Montreal Gazette

Harper shouldn’t be the ballot question

Before dismissing the Conservati­ves, voters would be wise to take a longer perspectiv­e, Randall Denley says.

- Randall Denley is a strategic communicat­ions consultant and former Ontario PC candidate. Ottawa Citizen

The ballot question in this election has come down to the simplest of propositio­ns: Stephen Harper, yes or no?

Sure, you could compare Harper’s budget balancing record with Tom Mulcair’s budget balance promise or parse Justin Trudeau’s plan to spend his way back into deficit. You could even study the platforms in detail. It’s simpler, though, to make a determinat­ion on what one thinks of Harper’s style and personalit­y, and voters like simplicity.

Harper’s latest TV ad offers the hopeful thought that this election isn’t about him. That seems unlikely. After nearly a decade of dominating Canadian politics, he has created a lot of strong feelings that voters won’t put aside to form a dispassion­ate assessment of his plans for the next four years.

But let’s imagine, just for a moment, that the voters were prepared to overlook Harper’s particular style of governing and focus just on what he intends to do. The prime minister hasn’t really given Canadians a single new idea of merit, or identified any one area where he hopes to make real progress over the next four years.

His platform is steady as he goes, no big changes coming. If Harper is elected, Canadians would get to keep their higher TFSA limits and couples would benefit from income splitting. Canadians could be pretty sure that they wouldn’t be facing tax increases under Harper. Those are good things, but it’s difficult to get people to get excited about the status quo.

Harper is struggling against time as much as he is against his opponents. Once an administra­tion goes beyond eight years, new ideas dry up and key lieutenant­s drift away. That’s the case for Harper.

About the only thing that can save a long-term leader is personal popularity. Voters will still forgive a lot if they like you, but Harper has almost gone out of his way to make people dislike him. He comes across as a guy who likes to pick fights, whether it’s with the public service, the courts, even our veterans.

Between elections, Harper treats the public and the media as a nuisance, a distractio­n from the important work at hand.

As we have seen in this election, the prime minister is pretty good at making his case. Pity he didn’t make that his regular mode of operation.

Harper’s actual record is a mixed bag. He has lowered some taxes and brought the deficit under control. Others fault him for running it up in the first place, but everyone was clambering for that during the last recession. His boutique tax credits for things as trivial as piano lessons are just a waste of money and his crime policies seem unlikely to produce any positive result.

It’s his personalit­y, though, that is the biggest problem. Not because he is a bad person, as some vigorously claim, but because he is cold and rational. That makes it difficult to connect with voters, doubly so when facing an opponent like Trudeau, a virtuoso plucker of heart strings.

Before dismissing the Conservati­ves, voters should consider one thing.

Win or lose, Harper will be gone in 18 months. Everyone knows it’s time for renewal in the Conservati­ve Party. Voters should ask themselves whether they still favour a party that wants to keep taxes down, control the size of government and doesn’t subscribe to the notion that the solution to every problem is a new government program. They won’t get that with either the Liberals or the NDP.

Do you want this election to be about the future, or the past?

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