the brink of deficit.
Behind the scenes, members of Martin's inner circle are heavily involved in staging mock debates aimed at preparing Dion for both the style and substance of the attacks he's likely to face from his opponents in Wednesday's French debate and Thursday's English debate.
According to Liberal insiders, Tim Murphy, Martin's one-time chief of staff, has been playing the role of Harper in the dry runs. Richard Mahoney and Mark Watton, also erstwhile Martin confidants, have played the roles of moderator and NDP Leader Jack Layton respectively.
Scott Reid, Martin's former communications director, has been helping draft Dion's opening statement for the debates -- wasted effort since the networks decided late Tuesday to eliminate opening and closing statements.
Senator Francis Fox, a longtime Martin ally, has overseen preparation for the French debate. Elly Alboim, another Martin insider, has also been involved.
The heavy involvement of Martin's old inner circle has raised eyebrows in some Liberal circles.
Some senior Liberals question why Dion is relying on people who lost the last election. Moreover, they question the Martin team's expertise on debates, given that Martin never particularly shone during debates in 2004 or 2006.
Dion's reliance on the former Martin advisers has also provoked resentment among some Liberals who've never forgiven the Martin crowd for orchestrating a putsch against Jean Chretien.
Party president Doug Ferguson may have had that lingering feud in mind when he wrote the party's latest fundraising pitch, urging "the entire Liberal family" to pull together.
"When the chips are down, most of us turn first to our families for support and encouragement. And at times like that, families set their differences aside and pull together for what's right," he wrote.
The debates are critical for Dion, whose campaign has been struggling to gain traction. With the Liberals about 10 points behind the Tories and in some danger of being overtaken by the NDP, pollster Bruce Anderson said there is more at stake for Dion than any other leader.
"If he does badly, the fragile circumstance that his party finds itself in right now could become more fragile still," said Anderson, president of Harris-Decima.
"And there isn't an awful lot of room to shed support . . . before you get into some pretty dire scenarios for the Liberal party."
If Dion exceeds low expectations and puts in "a brilliant performance," Anderson said the Liberals could finally get the bounce in the polls they've been hoping for.
With the TV networks eliminating opening and closing statements to make room for more discussion of the economy, some Liberals contend it makes perfect sense for Dion to lean on Martin's inner circle for debate preparation. Murphy, Reid and the others were intimately involved in the party's crowning achievement of the past 15 years: eliminating the deficit.
Dion, who has never held an economic portfolio himself, signalled Tuesday that he will use the debates to remind Canadians about the Liberal party's economic record.
"I will have an opportunity to show that the best approach is the one that we have shown to Canadians. Look at our track record," he said after visiting a soup kitchen in Gatineau, Que.
Dion said he'll position himself as a fiscally prudent centrist, someone who eschews the extremes of the laissez-faire Harper on the right and the anti-business Layton on the left.
"We Liberals, we are able to have a fair society and we're able at the same time to have a strong economy because we understand the link between the two."
