Two days into the campaign, and controversy already.
Pity poor Mr. Harper. No matter what he says, no matter what he does, there's a CBC flunky there to discredit him. No wonder the man looks so angry all the time...
Kim Campbell, the astute and intelligent woman selected to be the Mulroney fall girl, said something very telling during her one and only campaign: that "an election is no time to discuss serious issues". She was crucified without wood or nails for saying so, and yet truer words have rarely passed anyone's lips in Canadian political history.
Fresh out of the gate, and the Liberals are jumping for joy because Harper brought up same-sex marriage. Merely mentioning the words 'same-sex marriage' on the hustings is political suicide if you're Conservative. Because if the words so much as leak out, a Liberal will enlist the services of their trusted organ, the CBC, to stomp all over you and call you an ideologue, a right wing homophobe, and worse...if indeed there is a worse insult, as far as the CBC is concerned.
What did Harper say? He said that if he was elected Prime Minister, he would hold a free vote in the Commons on the definition of marriage. If that free vote passed, he would proceed with repealing the Liberals' same-sex marriage bill, although all same-sex couples already married would stay that way. If the free vote failed, he would drop the issue.
Yikes. A "free vote". That sounds scary, doesn't it? It's not the accepted Liberal way of doing things. In Liberal Canada, you vote with da boss or you get turfed out on your ear. Harper is suggesting that his MPs would be free to vote their consciences, or express the views of their constituents.
Double yikes! Express the views of constituents? But what if they're not, you know, "our type"? We can't have that!
Look, Harper had to bring up same-sex marriage, and quickly. He knows it's an Achilles heel, and the best thing to do with those in politics is to acknowledge them right up front, before your opponents get a chance to define them for you. Also, he's got a core constituency that doesn't like gay marriage and he really shouldn't alienate them unless he has to.
And he doesn't have to here. Unless the Conservatives win an overwhelming majority--which won't happen unless everything east of Thunder Bay is vaporized--same-sex marriage is safe. It will survive any vote, free or otherwise. So this is a sop to the folks who are against same-sex marriage. Some of them are even Liberals, although you'll never hear that on the CBC.
Many people--supporters and detractors alike--feel that a free vote in the Commons is how the same-sex marriage issue should have been handled all along. The Supreme Court itself almost came out and said that very thing. (I disagree with them: I don't think human rights--and I consider marriage a right--should be subject to the whims of any group of politicians.) That said, there are enough people out there who disagree with me...there must be something to their position.
Anyway, Harper may be against gay marriage. But he has more respect for Parliament than both Martin and Chretien ever had.
Stephen's next move (and this one was telegraphed months ago) was to announce that if elected, he'd cut the GST by one percentage point immediately, and another in five years. Of course, the same CBC that railed against Mulroney's tax and glossed over several Liberal promises to scrap it was suddenly the hated tax's strongest ally. They interviewed several economists who suggested the GST was a very good, efficient form of taxation and that Harper would be better served by cutting income taxes instead. Other economists disagreed, but their words were buried way down in the story where many people wouldn't read them. To tell the truth, I'm surprised they were there at all. Expect further CBC announcements soon concerning how much it would cost to reduce the GST by one point (too much), how little effect it will have on your pocketbook (too little), and how Stephen Harper is an ideologue and a right-wing fascist. Or something worse, if they can think it up. If Stephen Harper turned water into wine on national television, he'd be accused of being an alcoholic.
Regardless of its purported intelligence or lack of it, this promise will earn Harper some votes. It also gives him a chance to corner the Liberals on their broken promise to scrap the GST. Politically, a good move.
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Gilles Duceppe has riled everyone up by suggesting that his Quebec would field teams separate from Canada's at world events. (An equipe du hockey du Quebec could possibly medal in Vancouver in 2010! What a surreal image that makes!) Martin scoffed, predictably, though it's hard to understand why. It's actually good for everyone to see that a vote for the BQ means a vote for separation.
Another in the neverendum series of referendums is a near certainty in Quebec within three years--thanks in no small part to the Martin/Chretien Liberals. Not at all certain is how it would go this time. This is another of those serious issues that will be flitted around with empty rhetoric for the next seven weeks.
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I'm just waiting for somebody to mention health care...yet another serious issue. The Supreme Court has ruled that our public health care system constitutes a grave risk to security of the person--if you've spent any time dealing with it lately, surely you'd agree. But the only acceptable solution is to keep shovelling money into it...and that solution only seems to be making the problem worse. (For the love of all that's sacred, don't say the words "health care" and "private" or "parallel" or "alternative" in the same week.)
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Martin's running on his economic record. What a hoot that is. There are exactly three reasons Canada's economy is ticking along so well since the mid-90s. One is NAFTA. Softwood lumber aside, the trade agreement has been very good for Canada--even the unions who hated the prospect have warmed up to it. The second is, of all things, the GST, which replaced the "silent job-killer" Manufacturers' Sales Tax. Both these things had nothing to do with Martin or his predecessor. The third thing is explicitly Martin's doing: he downloaded a tonne of responsibilities to the provinces, who in turn offloaded them on to municipalities. This allowed positively obscene federal surpluses, which Martin keeps in his underwear drawer until election time, when, in true Librano style, he attempts to buy votes with them.) Cries of "but there's only one taxpayer!" went unheeded.
Two days in, and this campaign is already too ugly by half. Considering that the outcome will be another minority government, it makes you wonder how these people plan to work together come January 24.
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