The continuing volatility amongst Canadian's and our feelings about our federal government is showing up in the to-and-fro opinion polls results for the past many months. Flux and frustration are the political realities in the country today and Harper knows it. Do not hold your breath for an early election under the circumstances.
Harper is dancing as fast as he can, trying to catch up to the new rhymes and rhythms of the Canadian consciousness. He has made moves to change his framing from GST tax cutter and baby-bonus boy into the "thoroughly-modern vert-nouveau man." In the process has has been- seriously testing his credulity with Canadians. We just do not believe him nor do we seem to believe in him.
He breaks promises. He chases butterflies like Quebec "nation" without understanding the concepts and consequences. He panders and poses and under performs even on his tepid Five Priority Policy Agenda. Then he compounds the problem with cheap shots about parliamentarians loyalty and the Taliban, and makes unwarranted and unfounded personal slurs around the Air India tragedy, just to name a few.
Every time he sees the light and does something right and not just mean he get a 5 point bounce in the polls, for a day or two, moving from 35% to 40%. The mainstream media immediately goes into a rhetorical overdrive printing headlines about the Cons flirting with majority government territory and salivating over election fever. Then they retreat as the cold light of day emerges in follow up polls and we find that Harper has fallen back to earth, yet again.
The latest iteration of Harper’s up again and down again toilet-seat political fortunes happened over the March 19th Budget. The bounce to 40% territory happened in the first 2 days after the Budget. By the end of the week he was down to 35% again as people reflected on the Budget's political implications and realized Harper' s personal intentions.
Now we have to wait and see what the fallout is going to be for Harper out of the Quebec election. We all can see the consequences of his Budget bungling and interference in the Quebec election. He bet billions of our tax dollars on the Charest horse who turned up lame, in more ways than one.
The fiscal pain inflicted on the rest of us Canadians increased our frustration when Charest decided to use the Harper largesse for enhanced equalization money purely for personal tax cuts to Quebecers. We all understood the extra funs were intended to address the mythical fiscal imbalance for Quebec. The rest of Canada got no tax relief from the federal Budget and we are not amused. Especially Saskatchewan and Newfoundland who are legitimately angry with Harper. He screwed them royally in the process of paying off Quebec to purchase a personal power base.
Harper has essentially shown no progress in earning the trust and confidence of Canadians in the 14th months he has had control of the government. Do not be fooled, even with a minority government Harper has had de facto control. The Liberals spent most of 2006 finding a new leader and all of 2007 figuring out where they want to go with him so they have not been a force.
The major reason is after 5 years in federal leadership politics 65% of Canadians say they do not yet “know Prime Minister Harper any better as a person.” Those numbers are the same for all of Canada – expect for Quebec where a mere 59% say they don’t know him. This is not the stuff of long term viable political leadership.
I remember the headlines "Joe Who" immediately after Clark was chosen Progressive Conservative Party leader. Five year after Harper was chosen Reform/Alliance/Conservative party leader and over a year since he was chosen Prime Minister, we are still asking ourselves "Who is Stephen Harper?"
That is the real problem Harper has going int the next election, whenever it happens...we simply do not know who he really is after all these years.
"He breaks promises. He chases butterflies like Quebec "nation" without understanding the concepts and consequences."
ReplyDelete"Now we have to wait and see what the fallout is going to be for Harper out of the Quebec election. We all can see the consequences of his Budget bungling and interference in the Quebec election. He bet billions of our tax dollars on the Charest horse who turned up lame, in more ways than one."
Ken, you just don't get it. You completely underestimate Harper in Quebec. Harper could not have gotten a better result in Quebec. The CPC is now polling higher than the LPC and the Bloc is looking terrible.
How long do you expect Harper's Quebec bounce to hold? Any longer than his Budget bounce did in the ROC?
ReplyDeleteHe paid billions of taxpayer dollars diurectly into Quebec for a few points advantage, and I'll bet for only a few days.
Harper can expect Dumont to be less federal-friendly than even Danny Williams is today. Good work twigging Danny on to the idea of attack ads. What goes around eric!
Dumont is the guy with the agenda control these days. He is likely going to try to politically and socially isolate Quebec. At the same time expect him to push Harper for more subsidy cash than the sepratists ever extorted from the Libs.
Yes sir it is obvious that Harper "could not have gotten better results in Quebec." Was this minority government and a reckless ADQ in control REALLY his preferred choice? I would have thought that was hardly even Plan C, never mind Plan A.
I don't underestimate Harper, I worry about him and I am now starting to fear him. He has an underdeveloped sense of duty to public service and pays lip service to responsible governance. He also has an unnerving and dominant personal power agenda.
I also worry about Dumont. He recently said he is not a federalist. With Harper in power, he does not need to be a separatist. He wants to be an isolationist and will cause constitutional conflicts for the country.
