CANADA VOTE ROCKS NAFTA BOAT

We know how angry Americans are -- joblessness, lawlessness and more. It's a global phenomenon. John Major is the most unpopular prime minister in modern British history. Likewise for President Francois Mitterrand in France. Chancellor Helmut Kohl is in a slump. Maybe Italy is in the best political shape in Europe because it has next to no national government at all. Japan recently experienced a revolution of its own where voters expressed their revulsion with the entrenched power structure.

Canada, our kindred spirit and great trading partner to the north, joins the list of the intensely disaffected. The ruling Conservatives had 153 seats in the old Parliament and dropped to a paltry two -- just a couple of heartbeats from extinction. In no established democracy has a governing party ever taken such an incredible shellacking. The Liberals shot up from 70 to 178 and will assume office. The opposition role will be played by two parties that appeal only to regional constituencies. The Bloc Quebeccia with 54 seats (up from eight) become the not-so-loyal oppostion since it wants Quebec to secede. The Reform Party, which operates exclusively in Canada's western provinces, grew from one vote in the old Parliament to 52. The Reformers don't want to break away from the national government; they simply want the national Canadian government to go away entirely, in Perot-like style.

According to the financial press, business groups that were the exclusive preserve of the Conservatives now back the newly elected liberals, the party of national health care and governmental activism. Indeed, the Canadian stock market reacted favorably to the annihilation of the party of business.

With so many philosophical cross currents at play, it's hard to analyze the election results in strictly rational political terms. The overwhelming sentiment was to know out anyone who was in. For those who argue that term limitations are the only way to unseat powerful incumbents, the Canadian results constitute a stunning rebuttal. When the majority party drops from 153 to two, the notion of invincible incumbents begins to fade away.

With an 11 percent unemployment rate, the "jobs, jobs, jobs" refrain of the '92 Clinton campaign became political music in Canada. The new prime minister, Jean Chretien, promised a $6 billion public works program to generate tens of thousands of jobs. He also promised to reduce the budget deficit from 5.2 percent of GDP to 3.6 percent of GDP, a rather neat fiscal trick if he can pull it all off.

As far as the United States is concerned, the explosion in Canada poses yet another headache for President Clinton on NAFTA. The Conservatives were rock-ribbed free traders. The Liberals are "selectively protectionist." During the campaign, Chretien was critical of NAFTA as well as the 1988 U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement as negotiated by the Conservatives.

With the Nov. 17 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives rapidly approaching, Clinton doesn't need any extensive unsettling public discourse with the new Canadian prime minister over NAFTA. If Chretien continues to stir up NAFTA unrest, he might doom the treaty.

Equally disconcerting to Clinton is the possibility that the Canadian landslide might cause a few undecided House members to opt into the anti-NAFTA camp. If the Canadian election is viewed, even tangentially as a reflection of voter disaffection with NAFTA, it's possible that some wavering souls in the U.S. Congress might take note of and be influenced by the results. If a Congress is deeply troubled by the ramifications of an upcoming vote, any even slight movement of the tea leaves could influence a final decision. The demise of the Canadian Conservative party rearranges the leaves.

Clinton might well have wished that the Canadian elections had come later. He didn't need any additional problems to rock the NAFTA boat.