Two weeks ago I reported
on the upcoming June 28 Canadian election, and predicted that there
would be a Liberal minority government, with the NDP holding the
balance of power. Since then, groupthink has taken hold, and the anger
that many Canadians feel about the incompetence of the federal Liberals
to detect either wasteful spending or the 'sponsorship' fraud by some
government workers, plus the anger of many Ontarians about the new
Provincial Liberal government's reneging on promises to avoid tax
increases, has led another 8% of Canadians to vow not to re-elect them.
This 8% swing has been predominantly older men
in Ontario, who seem unwilling to believe that the Conservatives are as
right-wing as Liberal Prime Minister Martin has portrayed them, and
younger people, whose support for the Green Party has significantly
increased.
The province-by-province projections now stand as follows -- 155 of the 308 seats are needed for a majority:
|
Liberal
|
Conservative
|
NDP
|
Green
|
Bloc Québecois
|
West - 95 seats
|
27 (28%)
|
55 (40%)
|
13 (22%)
|
0 (10%)
|
|
Ontario - 106
|
48 (35%)
|
51 (38%)
|
7 (21%)
|
0 (6%)
|
|
Québec - 75
|
15 (30%)
|
0 (10%)
|
0 (8%)
|
0 (2%)
|
60 (50%)
|
Atlantic - 32
|
17 (36%)
|
11 (32%)
|
4 (26%)
|
0 (6%)
|
|
Total - 308 seats
|
107 (32%)
|
117 (33%)
|
24 (18%)
|
0 (6%)
|
60 (11%)
|
Next week we'll hear the all-important leader debates, but they are
likely to change nothing. The Conservatives are muzzling their own
right-wing extremists, who are virulently anti-abortion, gay-hating,
anti-gun control, anti-immigation, pro closer ties with the US,
anti-Kyoto accord, and militaristic (Stephen Harper, the new
Conservative leader and former head of a Western separatist party,
wanted Canada in the Iraq war). The Conservative strategists are
determined to portray Harper as a moderate, despite the fact that he is
on record as having taken right-wing positions on many social, economic
and environmental position. If this sounds a lot like Dubya, and the
spin doctor white-washing of his extremism reminds you of
'compassionate conservatism' in 2000, it should, because the tactics
are the same -- say anything to get elected, and then trot out the real agenda of the people who paid for the campaign.
But it's even more frightening than that. Small-c conservatives make up
only 30% of Canadians, and the capital-c Conservatives are already
above that point, with some of their voters coming from angry liberals.
But if the figures above don't change, the Conservatives will get 38%
of the seats with 33% of the vote. And the Bloc Québecois, the Québec
separatist party that runs candidates only in that province, will get
19% of the seats with only 11% of the vote. Add them together and you
get a distortion almost identical to what happened in the US in 2000,
where Dubya 'won' with only 46% of the popular vote. If the
Conservatives and Bloc combine their seats in a strange-bedfellows
anti-federalist coalition, they'll have 57% of the seats with only 44%
of the votes, while liberal-centrist parties will have only 43% of the
seats, even though they will have received 56% of the votes. There is
no other coalition that would have enough seats to form a government.
Problem is, this coalition won't hold for more than a few months. The
Bloc is a left-wing, Francophone party, liberal on all social, economic
and environmental issues. The Conservatives have diametrically-opposed
views on every issue but one: their dislike of federalism. The cost of
Bloc support would be to grant Québec limited sovereignty, kind of
'independence light'. The very idea of this is repugnant to core
Western Conservatives. And the Bloc has already said that it would not
support any Conservative government that tried to recriminalize
abortion, and has made it clear that it would not tolerate abandoning
Canada's support for the Kyoto Accord, or anti-gay laws, both of which
are bedrock principles of the Western Conservatives. And Ontario
Conservatives would quickly cross the floor to the Liberals to save
their political skin if the Bush-style right-wing social agenda of the
Western Conservatives was trotted out.
The role of the media in the final two weeks of the campaign will be
interesting. Conservative media are likely to present Harper as the
'heir-apparent', the surprise winner and a fresh new face for Canada.
Liberal media will be torn over whether to simply relate the campaign
stories as they are spun out by the parties, or to go behind the scenes
and surface what Harper has said, in writing, in past, on many issues
he is now trying to paint himself as moderate on. The current Liberal
campaign has attempted to do just that, but it has backfired, being
portrayed as negative 'US-style' electioneering, sour grapes or
desperation politics, so the liberal media could be subject to similar
admonishments if they get proccupied with the 'secret agenda' of the
Conservatives. But media being what they are, expect Harper, the new
frontrunner, to face increasing heat over unanswered questions from his
decidedly non-moderate past. Not to mention some of his decidedly wacko
neophyte candidates.
So what do I think will happen? The Conservatives will win a small
plurality, and have to either form a coalition with, or try to manage
with the tacit support of, the Bloc Québecois. Paul Martin will resign
right after the election, and the Liberals will choose a new leader not
tainted by the recent scandals. The Conservatives will start to
self-destruct right after the election, with hard-line right-wingers
expelled or resigning, and moderates crossing the floor to the
Liberals, especially after it selects a new leader. The new government
will last 3-6 months, accomplish nothing, and fall when the Bloc
Québecois withdraws its support. Then we'll have another election, and
perhaps even a third, until the 70% of Canadians with
moderate-to-liberal social and political views get a government they
can live with.
Ontario and Québec have 60% of Canada's population, and no party has
ever successfully governed the country without healthy support from
both provinces. Stephen Harper is on record as opposing bilingualism,
although he is now waffling on what his precise position on this is,
which makes him unelectable in Québec. And his previously stated
positions on many other issues
will, if they become widely known, make him unelectable anywhere. It's
going to be messy, and stay that way for quite awhile. And if the
Martin Liberals hadn't been so politically stupid, it could all have
been avoided.
Cartoon by Tom Cheney -- buy his stuff at Cartoon Bank.
|
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