Speaking of being isolated, you CPC Ottawa types remind me of the guy who jumped off the Empire State Building and as he passed the 15th floor he was heard to say: "So far so good!"
Keep the faith eric. You are going to need it.
Ken, are you telling me that you agree with Williams stance on a principled basis! Are you saying that Martin was correct to make that side-deal? You think it's fair to have the have provinces fund another have province so that the spending per capita is higher than the funding province. Nfld was given the option to choose between the greater of (1) Martin's side-deal and (2) The new equalization formula. That seems fair despite what Williams is saying. The CPC may lose it's 3 seats but I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteWhere the heck do you come along calling the ADQ "reckless"? Why do you insult the Quebecers on their choice? Dion is doing the same thing. Typical liberals - put down those people who don't support your "values".
"I also worry about Dumont. He recently said he is not a federalist."
He is not a federalist in the sense of the Trudeau-Dion type federalism where the federal gov't controls everything. This is consistent with Harper's idea of open federalism and decentralized gov't. Is the LPC going to ignore these results and pretend they didn't happen?
"Keep the faith eric. You are going to need it."
Ken, I'm not saying I'm confident that the CPC will attain a majority but I think the result in Quebec was great for the CPC as well as Canada as a whole. It demonstrates the fact that the LPC, especially through the sponsorship scandal, have actually increased the separatist forces in Quebec. It took the CPC contain them.
I think "reckless" fits when you have to fire candidates in the middle of a campaign because they make comments about francophones needing to have more babies to avoid being "swamped by ethnics."
ReplyDeleteOr they describe fellow citizens in terms of "People come here and we're supposed to let them wear turbans and kiss the asphalt."
Or they are scoffing at violence against women and Dumont encourages comparisons between himself and Rene Levesque...mighty federalist Mario...mighty federalist.
Other than those "isolated examples" I am sure the ADQ is a paragon of enlightened civility and social inclusion. Come to think of it, they must be just like the old Reform and Alliance party. No wonder Harper is happy with the ADQ results.
BTW - Martin was wrong to make side deals with individual provinces too. This does not justify Harper making the same mistakes - especially if he wants to be seen as fair-minded to earn respect, confidence and trust of Canadians.
If things are that rosy eric - call an election.
If you believe the firing of a particular candidate midway through a campaign "reckless", then almost all political parties would be reckless and hence the term loses any meaning.
ReplyDelete"Other than those "isolated examples" I am sure the ADQ is a paragon of enlightened civility and social inclusion. Come to think of it, they must be just like the old Reform and Alliance party. No wonder Harper is happy with the ADQ results."
I forgot - only the LPC is in favour of social inclusion. Give me a break. You're insulting many people with no insightful rationale.
Wow, taunts about an election - you're starting to sound like Dion! The CPC has clearly stated it wants to continue governing and will attempt to complete its mandate until 2009. It is the opposition parties that can force an election upon the public, either by failing to support the new legislation on crime or by creating economic chaos by requiring Canada to meet its Kyoto targets in 2 years. The choice is yours; be careful what you wish for;)
Reckless is accepting such people as candidates in the first place...prudence is firing them at first instance of bigotry.
ReplyDeleteI did not say the ADQ was the only party worthy of scrutiny. The Reform/Alliance guys with court cases overturning nominations, criminals investigations of alleged political interference on-going and other investigations perhaps pending means they have to be included too.
Crap legislation and policy can be pass in a minority government when everyone wants to avoid an election. But not to worry - they will never get implemented and can even be repealed later after an election.
The CPC has proven that innumerable times in the past 14 months by nixing really good prior policy on pure partisan grounds - Kelowna Accord for example...nixed for no good reason.
Then look at the CPC killing and them mass reinstatment of former Liberal environmental policy for example.
I am "careful what I wish for." An end to the Harper government is top of my wish list. Careful enough for you?
Ken, I'm shocked. You sound angry or frightened. I'd better just let you calm down a bit so we can have a rationale and intelligent discussion.
ReplyDeleteBesides, I'm going to be busy preparing for the next election so your wish won't come true! Good luck in helping your local candidate (if one has been nominated already). I look forward to your posts after the Easter break.
Sorry eric - I did not mean to scare you ;-}
ReplyDeleteMy local candidate was nominated last Saturday. Thx for asking.
The election will not be until the fall I bet. You will have lots of time to comment on this Blog until then.
Use the time until the fall election wisely and be sure to clean up the CPC candidate list. You don't need another Grewal or a Jack Ramsay running. If you do not recall Jack - Google him. It will reaffirm my advice.
Have a heart to heart with Rob (I am under Appeal) Anders and convince him to pack it in too. He does not help your cause when he calls Nelson Mandala a terrorist.
Maybe you can convince Jim Hart to come back from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and run for you guys again. Maybe he could be promised the job of Parliamentary Secretary to Stockwell Day!
That would at least be poetic justice for his troubles.