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Tom Bateman - Week Two Grades

Political Parties
B	B+	C	C

Bloc Quebecois

Steady so far, but the BQ must worry about some of the softness in its poll numbers. Is the Bloc afraid of separation? Why was one of its candidates reprimanded for talking about it so bluntly? The Liberals are gaining a bit.

Conservative Party

The Conservatives are trying to become a hybrid Canadian political party: a principled brokerage alternative to the Liberals. It is part of the Canadian political condition that a contending party feels the imperative to soften its ideological edges and assemble an electoral coalition of disparate groups and regions to get close to 40% of the popular vote. When it does so, it becomes indistinguishable from the incumbent party. In response, it emphasizes vague slogans like trust and leadership and often fronts the particular qualities of its leader. Unfortunately, Stephen Harper continues to be hard to sell.

So the Conservatives rely on their principles too. No wonder they are caught in contradictions and policy flip-flops: if principles are to be brokered for electoral success, those principles are not essential to the party’s identity. We get some principled differences between the Liberals and Conservatives. Day care funding comes readily to mind. Here the Conservatives are true to their principles. They seek to put money in the hands of people to spend as they wish, while they accuse Liberals of paternalism. On other issues, the Tories are tweedledum: seniors policy is an example.

Tory TV spots are a dud. The polls are not moving. The Tories have among the most inefficient voter support distributions so far. The gun issue will not help even a little. They need votes in Ontario, not Alberta.

Liberal Party

At the risk of focusing to much on Toronto, I think the Etobicoke-Lakeshore bust-up over Michael Ignatieff’s nomination is the best confirmation yet that little has changed in this party. Jean Augustine got pushed aside first by a constituency executive election coup; then she was encouraged to move on so Ignatieff could be parachuted in. (Watch for a parachute of her own so that Augustine can land in an embassy, a harbour commission, or some multicultural policy agency.) In a refreshing example of local democratic fiestiness, the constituency association made a fuss and caused Augustine to make a remark that equals anything coming from the mouth of an old Alberta Reformer. Once the Ukrainian community took over the constituency executive and then objected to Ignatieff’s candidacy, Augustine was reported in the Globe and Mail as saying that on one side of the room were all the Ukrainians acting a bloc, and on the other were “Canadians.” My, my, my.... Why the Conservatives failed to capitalize on this is a mystery.

This aside, the Liberals are staying calm and cool. Clearly they expect the votes to come to them, if necessary from the NDP and from the BQ. When they announce a “new” gun control policy they appear not to have to worry about how this recalls the boondoggle Gun Registration regime already in place. At this point, they appear to enjoy massive voter tolerance for errors of the past.

On the up-side, Martin is looking prime ministerial, and the polls reflect this.

New Democratic Party

Already the NDP is being squeezed in the strategic voting vice. It has been a dispiriting week for the New Democrats and their leader has not helped matters by flip-flopping on major issues like the Clarity Act.

Past Political Party Grades

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