Friday, September 05, 2008

Ten Reasons Harper Is Calling the Election Now

1. By-elections: Four by-elections are supposed to be held in September but will be cancelled if Harper calls the election on Sunday, as predicted. Tories were predicted to do badly in the by-elections (as bad as third place in Guelph), which would have weakened them considerably.

2. Economy: The economy continues to weaken and is possibly heading into recession.

3. Diminishing Support in Quebec: Harper did a lot to bring Quebec on side, but his recent cuts in arts funding may have started a slide, according to Chantal Hebert.

4. Scandal: Elections Canada announced that Conservatives exceeded the $18.3 million election advertising limit in the 2006 election and wrongly claimed taxpayer rebates. It is charged that they laundered money between local and federal accounts. This will go to the courts, but not until after the election.

5. A second scandal: Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier flagrantly broke the rules about confidentiality, apparently frequently, but finally by leaving important NATO documents in the care of a woman who has ties to organized crime. There is going to be some kind of inquiry but again, not until after the election.

6. A third scandal: There are disturbing allegations that Conservatives tried to buy dying Chuck Cadman's vote in parliament. New revelations came out just this week pointing at Harper's direct involvement.

7. A fourth scandal: Sometime soon, presumably, we will finally get our inquiry into how much money Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney got from international arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber, and under what circumstances. We may even learn a little about how Harper managed to cover up, or at least delay, the investigation.

8. Failed military policy: The war in Afghanistan is going really badly. It was one thing to go in initially to try to stabilize the country. Now Canadian soldiers and dying and Afghan civilians are dying and it's not clear that we're making any progress at all. There are also disturbing questions about the real motivation of the American involvement.

9. November US election: An Obama win in the United States will strengthen the momentum of progressives here.

10. PR strategy: After papering the nation for six or eight months with negative, scaremongering anti-Dion ads, the Conservatives apparently feel the groundwork is laid for them to "go positive" with touch-feely "at home in my mansion" ads featuring that ballpeen hammer of a charmer, Stephen Harper. (I caught the first one on TV last night.)

And a final reason... Every new opposition leader has a learning curve (someone did an historical analysis and estimated three years before they're fully effective) but Stephane Dion is coming into his own; with Bob Rae now in parliament, the Liberals are becoming more of a threat to Harper.

If you have more, please let me know!

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stealth changes to food inspection is likely to be responsible for death of many Canadians.

Anonymous said...

Although they reduced the GST by 2% they never said where they were going to replace the money from.

The governmnt is going after the small business owner and the individual to try to recoup tax dollars last by the GST reduction.

Anonymous said...

Although they reduced the GST by 2% they never said where they were going to replace the money from.

The governmnt is going after the small business owner and the individual to try to recoup tax dollars last by the GST reduction.

Dante said...

Other than those things, things are going rather well.

Provincial funding is not being choked off so publicly funded medicare might still have a chance, protesters aren't being throttled or pepper sprayed, money isn't being stolen, billions aren't being flushed down the toilet for white elephants like the gun registry, canoe museums are being built in the prime minister's riding, money isn't being lent to Inns adjacent to golfcourses partly owned by the prime minister, the country is't on the verge of breaking apart, big business can't buy a political party anymore, taxes are down and Montreal strippers have some job security now that the Romanian ones can't come here anymore.

Anonymous said...

PC pundits’ (and maybe PC voters’) predictions are indicative of Harper’s belief that the time is right for them to return with a majority. A majority would enable them to move forward with the fear-mongering tactics they have been using around crime in Canada. The self-fulfilling prophesy that happens with massive investment in the correctional industry is at the expense of more constructive and much needed economic and social policy. The experience of hopelessness and despair results in people making ends meet through criminal means. Harper and his crew are working toward a mandate to ignore the desperate life situations of those in Canada who are increasingly impoverished. The Harper agenda for this country feels less and less like Canada.
Mindea.