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Tom Bateman - Week Three Grades

Political Parties

Bloc Quebecois

The Bloc has been sending mixed signals about its willingness to cooperate with a Conservative government. One the one hand, Gilles Duceppe has expressed interest in pragmatic cooperation, while at the same time piling up the conditions for those important Quebec MPs’ votes in the House. Those votes will be expensive indeed for the Conservatives and will only heighten the frustration of people in the rest of Canada who voted for the Conservatives’ because of their disgust at Liberal pandering to Quebec. Duceppe’s plan seems to be: extract maximum benefits for Quebec from the federal government. Hold the gun to the head of a minority government in order to get the loot. Pull the trigger if necessary.

On the other hand, there is the implacable logic of a sovereigntist party at work. A party seeking the separation of Quebec from Canada has no interest in making a federal government work, making Parliament work, or making Canada work. Its true interest is in institutional failure in Ottawa; this will help make the case for independence. One Bloc MP supported this interpretation of the Bloc’s raison d’etre when he was asked if the Bloc hopes for a Conservative win on June 28. Yves Rocheleau, Bloc MP for Trios-Riviere, replied: "Honestly, I think so. To make people think. To demonstrate what René Lévesque called the impossible Canada. Canada is a madhouse. It's a country that cannot be administered, in my opinion." It’s the old Marxist logic applied to nationalism: enhance the contradictions, increase the misery, bring on the revolution.

The Bloc has run a good campaign to date but this matter of making Canada work for Quebec versus making Canada fail reveals an incoherence at the heart of the Bloc’s reason for being in the House of Commons. Admittedly, this inconsistency is more a problem for the Bloc’s partisan counterparts in the House than it is for the Bloc itself.

Conservative Party

Of the major parties, the Conservatives have run the tightest campaign, stressing the message of Liberal waste and corruption. Some candidates have been dogged by allegations of “far right” and “extremist” views on abortion, gay rights, and so forth, but such attacks on the Conservative party appear to have little traction to date. Tory leader Harper has stated that a government under his leadership will not legislate to criminalize abortion or remove sexual orientation from the list of identifiable groups protected from the wilful promotion of hatred. And on the matter of same-sex marriage, there is precious little any government can do. Harper’s promise to put the matter to a free vote in the Commons is politic but pointless. The courts own this one. Pundits and campaign opponents have largely missed the larger issue of Supreme Court appointments and what stamp a Conservative government will put on the high court if it has a chance to fill two vacancies. This is something to which Harper has made passing reference.

While Paul Martin’s efforts to wrap the Liberal party in the Canadian flag was justly criticized by Stephen Harper, Harper nonetheless will be judged on the basis of his ability to rebut arguments that his party and its policies are somehow out of step with accepted Canadian values. His relations with the media are all-important in this regard. And the liberal media are increasingly out to get him.

Harper may begin to suffer from the poison pill of high expectations. People are asking what a Harper government would look like. The Conservatives’ are increasingly vulnerable on the mathematics of their economic platform. For a fiscally conservative party, it is odd that its spending plans are double those of the Liberals’. And the Tories’ tax cut promises are hard to square with their own commitment to balanced budgets. If elected, even with a majority, he will be unable to implement the campaign platform.

Liberal Party

Paul Martin was away from the campaign for several days, trying to appear statesman-like in Europe and the United States. This has had no apparent positive effect at home. He knew before calling the election that he would have to be away this last week and assumed, too glibly, that his presence on the world stage would only enhance his electoral appeal. (He could not have anticipated Ronald Reagan’s death and indeed did not attend the funeral for the former President last Friday.)

In his absence, internal Liberal recriminations flared. Chretien loyalist Herb Dhaliwal said that what we are seeing “is really a meltdown in the Liberal party.” Carolyn Parrish, a sitting MP running for re-election in Mississauga-Erindale, referred to the campaign as a “comedy of errors.” These are not the upbeat, on-message developments likely to cement the confidence of Canadians or Liberal activists and voters. Are they designed to kick-start a wayward campaign? Maybe, but they look at the moment like candid admissions of pending defeat.

The Liberals even suffered from the recent Conservative malady of party member defection. Senator Ann Cools – a longstanding Trudeauphile but otherwise unreliable as a Liberal hack in the Senate – quit the party and pledged support for the Conservatives.

Expectations for the Liberals have sunk. Perhaps with the bar set low, Martin can clear it and rally some support as we head to the home stretch.

New Democratic Party

After three weeks, the NDP may have hit its high water mark in the mid to high teens of voter support. Its campaign will probably consolidate support in areas where it is already strong, which in the Canadian electoral system produces an inefficient distribution of votes. Jack Layton has stamped out early impressions among some that he is a flaky urbanite who loves the camera, but he remains burdened by the deeply held impression that the federal NDP cannot be trusted with the management of the Canadian economy.

The Green Party

Grade: B+

The Greens continue to benefit from favourable free media attention. Journalist increasingly pay attention to its candidates, especially those in B.C., where the Greens are doing well. Green candidates wear suits and cut off their ponytails on TV. Green goes mainstream. They enjoy a double advantage: exotic enough to attract favourable attention, but obscure enough to avoid hard, critical assessments. It is likely that the Greens are benefitting from the networks’ embarrassment resulting from failing to include the Green leader in the televised leaders debates. In compensation for the exclusion, the networks are probably giving some free exposure to the Greens.

A BC trial court decision declaring unconstitutional a section of the Elections Act prohibiting the broadcast in BC of results from other parts of Canada before BC polls close has led Elections Canada to declare the section inoperative throughout the country. This means that most Canadians, especially westerners, and most especially British Columbians, will have the benefit of knowledge of how eastern Canada will have voted before casting their own ballot. British Columbians will possibly have a prominence in this campaign they have not previously enjoyed. Depending on the results, many British Columbians will decide that a vote for the Greens may make no difference to the balance of power in the Commons and can be an appropriate shot across the bow of all traditional parties. British Columbians like to think this way.

Past Political Party Grades

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