Federal Election Fall 2010: It Sounds Right to Me

HarperCAISI’m increasingly thinking we could be having a federal election early this fall.  If there is one thing that politicians can understand it’s the “real numbers”.  In other words, they can read the polls and with the Conservatives insisting on shooting themselves in the foot every couple of months, their popularity has shrunk in some polls to 29%.  For the opposition parties, that is like blood to the vampire.

The local races in southwestern Ontario got a bit more interesting this past week when the Liberal candidate for Chatham-Kent Essex stepped aside.  So as far as I know there is no Liberal candidate in that riding or the neighboring riding of Lambton Kent Middlesex.   So we can expect some fresh faces to challenge the incumbent Conservative MPs.

In southwestern Ontario, the agriculture industry dominates the landscape.  With the recent recession taking its toll on the auto industry, the business of farming is increasingly the number one industry in southern Ontario.  The farm vote is tiny, but the differences is they all vote and when pressed, the farm population will mobilize en masse.  So if you want to win a rural riding in southwestern Ontario, it’s best to appeal to a farm audience.

Generally speaking, the southwestern Ontario farm economy is healthy compared to years past.  The high Canadian dollar has certainly challenged many aspects of livestock production but grain markets have remained buoyant.  This compared to the difficult times during the 2006 election means the farm community might not be as mobilized for the next election.

29% in the polls doesn’t give anybody a majority government.  The difficult part for the opposition parties is their support is spread out over the rest of English Canada.  When you take 50 seats from Quebec out of the equation and with the Green party support at 10% across Canada, no majority government is probable.  So in many ways an election in the fall is an endgame, with no winner.  However, getting our politicians to understand that when they smell blood is an endgame too.

The Liberal strategy should be to stand still and watch the Conservatives implode.  I’m not saying the Conservatives have a tendency to implode, but they surely like to take unnecessary risks, which I talked about recently in this column.  At a certain point, it will catch up with them and if the Liberals are smart they will take advantage.

Needless to say, we shouldn’t assume that all our political thinkers are smart.  For instance, do you remember the “carbon tax”, the mantra of the last Liberal campaign.  That was like spraying every voter with raid when liberal candidates knocked on doors.  The carbon tax didn’t sound good, didn’t look good and couldn’t be understood.  However, somebody in the Liberal party thought it would work.  The rest as they say is history, the Liberals got beat down and they’re still trying to get up.

The same thing happens in Ontario provincial politics.  Last election all John Tory and his Progressive Conservatives had to do was watch Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty and his Liberals implode.  Instead, they promised public funding to faith-based schools, effectively destroying their chances before they said hello.  I’m sure Dalton McGuinty and his merry band of Liberals couldn’t believe their luck.  All they had to do was stand aside and by default be the only reasonable option.

The sad part about all this is some candidates lose out because of some bonehead decision made at head office.  I have known many people who have run for office who would’ve been great as an MP or MPP.  Sometimes it’s all about timing and chance.  They are often wrong on the timing through no fault of their own.

In the next election it would not surprise me if it’s the last for both Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff.  If either political leader loses, there gone.  I expect Jack Layton to put up a great fight but I’m sure his health issues will determine his future.  Bloc leader Gillies Duceppe will probably come away with 50 seats out of Quebec, keeping the impossible dream alive.   At the end of the day there will be another minority.

In the rural southwestern Ontario ridings, Liberal candidates will jaw with Conservatives over Stephen Harper’s commitment to “scrap the CAIS program” said on a Chatham-Kent farm during the last election campaign in December 2005.  That program is the bane of farmers in Southwest Ontario.   Today in 2010, its still here despite those words, renamed Agristability.  All the Liberals have to do is tell the story and sit back.

What will happen?  I dunno, but I’m sure somebody will feel statesmanlike and start ad-libbing their own make-believe policies.   The polls will sway every which way.  I think it will be this fall.   I also think none of it will make much of a difference.