ANALYSIS

Harper setting agenda of election campaign Conservative leader’s attacks force Paul Martin’s Liberals onto defensive footing

OTTAWA — Canada’s political parties head into the second week of the election campaign with one dynamic clearly taking shape: Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is dominating the agenda.

From cutting the GST, to health care, to same- sex marriage, to cracking down on drug-related crime, he’s the one who is controlling his message in the critical first few days of the race. He’s defining himself, not letting his rivals define him.

That could pay off in the weeks ahead, as Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Liberals try to resuscitate their warnings to voters that Harper cannot be trusted because he has a hidden agenda.

The attack will come from Martin on the campaign hustings, at the televised leaders’ debates, and in a wave of hard-hitting TV ads.

Harper has seen that happen before — to him in the last election, and to his predecessors, Stockwell Day and Preston Manning, in campaigns before that.

This bone- chilling winter campaign is only occurring because the opposition parties believe they can exploit public fury over the sponsorship scandal. Harper will hammer away on that issue, particularly in the second half of the campaign after Christmas. But the Conservative leader doesn’t want to be remembered for one thing — an angry, overly ambitious politician who’s not showing his cards.

And so Harper, in this game of political poker that will seal his own fate, is laying out his hand. The Tories will continue to unveil their policy platform this week, trying to present Harper as a credible prime minister-in-waiting. They’ll hope it puts to rest the uneasiness among many Canadians about what Harper would do with power.

As for Martin, his campaign so far has seemed lackluster. At a time when all the polls show Canadians are yearning for political change, Martin’s message has been simple — embrace stability, stick with the devil you know, avoid risk.

He has boasted of the Liberals’ economic record to appeal to voters’ sense of security on issues ranging from jobs to interest rates.

He has made national unity an issue, raising the spectre of how Quebec’s separatists are eagerly awaiting another referendum. ( Martin presumably wants to swing remaining federalist votes in Quebec towards the Liberals, and to convince Canadians elsewhere that he is the best federal leader to handle the looming national crisis.)

Thirdly, Martin has already begun moving on a key pillar of his campaign: convince New Democrats to hold their nose and vote Liberal as a way to block a Conservative victory.

But unlike the Tories, the Liberals so far have adopted a low- key game plan that has produced little in the way of big news. Instead of controlling the news agenda, all too often Martin has been on his heels, reacting to Harper’s policy pronouncements.

Plagued with how the sponsorship scandal has tarnished the Liberal brand, it appears Martin hopes to run on his own leadership traits of honesty and good intentions. All the while, he’s praying for Harper’s hubris to be his undoing.

The NDP’s Jack Layton, in this polarized battle between Martin and Harper, is just happy to get noticed as he declares that only a strong contingent of New Democrats in the next Parliament will ensure the government enacts policies wanted by Canadians.

New Democrats believe Martin’s decision to run on the economy will backfire, particularly in southern Ontario cities like Oshawa and Windsor where manufacturing jobs are being lost, in Northern Ontario, where workers are also vulnerable, and in British Columbia, where the forestry sector is in trouble because of the softwood lumber battle with the U. S.

Indeed, the sleeper of this campaign could be B.C., where the NDP is in a three-way race with the Liberals and Tories.

The Bloc Quebecois under Gilles Duceppe is sure of its own political footing and appears confident it can do no wrong on the provincial home turf it dominates. Stoking anger over the sponsorship scandal and appealing to Quebecers’ deep- rooted pride — these are the foundations of Duceppe’s strategy.

For all the parties, setting the framework for their strategy is critical in these first two weeks of the race. But the campaign remains highly unpredictable. When Canadians cast their votes Jan. 23, few will remember the specific events of the last few days.

Stripped to its core, the ballot box question in most elections is that plain.

Who do you trust to run your government? Ottawa Citizen