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How not to run a campaign |
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Written by BRUCE STRACHAN
Citizen columnist
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Wednesday, 08 October 2008 |
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BRUCE STRACHANNEW DEMOCRATS
What a grind it’s been.
This trip wasn’t necessary, and by next Tuesday night we’ll find nothing has changed.
At dissolution, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives held 127 seats, the Liberals 95, the Bloq held 48, the NDP had 30 and there were four vacant seats and four independents.
I’m betting we’ll see little movement in the House of Commons standings when the dust settles. Indeed, looking at a number of candidates, some seats may be more vacant than others.
If anything though, this unnecessary, uncalled-for election has been a textbook case of how not to run a campaign and in that sense, it’s had some value.
At the outset, Prime Minister Harper had a bit of an uphill pull attempting to justify the election call. However, his blue sweater approach and nice-guy persona kept the cynics at bay.
Then came the Gerry Ritz, listeria issue.
Nineteen people died from the disease outbreak, allegedly caused by lax government inspections of an Ontario meat-processing facility.
It’s bad enough when any tragic event happens on the government watch, but Agriculture Minister Ritz really put his foot in it with two supposedly off-the-record comments.
When people die, and there is even the most remote chance the government could have prevented the deaths, the only response is to act decisively, immediately and with dignity.
Ritz got caught at a sad attempt of in-house humor.
He created a terrible image and a damaging reflection of Harper’s ability to manage his cabinet. For a supposedly hands-on, take-charge Prime Minister, Harper let this one get right out of control. Deduct a few seats from the Ritz gaffe.
However, even the sad episode of Gerry Ritz and his tasteless attempt at humor still left the Tories with a squeaky shot at forming a majority.
Then came Bill C-10 which - if enacted - would have allowed the Harper government to block tax credits for film and television productions it found offensive. Added to this gratuitous “father-knows-best” form of censorship was a $45 million cut in funding to the arts community.
For many in the arts business, especially the culturally robust Quebec arts community, this was seen as out-and-out censorship.
It smacked of the old Reform Party policies and its evangelistic fear of anyone who appeared be having a good time.
Harper even reinforced his dowdy take on the arts in a Saskatoon speech saying, “I don’t believe ordinary working people were sympathetic to a bunch of people, you know, at a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough.”
Harper’s inarticulate shot at the arts may have resonated well in Saskatchewan, but not in Quebec. Just to insert some electoral math into all this, there are 14 seats in Saskatchewan and 75 in Quebec.
Only in Canada do we elect a tone-deaf Prime Minister who can’t count.
On the film review scale, Harper’s take on the arts probably scored as two thumbs down.
As of last Tuesday, he had recanted on Bill C-10 and the $45-million cut, but it’s too late.
The polls for the Conservatives in Quebec have tumbled. The Tories went into this campaign with 11 Quebec seats; by Tuesday night you can color most of them gone.
To be fair though to all readers, and to expand on this pre-post mortem, there’s a lot to learn from the Liberal and NDP campaigns as well.
For the Liberals, bundling all your political eggs in the green shift-carbon tax basket was not a good strategy. Especially when the leader attempting to sell the policy is not all that understandable in English.
Too bad, liberal leader Stephane Dion is a bright guy and he was a great environment minister. He was just too green, in both meanings of the word.
Meanwhile, way over on the left side of the planet and taking the cake for loony-tune socialism was New Democrat Party leader Jack Layton.
Layton’s campaign high was arguing against tax breaks for Canada’s financial and energy industries. Raise the tax on big oil and the banks became the socialist mantra.
Don’t look now Jack, but the Canada Pension Plan is heavily invested in the Canadian equity market, which includes Canadian banks and oil companies.
Tell me New Democrats, do you really want to lower the value of the Canada Pension Plan?
By Tuesday night our 2008 fling at representative democracy will be over.
We’ll have spent $350 million being wooed and pursued.
We will awake Wednesday morning and ask; did the earth move?
And the answer will be, not in the least.
Bruce Strachan is a former B.C. cabinet minister and Prince George city councillor. His column appears Thursdays. E-mail:
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 08 October 2008 )
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