Harper is on guard for thee, but the instability contagion is spreading!

Be on watch, patriotic Canadians! There is a sinister danger lurking in our gentle land, an evil scourge that threatens our economy, our jobs, our economic recovery, even our families and our very way of life. What is this evil plague, you ask? Is it gingivitis? Well, that’s bad too, but no, I’m talking about: Instability!!

Yes, I know, it’s frightening, but it’s true. Instability has taken root in our land and is spreading. No one is safe. You, or your little dog Toto, could be next. Thankfully, we’re lucky enough to have a glorious leader in Stephen Harper with the foresight and bold vision to recognize this growing threat. And he is waging the battle against instability for you, Joe and Jane Canadian!

He recognized the growing threat of instability as far back as this summer, when the possibility of an election that would send Canadians to the polls to vote for their elected representatives threatened to give instability a beachhead into our democratic system:

"We do not need another round of political instability and another round of elections — we need parliament to focus on the economy," Harper said in Adstock, Que., as he announced a $225-million project to expand high-speed internet to rural areas across Canada.

Yes, our leader Stephen Harper had the foresight to know an election would give oxygen to the embers of instability and allow its flickering flames to burn our nascent recovery in the fiery fires of even more instability, but a kind that burned people and stuff.

NO! He declared, you stay away from Parliament, you dreaded instability! We need Parliament working, passing legislation, focusing on the economy, we need Parliament doing its work and not getting all unstable, and what not!

In September, seeing the instability still advancing, the Prime Minister launched another counterattack: get back, instability, we need Parliament on the job!

“The fact of the matter is that Canadians do not want an election, Canada does not need an election and an election is not in this country's best interest. We have important economic measures before Parliament. All the parties in Parliament should be focused on those measures and on the economy. The Leader of the Opposition should focus on our country's best interests.”
– Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Hansard, September 14, 2009.

Despite his valiant efforts though, instability proved to be a tenacious adversary. Despite Harper’s defences, and the ordering of plenty of instability vaccine, even if it arrived rather late, the instability was insidious and, rather than triggering an election, the instability mutated, and began to infect Parliament itself.

Instability, in our Parliament! We did not make this up! We’re not allowed to make this up.

Faced with this threat of instability in the very cradle of our democracy, with the infection beginning in the toe and spreading slowly up the leg, like a surgeon Stephen Harper had no choice but to do what he had to do to stop the spread of instability before it became life-threatening: cut off the foot.

"As soon as Parliament comes back, we're in a minority Parliament situation and the first thing that happens is a vote of confidence and there will be votes of confidence and election speculation for every single week after that for the rest of the year. That's the kind of instability I think that markets are actually worried about. But you know the government will be well-prepared and I think Canadians want to see us focus on the economy."

You see, he had no choice but amputation, er, prorogation! Yes, it was vitally important that we had Parliament on the job back in July to focus on the economy, that’s true. But that was before the instability infection had spread to Parliament. Now it had to be prorogued, for the good of the economy and Tim Horton’s and Hockey Night in Canada, before the instability spread further.

Let’s just hope that Harper finally has this nasty bout of instability beat, and that prorogation will do the trick. If the instability spreads to his cabinet, if the incompetent performances of his ministers begins to put the recovery at risk, he may have to resort to a cabinet shuffle.

Because if that doesn’t work, the instability could even infect the Prime Minister’s Office itself, and Stephen Harper could be out of a job.

And that would be pretty unstable indeed.

Well, for Mr. Harper, at least.

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Harper opens mouth, inserts prorogue

I wrote the other day that one of the challenges for the Liberals and for the opponents of prorogation will be to keep the issue alive and in the public and media consciousness in the days and weeks ahead. The radio and print ads launched on the weekend are part of that. Thankfully, they’re getting some help keeping the issue alive and it comes from an unlikely source: Stephen Harper.

For a guy who doesn’t like the media, and only granted two year-end interviews for 2009 (one English, one French) our Prime Minister has been quite busy granting media one-on-ones since he padlocked the doors of Parliament for two months. Last week he sat down with the CBC and with Canwest. Yesterday it was CFRB and the Business News Network’s turn. It’s been an uncharacteristic period of media accesibility for Harper, and I’m sure it has nothing to do with the growing anger over prorogation that he insists, repeatedly and to more and more media outlets every day, that no one cares about.

