Jack Layton chooses not to hear the sound of his voice
There's strange vibrations in the little world of Peace Tower politics
Jeffrey Simpson
Tuesday, Sep. 15, 2009
Something weird is happening when NDP Leader Jack Layton, who has never failed to fall in love with a microphone, refuses to speak into one.
Yesterday, however, Mr. Layton read a two-paragraph statement after Question Period, then turned heels on the media and left their microphones at a loss for his words. Jack Layton refusing to answer questions? To hear the sound of his own voice? Weird, even unprecedented.
But, then, strange vibrations are emanating from the little world of Peace Tower politics, as all parties face the prospect of an election Canadians do not want, and one that carries severe risks, certainly for the Liberals and the NDP.
For years, the New Democrats have been berating the Harper Conservatives, while chiding the Liberals periodically and unmercifully for propping up the government. The NDP even has a list of the number of times the Liberals voted with the government.
This voting record proves, according to the NDP's orthodoxy, that the Liberals are carbon-copy Conservatives, lacking spine, principle and all things desirable in politicians. Since hell hath no fury mightier than NDP sanctimony, the party's denunciations of the perfidious Liberals have been predictably fierce.
Yet, what have we here? All of a sudden, the NDP, faced with the prospect of an election – and the possibility (probability) of losing seats – is sounding conciliatory and sniffing around for a possible deal with those awful Conservatives, the very strategy for which the NDP gleefully excoriated the Liberals month after month after month. No wonder the voluble Mr. Layton suddenly grew quiet.
The focus of Mr. Layton's two-paragraph statement was an unemployment insurance change announced by the Conservatives. It was a bone compared with the whole body of reforms sought by the New Democrats, yet they snapped it up, calling it a “step in the right direction.” The party quickly added: “There is much more that needs to be done as well,” as if to say our support really can be bought – not for money, of course, but with some modest additional changes.
Yesterday, too, Mr. Layton was back on the NDP line that the party wants a minority Parliament to work – which is not what the party has consistently wanted in voting against almost everything the government has proposed. Parliament works, in the NDP's world, when the government does what the NDP wants, but it doesn't work when the government pays little heed. Such is the hubris of the small.
The Conservatives are playing coy: sticking to the script that they don't want an election and being determined to work on the economy – which means raining spending announcements on every corner of Canada.
They don't want to be seen doing anything that leads to an election. They would much rather the Liberals or the NDP or the Bloc Québécois, or all three, carry that can. Heaven forbid, the Conservatives are saying, that we would call an unnecessary election – which is exactly what Stephen Harper did in 2008. Heaven forbid, too, that the Conservatives would vote against a Liberal no-confidence motion only to find themselves kept in office by the NDP, whom a senior Conservative minister recently described as a bunch of left-wing ideologues who only drink their own Kool-Aid.
Principles, then as now, are for garbing the pursuit of political self-interest, as in the NDP's tentative desire to roll over for the government. The NDP doesn't want an election because it needs more time to raise money, some of its seats would be in danger and it can see looming the party's ultimate nightmare, a Conservative majority.
The trouble for all the parties is that their hyper-partisanship has led each to make dreadful statements about the other, to draw lines in the political sands, to carry on in ways that make compromise awkward and political face-saving difficult.
If the Conservatives devoutly wished to avoid the election that the Liberals have threatened by withdrawing support, they would negotiate one or two little deals with the NDP and carry on.
But then the Conservatives would be having a political affair with the “socialists,” as Mr. Harper recently called them, and would forgo their secret wish – rolling over both the Liberals and the NDP en route to a majority.
Calling the election
By Andrew Cohen, Citizen Special
September 15, 2009
After a summer of threats, cries and laments, the politicians have returned to Ottawa promising more of the same. Let the games begin.
There will be an election this autumn only because the myopic political class wants one. Like the outbreak of the First World War, the principals have set in train events that they cannot control, with consequences they cannot foresee.
Those who confidently predict that things will stay the same underestimate the fatigue of the electorate. They ignore the impact of a fourth election in five years, the alienation that it will foster and the opportunity it will create for the smartest party.
Here are four ways the campaign of 2009 could play out:
A Conservative minority.
The government, trying to gain an upper hand, engineers its own defeat in Parliament at the earliest opportunity. It immediately blames the Liberals. It makes much of the election itself, an argument that would usually cut no ice. After all, as historians note, the country has had two elections in two years (1925, 1926; 1957, 1958; 1962, 1963; 1979, 1980), two elections in three years (1972, 1974) and three elections in four years (1962, 1963, 1965).
