Conservatives

On Tuesday, November 4, 2008 the Democratic Party managed to shatter the coalition that Karl Rove had hoped would create a permanent Republican majority in Washington. Rove’s strategy was to energize the Christian Conservative base while fracturing the opposition with “wedge issues” such as gun control, gay marriage, and abortion.

Stephen Harper has ambitions of creating a permanent Conservative majority in Ottawa. His strategy is very different from Rove’s. He essentially hopes to recreate the Mulroney coalition by holding grassroots Western support, winning over Québecois soft nationalists, and splitting Ontario and the Atlantic region with the Liberals and NDP. What lessons can the Liberal Party learn from the Democratic victory that might help them return to power?

Another election, another debate (in each official language), several million dollars, and we’re right where we started. The cynics among us may ask, what was the point of all this? 

Looking at the seat totals will tell you that not much has changed in the House of Commons. The tories and NDP are a little stronger, the grits and the Bloc are a little weaker, the Greens are still absent. We still have a Conservative minority government. But in many ways the “status quo” (more or less) tells us a great deal about each party and how voters feel about them.

Yesterday, in a desperate effort to stop worrying about the prospect of a Conservative majority, I went for run along the waterfront in Hoboken, New Jersey. Perhaps it was the foul odour of the Hudson River, or the intense rhythm of “Eye of the Tiger” blaring from my IPod, but I just couldn’t rid my mind of these thoughts. Harper was haunting me — what would he do with the power of a majority government?

As I ran some stairs at the Stevens Institute, my thoughts turned to the death penalty. Now I’m not going to argue that Harper will bring back the death penalty in Canada; he’s too savvy to do something so provocative.

Instead, Harper will exploit executive power to implement a pro-capital punishment policy, particularly in the context of foreign affairs. He’ll do it through the backdoor and most Canadians won’t even notice. By the time they do, Canada’s decades-old opposition to capital punishment will be reduced to hypocrisy. Let’s call this plan Death by Stealth.

Thank you, Elizabeth May. Thank you for being the only leader in last night’s debate to say unequivocally that overall crime rates — including violent crime rates — have been falling for decades and there’s absolutely no justification for adopting policies that violate the Charter rights of young offenders.

According to Statistics Canada, violent crime has been in decline since the mid-1970s. Violent crime rates in Canada’s biggest cities are also falling. And, on a per capita basis, Toronto had fewer homicides than Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Calgary.

But aren’t gun crimes going up? Nope. The rate of violent crime involving a firearm has been stable for the last 4 years. In fact, knives and clubs are more than three times as likely as guns to be used in the commission of a violent crime. 

I decided to cap off this past summer with a trip to Vancouver, BC to see a couple of recently graduated friends. If you have friends who live there, Vancouver is a great city to travel cheap. The best attractions — beaches, Grouse Mountain, Stanley Park — are accessible on foot and free of charge if you’re willing to walk. I did a lot of walking while I was in Vancouver.

One of the places I went isn’t your typical tourist destination. Insite is a facility where drug users can inject heroin using clean needles under the supervision of medical staff that can provide emergency care in cases of overdose. There is also a rehab center upstairs that addicts are encouraged to use. I wasn’t able to tour the entire facility while it was in use, but one of the doctors was kind enough to take a few minutes to explain the basics of the program to my friend and me.

Am I the only one who thinks the federal election campaign is about nothing? While nothing makes for hilarious sitcoms, it’s horrifying during an election campaign, particularly for progressives. With the prospect of a Conservative majority, we desperately need a meaningful and vigorous debate about the future of our country. But, as I found out, some progressive parties aren’t interested in talking about the issues.

In a desperate attempt to prove that this campaign is about something, I analyzed each of the parties’ news releases posted since the beginning of the campaign.

Canadian actors have mounted a campaign against Stephen Harper’s approach to cultural policy. But Quebec artists have been more effective on this issue. By focusing on the troubling philosophy behind the government’s positions, and highlighting its potential repercussions, they have given voters a compelling reason to think twice before voting Conservative.

Last night, some of the province’s biggest names held a free concert in Montreal, where a full-length version of a satirical video blasting Harper’s handling of the arts was unveiled.