Anyway, on BNN yesterday Harper graced us with his latest justification for prorogation, which is sure to extend the story even further:

As soon as Parliament comes back, we're in a minority Parliament situation, the first thing that happens is a vote of confidence and there will be votes of confidence and election speculation for every single week after that for the rest of the year. That's the kind of instability I think that markets are actually worried about, but, you know, the government will be well prepared and I think Canadians want to see us focus on the economy, so that's what we're going to be doing.

Let's set aside, for a moment, that it's Stephen Harper that opts to make everything a confidence vote and fosters a spirit of bluster and instability in order to play one opposition party off the other for political advantage.

I can see what Harper is trying to do here. He’s trying to bring back the framing that he used to pull the trigger on the last election, and that he was probably hoping to use to pull the trigger after the budget in March until he underestimated the mood of Canadians (I’m hearing new polling numbers out shortly will underline this anger even further): I need a majority to fix the economy and see Canada through this period of economic uncertainty.

Perhaps that approach would have played a few months ago. But the framing of the issue has changed, apparently without Harper having noticed. In the context of Harper proroguing Parliament for the second time in one year, in the context of growing public dissatisfaction with the decision, in the context of a concerted opposition campaign to highlight this as Harper avoiding democratic accountability, in the context of even former senior Harper campaign adviser Tom Flannagan admitting prorogation is clearly about the Afghan detainee issue, Harper’s latest attempt at spin rings hollow.

(It's also worth nothing Harper's line here is also an apparent admission that he's too incompetent to both govern and manage Parliament at the same time. I know it's not easy to make priorities, Stephen, but it is part of the job. If you're not up to it, phone the GG and tell her you quit.)

Indeed, in the context of the growing narrative that Harper’s prorogation is the latest in a string of moves by this government to thumb its nose at democratic accountability, Harper’s comments actually serve to underline and reinforce that developing negative narrative: he’s implicitly saying I prorogued because those pesky MPs elected by the people in Canada are getting in my way. He’s making the opposition’s case for them. In asking them to choose, does he expect people to say "Yeah, let's just get rid of Parliament and give Harper free-reign?"

Once again, Harper’s reputation for strategic genius proves greatly over-rated. He should be talking about anything but prorogation. Were I him, I’d just get out there and be Prime Ministerial. That’s the greatest advantage he has: he has the job. Get out there and cut ribbons and meet with people and announce things.

But if he wants to keep offering lame justifications for sending his MPs on a two-month vacation and explaining why the people’s representatives are such an impediment to him doing whatever he wants to do, I’m cool with that too.

I'm sure it's also cool with the 167,200 (and counting) members of Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament.

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Harper gang: MacKay went rogue attacking Colvin

If there's one thing Stephen Harper won't do it's admit defeat or that he's wrong, despite all evidence to the contrary, but the spin being put out by his people on the Afghan torture issue is telling:

However, it is understood that two Conservatives who have been the subject of much shuffle speculation will not be moving. Peter MacKay, the Defence Minister, will keep his job, despite being heavily criticized for his role in the Afghan detainee issue.

Senior Conservatives said Mr. MacKay was guilty of "freelancing" when he attacked the credibility of public servant Richard Colvin over his testimony on the detainee issue before a parliamentary committee last fall. Still, moving the Defence Minister would be an admission of defeat by a government that maintains it has done nothing wrong on the file.

Yes, MacKay came up with his attack line on Colvin all on his own. And every Conservative spokesthingy and pundit that took to the airwaves parroting his attack-line on Colvin, that was purely coincidental, and the PMO knew nothing at all about that because the Harper team tends to be rather hands-off when it comes to communicating the message, and usually just lets its ministers and surogates go out there and say whatever.

Riiiight.

Don't worry Peter, you'll keep your job for now because it would embarrass the boss to punt you now. But I'd be updating the CV, because once the heat dies down...

The same insider suggested more likely candidates to be shuffled include Lisa Raitt, the Natural Resources Minister, who has been at the centre of a series of controversies after leaving a secret document in a TV newsroom and being caught on tape calling the isotope shortage "sexy."

I give you until the fall, at best.

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The Liberal ads: Keeping the momentum going

On Sunday, the Liberal Party released three radio ads (two English, one French) and a print ad focusing on the Stephen Harper Conservatives’ decision to shut down parliament for two months. These ads are noteable for a number of reasons, and would appear to signal a shift in strategy and thinking by the DonOLO.

Cover-up (English, radio)


Present (English, radio)


Fermeture (French, radio)


First, the ads themselves. They’re simple, on message and to the point: Harper prorogued parliament to avoid accountability and debate on important issues, what does he have to hide. They’re negative, yes, but they’re issue-based negative, not personally negative.