But four in five years? Never! The Conservatives argue that the election costs $300 million and will endanger the fragile economic recovery.
But as the campaign goes on, this argument wanes. Canadians don't like an election but that isn't enough to make them vote Conservative any more than they did in 2008. The Conservatives lose half their 10 seats in Quebec, some in B.C., and make modest gains in Ontario.
The Conservatives paint Michael Ignatieff as aloof, elitist and opportunistic. He offers few new ideas and attracts few star candidates. His organization is shallow and his staff is inexperienced. There are gaffes and missteps aplenty, but the party is saved by its brand.
Voter turnout falls to a new low, especially among young Canadians, but hard-core Conservatives, identified by the party's sophisticated tracking system, turn out. Organization makes the difference for the Conservatives.
A Liberal minority.
The Liberals succeed in explaining why they are different from the Conservatives and why this seemingly unnecessary election is pivotal to the country's future. In his first campaign as leader, Michael Ignatieff performs beyond expectations. He is disciplined, focused and charming. He points out that he has sat in the House longer than Pierre Trudeau or Brian Mulroney had when they became prime minister, and presents his international experience as an asset. Amid withering attack ads, his intelligence shines, especially in the debates.
The Liberals win 15 more seats in Quebec and retake ridings in Ontario. The combination of Conservative losses in suburban Toronto and Liberal gains outside Montreal make the difference; the country has returned to its "natural governing party."
A Conservative majority.
The Conservatives run a superb campaign. Stephen Harper, running for the fourth time as leader, persuades Canadians that he isn't so scary after all. He argues that the country cannot afford minority government. He says it has made Canada "dysfunctional." He repeats his call that the opposition and their "little coalition" must "be taught a lesson."
Meanwhile, Ignatieff stumbles. Like Edward Kennedy running for president in 1980, Ignatieff cannot articulate why he wants the top job. His stamina wanes, his nerves fray, his impatience shows.
Canadians have had enough. Persuaded that the Conservatives are better economic managers, cheered by their tax cuts, unafraid of "a secret agenda," they vote blue, especially in Ontario.
Curiously, though, the Conservatives lose all but one of their seats in Quebec. Here they make history: never has a party won a majority without a substantial showing in Quebec -- or with as little share of the popular vote. The election leaves a fragmented Canada.
For Harper, after nearly losing power last December to the coalition, he has redeemed himself. His long march to a majority is complete; he is the master strategist, after all.
A Liberal majority.
The Liberals differentiate themselves from the Conservatives. They present a compelling vision of a country of ambition, at home and abroad. They unveil plans for inspiring national projects, such as high-speed rail.
Atlantic Canada votes massively for the Liberals. The NDP vote collapses in Ontario and British Columbia, going Liberal. But the big news is Quebec, where Québécois warm to the cerebral, cosmopolitan Ignatieff. Leaving the Bloc Québécois and its humourless leader, they give the Liberals 20 more seats.
Ignatieff erases doubts about his aptitude and appetite for politics. His is the most improbable ascent in Canadian political history. He's no longer just visiting; he's here to stay, as prime minister of Canada.
Andrew Cohen is president of The Historica-Dominion Institute. E-mail: andrewzcohen@yahoo.ca
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
E.R. Campbell said:Here, from today’s Ottawa Citizen, is an interesting bit of speculation by Andrew Cohen:
http://www.carleton.ca/jmc/facultystaff/cohen.html
I place Cohen’s four scenarios in this order of probability:
1. Highest: Conservative minority;
2. High: Conservative majority;
3. Low: Liberal minority; and
4. So low as to be laughable: Liberal majority.
See, also, here; another Conservative minority – with a slightly enlarged Liberal opposition, is the most likely outcome but a razor thin Conservative majority is within the realm of possibility if three conditions described by Cohen obtain:
1. The Conservatives run a superb campaign;
2. Ignatieff stumbles; and
3. Canada are persuaded that the Conservatives are better economic managers.
No need for PM to capitulate
Don Martin, National Post
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Don Martin: [Stephen Harper] has the winning conditions now -- and he knows his opponents are off balance, underfunded and unprepared to argue the justification for yet another campaign.
The dynamic has suddenly changed in the standoff paralyzing the House of Commons as it returns to confront endless fall election speculation.
The suspense is no longer which party will prevent the government from falling. That would be the New Democrats, in full white-flag mode yesterday as Employment Insurance reforms were released that they will undoubtedly support.
The better question is whether this Conservative government even wants to be saved from a campaign.
