While Conservative leader Stephen Harper continues to predict a majority Tory government come June 28th, and as pundits speculate
as to who in the Tory caucus might be appointed to cabinet posts in a Conservative government, the polls still show that this election is a dead heat, and that neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives are poised to form a majority government in 11 short days.
VanRamblings agrees with CTV’s Tom Clark when he reported on CTV News tonight that “for a leader who campaigns against Liberal arrogance this sort of talk (Harper’s assertion that he will form a majority government) may be risky. The last time that Stephen Harper talked openly about a majority government, he got his knuckles rapped by his own advisors. ‘Too arrogant’, they said. Well, it still may be, especially if the next set of polls don’t reflect a Tory majority, because failing to meet expectations could take a lot of steam out of (the Conservative party’s perceived) momentum.”
Counting votes before they’ve been cast must be seen as the first major misstep by Harper in an otherwise pristine campaign for government. How will Canadians react to Harper’s arrogant assumption of a majority Conservative government. VanRamblings is willing to wager: not well.
Harper’s Numbers Don’t Add Up
You’d think it would make eminent sense to Canadians when Prime Minister Martin stated in the debates the other night that a Tory government couldn’t possibly cut taxes and spend $90 billion on health care and re-arming the military, and not somehow have to make fundamental cuts to social programmes, or take Canada into the kind of reeling debt and deficit of the last era of Tory government. So far, though, it’s not a message that’s resonated with Canadians.
Is the desire of Canadians for change so great that we’re willing to give the Tories a blank chequebook, and damn the consequences to the economy?

“To say we can deliver more tax cuts and still meet our obligations (such as pensions and health care), other programmes inevitably will have to be cut back substantially,” Warren Jestin, chief economist with Scotiabank, said in an interview with the Toronto Star today … “I get very concerned . . . we’ve seen it before when there are big tax and spending promises — inevitably, something has to give.”

A similar message came in new Liberal TV ads (not available on the web as of this writing) that warn voters that Harper’s plans will produce the kinds of deficits recorded under former Ontario Mike Harris and former Tory Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (for good measure, he should have thrown in the name of British Columbia premier Gordon Campbell, as well).
A second study conducted by the C.D. Howe Institute, a non-partisan think-tank, also critiqued the Conservative tax proposal, saying that Canadians should debate the choices they must make between health spending and tax cuts.

“For Canada to maintain the same system with lower taxes, Ottawa would have to reduce spending in other areas, and the choices would not be easy,” said the report co-authored by Jack Mintz, a noted tax expert. “It would certainly be hard to cut taxes and spend more on health care if … efficiencies in public services cannot be achieved.”

Conservatives insist that Harper’s $58-billion election platform can be achieved without cuts to programmes by trimming fat. Yet Harper’s plan has raised many eyebrows among private-sector economists. Last week some warned that Harper can achieve his goals only by reducing spending — which some analysts favour — or risk deficits.
Why Social Issues Create Tensions In Tory Ranks
Frances Bula, writing in today’s Vancouver Sun interviewed a number of British Columbia political analysts about why the Conservatives are so vulnerable on social issues, an area where the Conservative party is potentially most out of sync with the majority of Canadians. The Conservatives’ social agenda has also been the source of most of the tension within the party between the members of the old Alliance and the old Progressive Conservative party.
David Laycock, of Simon Fraser University, and Reg Whitaker, a University of Victoria professor, told Bula that this gap and this tension have led to certain tactical and strategic moves on the part of Stephen Harper. In particular, his attempt to quell dissent within the party ranks and keep social issues off the agenda: “They understand you can’t elect a right-wing party in Canada with a socially conservative agenda at the forefront.”
Yet, that’s what we’re gonna get come June 28th — a socially regressive government out of step with the wishes of most Canadians. And why is it, that a substantial number of Canadians are planning to vote for the Tories?

Although VanRamblings will post, at some point later this evening, our usual wrap-up of important election events of the day — following, of course, a long, enjoyable, sun-dappled walk along the pristine, west coast beaches of Jericho, Locarno, and Spanish Banks — we’ll leave you with the following to consider on this beautiful late spring day …
The Greens are right, right?

Green leader Jim Harris

From the outset, VanRamblings has experienced serious misgivings about Green Party leader Jim Harris, his ties to the former Progressive Conservative party, the pro-market policies the Greens have developed under his leadership, and the Green commitment to ‘smaller government’ — which would bring about the kind of massive downsizing in the public sector that has been experienced in recent years in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Nova Scotia.
A reactionary rather than a progressive party, the Greens under Jim Harris have little or nothing to do with the progressive European Green movement — a movement which rose organically out of the work of radical political groups across Europe — and much more to do with the worst excesses of the Reform / Alliance / ‘new’ Conservative movement in Canada.
In an article published in the Globe and Mail yesterday, Murray Dobbin, a rabbler (that’s the progressive web site rabble.ca) and author of Paul Martin: CEO for Canada? paints the Greens as Tories in disguise — pro free markets, smaller government, lower taxes, the lot.
The Green’s fiscal policy, he writes, could have been drafted by Bay Street. Rather than eliminate poverty they opt for the Band-Aid of more food banks. They want to raise property taxes — one of the most regressive taxes. And apply budget surpluses to debt reduction rather than social programmes.

“The party is to the right of all the major parties, which are now committing billions for spending on social programmes,” Dobbin writes. Citing the Greens’ preferred reliance on community groups rather than government to clean up the environment, Dobbin concludes: “These are not the actions of a government committed to using its mandated power to actually protect the environment.”

