The prayers of the 70% of Canadians who wish to see the back end of the most mean-spirited government in Canadian history are, daily, being answered as Stephen Harper’s nasty and inept Conservative party lurches from one misstep, blunder and scandal to another, offering solace to all those in Canada with a beating heart, and a dedication to social justice.
Over the course of the 78-day election campaign — the longest campaign for government in modern Canadian history — from campaign’s outset on August 2nd, until now, Stephen Harper and his federal Conservative party have found themselves, day after day, “knocked off message”. Defeat is in the cards for the Tories as, according to the polls, their popularity continues to plummet, from a high of 39% in the 2011 federal election to, at present, 24% -26%, depending on the poll (Forum Research has the Tories at 24%, Nanos registers the Tories at 26%, a drop of five points).
For political pundits, as well as for many Canadians across our land, the months leading up to Canada’s 42nd national election are best remembered as a series of Conservative-created “events”, mainly focusing on …
1. The never-ending roll out of ads — all paid for at Canadian taxpayer expense, just shy of $1 billion expended on those ads by the Tories, each ad extolling the virtues of various programmes brought in by the Tory government, lauding as well the halycon days that would follow the re-election of Stephen Harper’s hide-in-plain sight Conservative government, where the Tories set about to advertise programmes that hadn’t even passed Parliament prior to the calling of the election;
2. Conservative party largesse — once again, paid out of the pockets of Canadian taxpayers — as Conservative Ministers of the Crown fanned out across the country (surprise, surprise, all paid for by Canadians) promising billions of dollars in expenditure on infrastructure programmes, in every region of our nation — mind you, spending destined only for federal ridings held by the Tories, or ridings where the Stephen Harper Conservatives felt they had a fighting chance at picking up a seat that might propel them back into government.
Stephen Harper’s plan for permanent hegemony on the Canadian political scene seemed so on track in the early halcyon days of 2015, until the Prime Minister decided to call the election, fifty-three days earlier than usual. And, boy oh boy, did the wheels then start to come off the Tory party bus.
The first weeks of Campaign 2015, Stephen Harper had a near impossible time getting his message out as the Ottawa-based Mike Duffy trial consumed media and public attention, none of the revelations emerging from the trial reflecting favourably upon Stephen Harper, as 75% of Canadians told pollsters they thought the Prime Minister was lying about what he knew, when he knew it, and whether or not the Prime Minister’s Office was involved in a cover-up. Can you say the word, “scandal”?
Next it was the drip, drip, drip of a Canadian economy on the wane, Canada the only G7 country experiencing a recession, with 8 of 15 sectors of the economy experiencing a significant downturn, the dollar plummeting to levels not seen in a generation, the Canadian unemployment rate up, and despite Stephen Harper’s imprecations to the contrary, a multi-billion dollar deficit on the horizon (a deficit that would only be exacerbated by the billions in expenditures promised by the Tories in the lead up to the election) — no matter who forms government post election day, Oct. 19th.
And just as Stephen Harper was attempting a campaign recovery from the hourly and myriad reports of a Canadian economy in dire straits, and a Mike Duffy Senate scandal that said, “That Stephen Harper government, they’re a secretive bunch, and y’know what, they seem like a pretty darn corrupt bunch, too”, three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body washed up off the shores of Turkey, the nephew of Coquitlam-resident and Syrian emigré, Tima Kurdi — Stephen Harper’s response to the tragedy just as inhumane as you’d expect from him, every word out of his mouth spin, every word meant to engender fear of “the other”, making Canada and Canadians appear as mean as he and his government have proven to be since 2006.
Finally, on Monday, the Peegate / UrineTrouble / Pleasuring Himself on YouTube dual scandal of two high-profile Toronto Tory candidates, Jerry Bance caught on camera in the kitchen peeing into the coffee cup of a future constituent, Tim Dutaud posting videos of his harassing women, not to mention demeaning the developmentally disabled.
The wheels are off the Conservative campaign bus, the Tories in freefall.
Some 70% of Canadians (that percentage rising with each passing day) saying they’ll vote anybody but Harper and the Conservatives in 2015, with 43% of British Columbians who voted Tory in 2011 saying they’ll park their vote anywhere else in 2015, with one Tory “scandal” after another emerging each new day of Campaign 2015, in 41 short days from now we can all finally say good riddance to the meanest, most anti-Canadian people government in Canada’s relatively short 154-year history. Hallelujah!
