Take Me To Your Leader

Recent events have shown luck to be against Conservative political parties in 2 instances.

The first instance relates to Manitoba. Manitoba Conservative Party Leader Stuart Murray announced that he doesn't intend to stay on. This after a convention where he received 55% of the vote, a vote that had been called for by some party members unhappy with his leadership. He had enough to stay on, but had hoped for a stronger showing, so he called a leadership convention. It's too early to start guessing who will replace him, but his departure should help the party, even though their chances of winning the next provincial election after having spent their energy on choosing a new leader are slim. Murray became the leader shortly after Filmon's government was defeated. Listening to him speak, the issue that I saw as being foremost on his mind was tax cuts. People won't say no to a chance to keep more money if you give them one, yet they also have other concerns. Will I have health care when I need it? Can I afford to go to university this year? How are my elderly parents going to be looked after? In addition, the Doer government has implemented tax cuts in most, if not all of its provincial budgets. So Murray's main issue is that the government should be doing what it's already doing? But back to the leadership. If the Conservatives can find a leader who can speak to the concerns of the people of Manitoba, they will once again be a credible force in Manitoba politics.

Now I'll shift gears to the federal scene. Picture this. You're the opposition leader. You are opposing a minority government, it's been in power for over a decade, this government has failed to capture the imagination of the public, and is now the subject of a corruption inquiry, the report having just been released. Naturally, you'd be laughing your way to forming the government, right?

Not if your name is Stephen Harper. A recent poll places the Liberals ahead of the Conservatives, despite the recent release of the Gomery report. An earlier post-Gomery poll had the Conservatives ahead of the Liberals, but the Liberals rebounded so quickly it's almost as if the Conservatives hadn't led. This isn't the first time the Liberals rebounded in a poll: they rebounded last spring, and they rebounded in the last federal election. It's a long-standing pattern of every time the Conservatives tie or overtake the Liberals in public opinion, their support plummets very shortly. Some supporters believe this to be a rejection by Ontario voters of Alberta politics, and can't understand why Ontarians condone corruption.

The issue isn't a matter of Alberta against Ontario. And the support for the Liberals is not support for the corruption we've seen either. The issue is that many Canadians, although not enthusiastic about the Liberals, have a deep fear about what a Conservative government would mean for Canada, and it's this fear that causes Canadians to support the Liberals over the Conservatives. Lesser of 2 evils is how many people see it. And when the Conservatives hammer the corruption issue, the response many have is, "yeah, well all politicians are corrupt." Asking someone to vote for you because the other person is bad is negative campaigning and cynical. The problem is not the Canadian (or Ontarian, for that matter) voting public, it's the Conservative Party, and some self-reflection would be in order if the Conservatives wish to move out of perpetual opposition.