With a latest Ipsos-Reid poll for Canwest putting Conservative support in near-majority territory and the public appetite to end the annual minority government collapse starting to grow into a vote-defining consideration, there's no incentive for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to capitulate or compromise to avoid a campaign showdown.
He has the winning conditions now -- and he knows his opponents are off balance, underfunded and unprepared to argue the justification for yet another campaign before election-adverse voters.
NDP leader Jack Layton, languishing at 12% in this poll, could not have looked more uncomfortable if he had been wearing a dirty diaper as he tried to rally his troops ahead of the Commons comeback.
Charging into a committee room configured into an election rally format with MPs and staff lined up as a backdrop, he vowed to fight an election if necessary. A few hours later, however, it no longer sounded necessary when he pledged to play nice in the Conservative sandbox -- subject to change without notice.
Which brings us to the serenely confident Stephen Harper, who fended off questions yesterday with spontaneous zingers.
Over and over he repeated how determined his government was to avoid an election, even while sizing up his opponents with the calculated look of a hungry lion eyeing a limping gazelle.
What's even more encouraging for Mr. Harper was the speech and hapless Question Period performance of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, which suggests a curious lack of strategic acumen for a party poised to fight a critical election.
Mr. Ignatieff's speech on the world and Canada's diminished role in it, sprinkled with repeated references to his diplomat father, was so sleepy the Canadian Club crowd delivered an extremely tepid standing ovation started by his own MPs.
Imagine entering a week potentially leading to an election by demanding: a return to Team Canada junkets to China, a G20 secretariat, Arctic community dialogues, more peacekeeping blue helmets and fewer combat fatigues.
A global affairs lecture from a politician who is open to criticism for being a foreign Canadian most of his adult life? It defies belief.
The challenge for Mr. Harper now is to find a way to trigger an election without appearing to be the culprit. To be seen as precipitating the vote by devious means would deny him the high ground of being the guy who tried to make Parliament work, albeit on his terms, against an irrational opposition trio.
He also needs to give the New Democrats just enough credibility to prevent their vote from collapsing toward the Liberals. If Mr. Layton's 12% support dips further into single digits, seats would likely gravitate toward Mr. Ignatieff 's party.
That's why the Employment Insurance issue is a perfect fit with Conservative strategy.
It will deliver targeted help to laid-off Ontario workers in the manufacturing heartland -- a province where Conservatives hold a 10-point lead and need seat gains to offset potential losses in Quebec.
If the Conservatives can sell themselves as the victims of an unpopular campaign, receive political credit for a recovering economy and keep the Liberals focussed on inexplicable big vision and worldly affairs issues, well, their majority mandate is not beyond reach.
Their secret agenda, then, is electoral not ideological. The key to winning any fall election is to pretend they don't want it.
It's warped thinking, but that's become normal behaviour on Parliament Hill.
dmartin@nationalpost.com
PM's horror stories might not pay off
Chantal Hébert
MONTREAL—The mathematics of a Conservative campaign based on the spectre of a post-election unholy alliance between separatists, socialists and the federal Liberals does not easily add up to a majority.
There are no guarantees such a campaign would result in a decisive Conservative victory and many reasons to doubt that it would or, at least, not without exacerbating tensions on the unity front.
In the heat of last year's parliamentary crisis, the prospect of a Liberal-NDP coalition designed to govern with the support of the Bloc Québécois briefly propelled the Conservatives into majority territory.
But rekindling those passions in the hope of channelling widespread fatigue with short-lived minority Parliaments into a Conservative majority could be a lose-lose game both for the Prime Minister and the fractious country he seeks to continue to govern.
Each of the ingredients of last year's coalition mix played a part in its rejection by the public, but some are no longer operative while others are hardly as viral as the Conservative rhetoric makes them out to be.
The fact that Stéphane Dion would have become prime minister was certainly a big minus for the coalition. He had just been rejected by a massive majority of voters, including almost a million Liberals who opted to stay home on voting day. On the competence scale, Dion simply was not seen to stack up to Stephen Harper.
A year later, though, many disenfranchised Liberals have come back to the fold. Lost in the shuffle of polls that show Michael Ignatieff's popularity plummeting is the fact that the rookie leader's overall score is actually within range of Harper's, a two-time winner and tested incumbent.
The fear of more so-called socialist input into Canada's governance may give the Conservative base an extra reason to mobilize. It may even resonate in some quarters of Ontario, where lingering Rae-days memories die hard.
