How the once-mighty Conservatives have fallen
At the beginning of this year, Stephen Harper had all his ducks in a row for the fall federal election. Some Conservative insiders pressed Harper to call an early spring election, rather than waiting until October.
Now the prime minister very likely wishes he followed their advice. Six months later, the Tory advantage has slipped away.
In February, the Conservatives were slightly ahead of the Liberals at about 34 per cent of the popular support. The NDP lagged far behind. The numbers suggested a majority was in reach. By June, an EKOS poll was telling a very different story: the NDP surging ahead at 34 per cent; the Conservatives and Liberals trailing at 27 per cent and 23 per cent respectively. How has this happened? First, there was the war on ISIS. Initially a popular mission among Canadians, Harper masterfully used the issue as a political wedge to drive between him and his weak-seeming opponents. Nearly twothirds of Canadians supported Harper’s decision to send our planes to bomb ISIS.
Today we are losing that war and public support has dropped dramatically. It’s becoming clear the only way to defeat ISIS militarily is to put allied troops on the ground.
But that’s too controversial to contemplate before the election. Chances are the Islamic State will consolidate its territory in Iraq, Syria and Libya and continue terrorizing western countries at will. Over the next few months, Canadian voters will be reminded of this grim reality on a regular basis.
Meanwhile, the terrorist attacks on Parliament Hill and in Quebec created a climate of fear, amplified and exploited by the government, which provided the prime minister political permission to re-craft the balance between Canadian freedoms and security by writing tougher anti-terrorism laws. Eighty two per cent of Canadians favoured the idea of such legislation.
But support had been cut in half by the time the final Bill C-51 was introduced. It was widely criticized for giving CSIS too much power without sufficient oversight and for encroaching on our freedoms and privacy.
The Senate, too, has been a slow-unfolding political disaster for the government. Six months ago the issue was back of mind, but with the Mike Duffy trial now underway and the damning revelations sure to keep coming, Harper has emerged among the party leaders as the sole defender of the embattled institution he once promised to reform.
Trudeau wisely cut the Liberal Senators loose from his caucus last year; the NDP has always favoured abolishing the Senate. Harper, responsible for a slew of highly questionable appointments, will wear his mishandling of this issue at the polls. And what of the economy? When the Conservatives met their pledge to balance the budget, and with a $7-billion surplus no less, the government’s economic strength seemed unassailable. Add to that the Tories’ promise to spend the surplus on a slate of populist policies — income-splitting, increased limits on tax free savings accounts, expanded child care benefits — and the Conservative outlook could hardly have been sunnier.
But for many voters that’s a distant memory. Since then the opposition parties have advanced their own proposals for income transfers and child-care schemes that have broad voter appeal. Moreover, Canada’s economy shrunk for the first time in four years in the first quarter. Even Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz described the economy’s first three-month performance as “atrocious.”
Lower oil prices are a major factor and will continue to be a drag on the economy through the lead-up to the election. The electorate knows the Conservatives have bet heavily on the oil sector at the exclusion of a more mixed economy. They also know, despite Harper’s repeated assurances, the Keystone XL pipeline is mired in environmental and political controversy.
These are the sorts of political fires Harper has traditionally relied on his inner circle of loyal ministers to snuff out. But in the last few months key ministers including John Baird, Peter MacKay and James Moore have either resigned or said they won’t run again. So far Harper has lost over 25 per cent of his 2011 caucus. That’s a near-record for any party leader going into an election.
None of these individual setbacks are insurmountable. But the collective impact has significantly dimmed the prospects of a Conservative win in October. Already the media spotlight has shifted to the race between Trudeau and Mulcair.
Stephen Harper, responsible for a slew of highly questionable Senate appointments, will wear his mishandling of this issue at the polls