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COMMENTARY
December 14, 2005
Steady as she sinks
Ah! the winter crispness to which I have returned after spending the first leg of the general election campaign on a cruise ship floating about in the Caribbean. I was not idling, however, for this was the first annual Western Standard cruise, and I had never before in my life spent seven successive days in such intimate company with nearly all of Canada’s rightwing sages and pundits.And the heart of the journey was “panel discussions” -- on Canadian election predictions, Canadian foreign policy, alienation in the Canadian West, fiscal conservatism in Canada, social conservatism in Canada, Canadian trends in the law. It doesn’t get more enthralling than that. Your correspondent now considers himself brought up to speed, the full 20 knots through the Drake Passage. But I was hoping to come home and find we were having another election up here, not the last one over again. The Conservatives have once again bet the farm on caution. The Liberals and their innumerable footpoodles in the media already have Ontario buzzing about Harper’s “secret agenda”. If I could believe for a moment the Conservatives had a secret agenda, I would feel better about voting for them. One of my cruise mates, Kate McMillan, whose Small Dead Animals blog from Saskatchewan is simply the best thing we have in electronic print, had a delicious idea for something a man like Stephen Harper would never think of doing. It was to call his tour bus “The Hidden Agenda”, and have done with it. Instead, five goals behind as the period starts, he goes out to play defensive hockey. We have reasons not to vote Liberal in this election. I mean, not just me. At least 57 percent of the electorate, according to polls, would like to see them crucified. And not all the remaining 43 percent can be on the take. It is hard to imagine, under the present circumstances, how the Liberals could be ahead in any province. But here is the rub. In addition to wanting one party out, the people must want another party in. That is where the Conservatives persist in letting us down. They will not give us a reason to vote for them. They have nothing to offer that is distinguishable in principle from what the Liberals offer. This leaves inexperience as their “unique selling point”. I am truly unexcited. Westerners blame Ontario for refusing to accept any party that has a Western base. There is something in that, but not what appears. The truth is that Ontario has been demographically altered so rapidly and to such a degree, that it is no longer the same province that elected Mike Harris, as recently as 1999. And yet a huge, still basically WASP, semi-rural Ontario continues to exist out there, and continues to share precisely the same ethos and outlook as Alberta -- minus the will to live. I believe the “tipping point” that was reached, after decades of weighting the Ontario electorate with “new Canadians”, has had its effect on the old Ontarians, too. They no longer think of themselves as “maîtres chez nous”. (Go ahead: call me Jacques Parizeau.) By contrast, Albertans still feel themselves a majority in their own province, exuberantly capable of assimilating outsiders, rather than apologizing for their own existence. That is why they are capable of being angry with Ottawa -- because Ottawa is trying to take things away from them that they still feel they own. Things ranging across a broad spectrum from oil revenues, to the definition of marriage, to standards of honesty and decency in public life. Old Ontarians feel in their hearts that what was taken is gone. Even many among those who despise the Liberals, assume they can do a better job of governing the sort of country they have created. Besides, Albertans are now paying three to five times per capita what Ontarians pay in transfers towards the welfare provinces, and we are being promised more of it back. With continuing relative economic decline, we may soon be a net beneficiary of Liberal largesse. And with oil prices soaring, we’ll be looking to our share in the next NEP-style rape of Alberta. This is why Harper’s Conservative campaign of small promises and constant awkward reassurances is such a loser. It cannot hope to win anyone over. But it is too late to change, for an edgier campaign, full of positive ideas, would have required many months of bold preparation. On the face of things now, I expect a Liberal majority. The Conservatives will lose most of the seats they gained in Ontario last time out, and a few more to a livelier NDP in Saskatchewan and B.C. The Liberals will fight back to about where they were or better in Quebec, once it is clear they are going to win nationally. Big question: Can the Conservatives retain their status as Official Opposition? David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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