But it is a bit of a stretch to assume that the potential of more NDP influence on the next federal government is a source of universal trepidation at a time when Harper has just reached into New Democrat ranks to appoint Manitoba's Gary Doer as his envoy to Washington and the NDP is basking in the afterglow of winning power in Nova Scotia.
That leaves the Bloc Québécois, a separatist bogeyman whose irritant potential often cuts across party lines outside Quebec. But using that bogeyman to spook voters into supporting his party could be a zero-sum game for Harper.
For the other by-product of last year's fiery anti-separatist Conservative rhetoric was a massive rejection of the party in Quebec. There, Harper's spin on the coalition was widely seen as Quebec-bashing. That sense was not exclusive to francophone nationalists.
A Conservative party analysis obtained by Le Devoir reveals that if an election had been held last month, the government could have expected to lose at least six of its 10 Quebec seats.
There has been a modest rebound over the past few weeks. But stirring the embers of last year's crisis over a full-fledged campaign would scorch the Quebec earth for the Conservatives for the next election and probably beyond.
Harper is currently 12 seats shy of a majority but that presumes he also hangs on to all the seats he already holds, including the 10 in Quebec.
If he does take the road of a demonizing fear campaign to a majority, the Prime Minister will in essence be asking voters in the rest of Canada to reward him for taking a wrecking ball to his party's bridges to the province of Quebec.
Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Is majority possible?
Andrew Steele
There is a growing theory that a majority is not possible for Stephen Harper in this election because his argument against a Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition will undermine him in Quebec.
Chantal Hebert puts forth the idea with insight and verve here.
But turning the Conservatives from the provincialist party to the Canadian nationalist party is hardly a losing proposition.
In the days after the last election, I argued that this was exactly the strategy they should pursue to create a durable Conservative Party of Canada. The alternative, the Mulroney alliance of Western So-Cons, Ontario Fiscal-Cons and Quebec nationalists was always doomed to be a boom and bust alternative to the Liberals, rather than the natural governing party of Canada.
“If [the Conservatives] are to build a durable coalition, they must adjust their position on the National Question either in Quebec or outside it. Theoretically, Mr. Harper could attempt to mimic the Liberal coalition by moving both sets of supporters closer to the middle ground. But the Tories' base in English Canada is large, powerful and unlikely to moderate on this fundamental question.
The surer course is to capture the federalist pole from the Liberals in Quebec. This might mean fewer seats in Quebec in the short-term, but it would form a solid intellectual foundation that could be maintained for generations. This position would have coherence - pro-Canada in both Quebec and the rest of the country - as opposed to being contradictory, like the existing coalition of 'francophones and Francophobes.'”
Mr. Harper didn’t read the above and say “Eureka!” Rather, he fell into this strategy during the Coalition Crisis when he was forced to hammer the “separatist” button to survive. Astonished by the popular support that surged against the coalition proposal, Mr. Harper realized the power of nationalism.
Let’s recall, the polls after the crisis demonstrate how miserably unpopular the idea of a Liberal-NDP coalition with support from the Bloc was.
Harper could make a single argument in the looming election of “Harper or the Separatists (or sometimes Socialists)” in an attempt to polarize the electorate and goose the Conservative vote in English Canada.
Mr. Ignatieff has taken some strong steps to inoculate himself to this charge, but it remains to be seen if any type of inoculation will work. Clearly, the Conservative party is not taking yes for an answer, running ads charging Mr. Ignatieff of plotting a “reckless coalition” despite his pleas of innocence.
Generally speaking, this strategy is reminiscent of Dalton McGuinty’s polarization strategy around religious school funding. It is an attempt to turn the election from a referendum on the government or a multiplicity of issues into a single ballot question of “Harper or the Separatists and their Liberal-NDP allies.”
Harper could hammer the point again and again and again until it’s the only thing people are talking about. It should drown out issues like the deficit, Afghanistan or the economy where there is a broad consensus that no party wants to take a risky position outside rhetorical generalities. If executed properly, it could force Ignatieff and Layton completely on the defensive in English Canada.
The polling taken immediately after the coalition crisis showed a huge swing to the Conservatives. If they can replicate that swing in part or in whole, there is a major opening for the Conservatives to flip seats to their column.
Let’s consider how that kind of strategy might play out in English Canada first.
First, we will make the assumption that the Conservatives will lose no English Canadian seats with this strategy. This may be false. Conservative-held Ontario seats with a significant francophone population like Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry could be in trouble if the “anti-Separatist” rhetoric moves to “anti-Quebec” and then “anti-French” in perception.
