Stephen Harper rolls the pork barrel out west
If Stephen Harper’s tour of the West last week is any indication, the Conservatives seem more than a little worried that they are losing their grip on their traditional stronghold.
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair was enthusiastically touring Ontario at about the same time, so that might have had something to do with the timing of Harper’s western foray. And then of course there’s the new NDP government in Alberta which is causing political ripples everywhere.
But Harper wasn’t just touring. His government was also spreading around money. Lots of money.
In Calgary, Defence Minister Jason Kenney announced that the federal government would be funding Calgary’s light rail transit expansion to the tune of $1.53 billion. Yes … that’s billion.
Kenney, MP for Calgary Southeast, made sure to point out that the money was “the single largest federal infrastructure investment” in the history of Calgary.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi was ecstatic. He has been lobbying the federal government to up the ante for public transit for a long time — about four years to be exact.
With an election less than three months away, the announcement was an obvious play for votes. But Nenshi accepted the injection of money without a disparaging word.
“It’s an extraordinary investment and it will change the face of this city forever,” he said, while city and federal politicians posed for photos on the Bow River escarpment with downtown office towers glinting in the background.
Kenney dismissed the timing as “irrelevant.”
But Kent Hehr, the Liberal candidate in Calgary Centre who according to some polls is running well ahead of Conservative MP Joan Crockatt, said the notion that the timing is a coincidence is “absurd” given how long Calgary has been asking for federal support for public transit.
The Conservatives were also showering money on local community groups. According to the Calgary Herald, qualifying associations had only a month to apply for a funding program that was part of a $46-million Western Diversification initiative. And even though the money — such as the $45,000 given to the Lake Bonavista Community Association in Calgary for upgrading its suburban facility — won’t arrive until next year, Conservative MPs are busy making the announcements this summer.
While Jason Kenney was buttering up Calgary voters, Harper travelled to British Columbia and Saskatchewan and did his best to look concerned about the forest fires raging there.
Near Kelowna, B.C., he and Premier Christy Clark and their entourages dropped in on a crew working hard to contain a fire. But not everyone was impressed. According to one local publication, Harper interrupted firefighting efforts for a five-minute photo-op that took over an hour to arrange. And after all that, he made only vague statements about what the federal government might do when it came to sharing the costs of firefighting.
According to a recent poll by Insights West commissioned by the Dogwood Initiative, an environmental NGO, the Conservatives are struggling to maintain their footing in some key Vancouverarea seats. According to the poll, three Conservative incumbents who had garnered over 42 per cent of the vote in the last election were trailing at 25 per cent. In a new riding, just south of where Harper dropped in on the forest fire, 44 per cent of voters opted for the NDP.
Harper and the Conservatives may have better luck in Saskatchewan and that’s where the prime minister headed next.
He and Premier Brad Wall flew up north to the La Ronge area where forest fires have forced people to evacuate their homes. They shook hands with firefighters for the standard photo-op and then went back to Regina where Harper announced he would not be making any more appointments to the scandalridden Senate.
This was his way of placating westerners who have been demanding Senate reform for decades.
Harper not only lost that battle long ago but made the Senate worse by appointing party flacks and hangers-on who happily slurped up taxpayers’ money to promote the Conservative party.
The Harper gang has no qualms about spending the public’s money to buy loyalty and votes.
But they don’t look quite so triumphant in their western stronghold as they used to.