Stephen Harper has prorogued Parliament. The pundits are calling for a general federal election Tuesday, April, 13. Presuming the pundits are correct, I would ask, after two less-than-stellar attempts at forming a parliamentary majority, is an election this spring going to pull Harper out of minority status?
It would be close, but no cigar. For a working no-sweat majority, Harper and the Conservatives need at least 15 more seats. Currently, the party holds 145 seats in the 308 seat House of Commons. Fifteen seats would give him 160. One seat is lost with the appointment of the Speaker and it's always wise for any party to count out a few malcontents who may miss votes, or become disenchanted with party policy.
On the plus side of calling a spring election, it's a given Harper has nothing to lose. December polling shows his party with 40 per cent support. Michael Ignatieff's Liberals sit at 30 per cent while Jack Layton's New Democrats are up a few points, no doubt taken from the Liberals. Failing a political tsunami, an April election would at least keep Harper in a minority position as it's not too likely he'd lose any of his current 145 seats.
All of which leads to the question of where does Stephen Harper pick up 15 more seats?
Let's look at the positives, then the negatives.
On the positive side, Harper has been our Prime Minister since 2006 and he has acquitted himself reasonably well. He's been solid on most international issues and he carries the cachet of being on the job for four years. Plus, you certainly can't fault his performance with Yo Yo Ma at the National Arts Centre singing, "I'll get by with a little help from my friends." I wouldn't advise him to give up his day job for a career doing Beatle covers, but he showed his lighter side and that's important. For you purist Beatle fans, Harper did the identical Ringo Starr arrangement of the song and in the same key.
Harper also shines on the international economic front. Canada leads the G8 group of countries in terms of fiscal stability and it's no secret both the U.S. and the U.K. economies could be circling the drain given their huge and unsustainable debt loads. Meanwhile, up here in the frozen north we're being seen as the picture of international economic stability. Just look at the steady rise of the Canadian dollar. Harper's strong leadership on the world economic scene has no doubt accounted for some of his success in the polls.
Now to the negatives and the Conservative's capacity to pick up 15 seats. Proroguing the House was seen as heavy-handed, especially given the increasingly harsh political spotlight of the Commons Afghan detainee hearings. Prorogation dissolved the committee but it may give the opposition some ammunition in a spring election. In a tight race, this could be a deciding issue.
Next, there's the environment and Harper's role at the Copenhagen climate-change conference. Going in, no one expected anything positive to come out of the conference. It was dead on arrival, but Harper didn't work to advance his political status at all in Copenhagen, again an issue that could cost a few votes. He was roasted over the high carbon-dioxide emissions coming from the Athabaska oil sands recovery process. He could have twisted the green tail in Copenhagen by raising the initiative of Bruce Power Alberta which has applied to develop nuclear energy as a clean way of extracting oil from the sands, but expectations of support in Copenhagen for a nuclear alternative to oil-sand CO2 emissions would have been modest indeed.
Finally, if the Conservatives really want to find more seats they have to go downtown: to downtown Toronto, downtown Vancouver and downtown Montreal. These urban areas are heavily populated -there are 23 federal seats in Toronto alone - and they don't vote for Stephen Harper. Moreover he has done little to court the big-city electorate. As an example, the Tories recent move to un-register the long gun registry - although a private member's bill - did not help at all in securing the downtown vote. Crime is a big issue in all big cities. Why would any government with few city seats even think about diminishing a law that many, including the Canadian Chiefs of Police Association, see as an effective crime fighter.
March 3, the House of Commons will reconvene with a Throne Speech and a budget to follow. Expect every hot-button to be pushed and then according to the experts, we're off to the polls. Are there 15 more Conservative seats out there for Stephen Harper? Well, as he sang to Yo Yo Ma, "I'll get by with a little help from my friends." But, Harper needs to do more than just get by, he needs to form a majority, and in the long run, that's counting on just far too many friends.