However, I will try to balance this with the broad assumption that Conservatives will not beat Liberal incumbents in Toronto, using this strategy or any other. Ontario was second to Alberta in opposition to the coalition, so it’s not impossible to conceive of a seat like Don Valley West or Scarborough Southwest shifting, albeit really unlikely.
So where is movement possible?
The fact is that the NDP are hitting above their weight currently, and are the party with the most vulnerable new incumbents for the Conservatives to target.
Northern Ontario has six vulnerable NDP MPs, Southern Ontario has two and British Columbia another five. A polarization strategy based on anti-separatist rhetoric may work very well to push these seats away from the NDP and toward the Conservatives. The fine people of Welland, Thunder Bay and Burnaby are not known for their abiding love of Gilles Duceppe. If the Conservatives can run the table and supplant the NDP in these swing seats, they are up 12.
The Liberals have a few vulnerable incumbents in B.C. as well. British Columbia has always had a strained relationship with “over the mountains” and should respond well to this messaging. In addition, there are some loose fish in Ontario that could come to the Conservatives in such a scenario, although it will be tougher than the NDP seats. Let’s say another 5 are low-hanging fruit and then it gets pretty tough.
Atlantic Canada has almost no fertile ground for the Conservatives, with this strategy or another. There might be one or two seats here and there, but the coalition crisis did not create the sudden shift in public opinion in the East it did in Ontario and the West. There is the possibility of a mass swing to the Conservatives drawing along some opposition seats here, but short of that there little to count on.
The sum from English Canada appears to be the potential to be up around 15 or a maximum of 20.
The question for Quebec is how serious the blowback will be against Harper.
For that, we can consult the polling taken at the time of the Coalition Crisis. While the coalition was an unpopular idea for about 60 per cent of Canadians, a majority of Quebecers did support the idea.
However, almost 30 per cent in Quebec did not support the coalition.
The high water mark for the Conservatives in Quebec was 2006, when they received 24.6 per cent of the vote.
Certainly, the coalition crisis and the Conservative response had an immediately and negative impact on the Conservative vote in the province. But it was not a demolition. Harper retained support levels around 15 per cent in Quebec.
It’s notable that Harper retained his ten seats in Quebec in 2008, despite losing about 3 per cent of the vote (24.6 per cent down to 21.7 per cent) from his 2006 high.
There is a long-established trend in Quebec to note the government choice of English Canada and then throw their weight in whole or in part behind that choice to have a voice in government.
Richard Johnston, in Letting the People Decide, notes the existence of two somewhat contradictory claims about Quebeckers' political behaviour. The first is that the party will hew to one party over all the others despite what the rest of the country is doing. This was the Liberals before 1984, the Conservatives in 1984 and 1988, and the Bloc Quebecois since.
The other is that Quebec monitors the situation in the rest of the country and follow them. “As a national minority living under a Westminster-style single-party majority-government system, francophone Quebec cannot afford the luxury of being in opposition. They must identify the party most likely to form the government and support it. Sometimes their support can make the difference between a minority and a majority government.”
His longitudinal study of the 1988 elections shows that part of the Quebec electorate was indeed waiting to see which way the rest of Canada would go.
So it is reasonable to expect that Quebec will continue to do what it has done throughout history: cleave to one party – currently the Bloc – to create a large block of Quebec seats that can be used to defend and promote Quebec’s interests.
It is also reasonable to expect that there is a segment of Quebec voters who will run to power, likely found in the same places where Quebecers ran to power in 2006 and 2008, namely the 10 seats they hold.
It is not a sure thing that Harper would be wiped out in Quebec for running an anti-separatist campaign. If Harper comes out of English Canada clearly positioned to form another government, he may be able to appeal to enough Quebecers wishing to back the winner to hold some of his Quebec seats and form a majority.
Old Sweat said:A local radio station is repeating a CP report that the Bloc has announced that it will support the ways and means motion on Friday. That means that the government will not be defeated. My question is what does the NDP do, support the EI changes or indicate a lack of confidence in the government?
E.R. Campbell said:If I - a card carrying dues paying Tory - was Taliban Jack Layton, I would vote against the government, saying "Too little, too late!" because I do not want to giveIggyIcarus any chance to tar me as a Harper sympathizer.
Old Sweat said:That was my first reaction, but then I wondered if there was not an advantage to isolating the Liberals as the only ones who voted against the EI improvements and the other goodies. The trouble with trying to predict what politicians will do is that their thought processes are way out of sync with those of normal humanoids.