By the way, the Sierra Club and Greenpeace this week each give the NDP slightly higher marks than the Greens on environmental protection.

The English language leaders’ debate complete, the leaders of the five major parties in the federal election are back on the campaign trail, as the countdown to a new government in Canada recommences.
In respect of the English-language leaders’ debate last evening, from the vantage point of VanRamblings, the debate was a clear win for Prime Minister Paul Martin. As the Toronto Star’s Chantel Hébert writes, in a column headlined PM injects life into flagging campaign, “If last night’s leaders’ debate disposed of anything, it may be the already slim prospect of a Conservative majority government emerging from the June 28 election.”
During the course of the two-hour live television debate before Canadians, only Prime Minister Martin possessed the ability to enunciate a clear vision for Canada. Martin’s grasp of domestic and foreign affairs, his willingness to stand up for Canada on the world stage, his desire for fiscal prudence tempered by the need he articulated for the role of government in providing social programmes for young families and the elderly, as well as providing for increased funding to strengthen the public health care system, all of this and more provide cogent evidence that Martin is the only candidate among the five federal party leaders who is able to take Canada through the early part of this century towards the creation of a more just society.
While Conservative leader Stephen Harper hung back, barely more than a phantom afterthought in the campaign debate, constantly biting his bottom lip like an errant schoolboy; while New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton yapped and yammered at Martin like a grade school boy jealous of the facility with which his Liberal counterpart was able to command the stage; and while Bloc Québécois leader played obsequious friend of the NDP, and paradoxical potential coalition partner to the right-leaning Conservatives, only Prime Minister Martin articulated a consistent humanitarian vision for the Canada of which we are all so proud.
How it is that Harper continues to predict a Tory majority in the face of one of the most mealy-mouthed debate performances Canadians have had the poor fortune to witness, is quite beyond VanRamblings? How it is that the Reform/Alliance Conservative leader believes, as he suggested in a speech to Conservatives gathered in Niagara Falls, Ontario this morning that his party has wrapped up a federal election win simply beggars belief.
For his part, Martin seems reinvigorated by his solid performance in both the French and English language debates, and as the election heads into the stretch run, the Prime Minister has set about to reinforce the gains he made over the past two nights by reminding Canadians of the fact that …

“It was a Liberal government that created Medicare. And our Liberal government will preserve it. We will ensure our health care system is sustainable. By making it our No. 1 priority, we will fix it for a generation.”
“We believe that Canadians want shorter waiting times more than they want aircraft carriers. We believe that Canadians want their governments to make it a national priority to bring down waiting times, to bring them down substantially and bring them down for good.”
“I give you my word: I will bring the same energy, drive and determination to tackling waiting times for health care that I did to eliminating the deficit. I’m here to tell you it can be done.”

VanRamblings finds it difficult not to agree with Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente, when she writes …

I hate explaining Canadian politics to my American friends. “Things are going pretty well up here,” I tell them. “The economy is booming. Everyone is glad we stayed out of the mess in Iraq. The separatist threat has died right down. Most people are pretty content with the government’s policies, and they think our new Prime Minister’s a very decent guy. So what we’re going to do is throw him out and elect a guy we don’t know much about who wants to fundamentally overhaul our country.”

When you have prominent ex-Tories switching sides and supporting the Liberals, when the mayors of the major cities across Canada — where 80% of Canadians live — express very serious concern about the Conservative agenda for cities, when commentators express concern about the Conservative agenda for Canada’s system of justice, their utter lack of an arts policy, their articulated policies of intolerance and division, and Harper’s whole, untrustworthy demeanour as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you have to ask yourself, “Why are Canadians even considering electing the Reform / Alliance Conservatives to a first term in government?”
For insight into Stephen Harper’s policies, as well as important 2004 federal election news events, click on VanRamblings’ full Decision Canada coverage.

The single most heartening, and the single most forthright, statement I’ve heard made since the federal election began more than three weeks ago occurred at an all-candidates meeting at the University of British Columbia on Monday.
At a boisterous question and answer session, attended by Liberal MP Stephen Owen, and three other candidates contesting the Vancouver Quadra riding, Owen drew the loudest cheers when he warned students about allowing men to interfere with a woman’s right to choose on whether to have an abortion, saying that a Liberal government would never allow a free parliamentary vote on whether a woman should have a right to choose.

“Since 88 per cent of the MPs in Parliament are men, a so-called free vote would result in men deciding one of the most important human rights issues for women,” Owen said. “That is unacceptable and our party would not support it.”

The three other candidates gave the kind of politically-correct answers you’d expect of a politician.
The NDP candidate, David Askew, said: “All votes on human rights issues should be along party lines.” Conservative candidate and former British Columbia Social Credit cabinet minister Stephen Rogers defended the free vote system, supported by his party and leader Stephen Harper.
“I believe free votes are a good thing to do,” Rogers said.
And, Green party candidate Doug Warkentin said he believed a party should take a position on all votes.
Men and women fighting side by side — over the course of these past 30 years and more — to achieve the goal of self-determination for women, for our wives, our sisters, and our daughters, and the three comments made above by candidates Askew, Rogers and Warkentin is the best that these political aspirants could come up with? None of these three deserve office.
Full coverage of Decision Canada events, and a reflection on last night’s leadership debate will be posted later today.