I’d argue the purpose of the ads is to keep the prorogation issue alive and in the public consciousness a little longer, with the hope of continuing to stoke that anger and, hopefully, begin to convert some of that anger into Liberal support.

Of course, the ads won’t do all that. They’re merely designed to keep the issue and the anger alive. Harper and the Conservatives are banking on this whole issue just fizzling-out and the public losing interest, returning the political landscape to the status-quo. The challenge for the opposition in the coming weeks will be to keep the momentum going, and keep both the public and the media interested and engaged.

Of course, as I’ve been writing, it’s not just enough to keep the momentum going. You need to do something with it. That’s what the Liberal back to work January 25th and the policy forums are about, as well as Ignatieff’s tour. Converting that momentum into support will be the challenge, but the minimal investment in these radio and print ads (buttressed by a healthy dose of free media) are a worthwhile investment to give that phase two conversion an opportunity to succeed.

More broadly and inside basebally (baseballish?), these ads do signal an interesting shift in strategy by the DonOLO. These ads are the first negative (although issue-based) ads the party has ran in English Canada outside a writ period in recent memory, although the French TV ads in the last round of ads did have more of an edge than the English Iggy in the forest spots.

I know many of my partisan friends were very disappointed the LPC didn’t take more of a hard-edged tone in those ads, opting instead for a feel-good Ignatieff intro approach. So they’ll be happy with the more negative, attack tone of these spots. Myself, I thought the instinct to introduce Ignatieff in a positive way was correct, I just didn’t think those ads did that effectively.

I heard though that, at the time, it was felt to go hard after Harper would backfire in English Canada, but Quebec was more open to it, hence the differing strategies. It would appear with these ads that perhaps it’s felt Harper’s perception numbers have shifted, and a harder edge will now be accepted and could bear fruit. So that’s interesting.

So is the fact that there’s now a willingness that seems to have been lacking for some time now to take the gloves off a little, that’s a positive development. Couple that with issue and policy development and it could prove interesting.

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The demographics around the anti-prorogation anger

In an interview with Kathleen Petty yesterday on CBC Radio's The House, pollster Frank Graves of Ekos Research made some interesting points about what his research is showing him about the growing discontent with the Stephen Harper Conservatives around the decision to shutter parliament for two months. The short of it: it's not just the usual suspects that are annoyed, and it goes deeper that the prorogation.

Here's a transcript. Emphasis is mine:

KATHLEEN PETTY (HOST):
Well apparently, Michael Ignatieff is not alone; In a national poll released by the firm EKOS, two thirds of respondents didn't think the move was crazy, necessarily, but they did know the Prime Minister shut down Parliament, and of those, nearly 60 percent were opposed to the prorogation. Frank Graves is the president of EKOS; he joins me in the studio. Good morning, welcome to "The House."

FRANK GRAVES (PRESIDENT, EKOS RESEARCH ASSOCIATES):
Good to be here.

PETTY:
So, is it the number or is it the demographic behind that number that really tells the story, here?

GRAVES:
Well, I think they're both interesting, but perhaps a more interesting thing, which hasn't really been discussed at this point, is the demographic. There's another very interesting feature to the demographic, but I think the most striking one is the... how much this issue has caught the attention of the most educated portions of the electorate and the "baby boom" cohort, which as we know, has been an extremely influential and large portion of the electorate, ones that all show up to vote, ones who have an inordinate level of influence. You could argue that this particular group has exerted almost a stranglehold over the political system for a long time. This group has been pretty solidly onside with Mr. Harper for some time, now. They came onside in the last election and were one of the keys to this success which almost propelled him to a majority victory. So, the fact that they're now having second thoughts about this particular issue... I think this particular issue has become a bit of lightning rod which is capturing a broader sense of disaffection on a number of other issues which have occurred previous to it, but it is something that probably signals greater importance as time goes on, or it could potentially do that.

PETTY:
It also speaks to whether it can be sustained, it seems to me. Because if you're talking about people who are influential and who are opinion leaders, then the ability to sustain a dissatisfaction or unhappiness with prorogation... it seems to me that the likelihood is higher in that case.

GRAVES:
Absolutely, and I think just to add further credibility to that thesis, it's my sense that we've seen a bit of a turnaround in some of the elite intelligentsia coverage of Mr. Harper, which has moved from this very fawning applause that we saw concurrent with the NAC performance - which also, coincidentally, coincided with him moving into majority territory, he was around 42 points, then. Today, he's around 33 points, but it does seem that there's now... We have front page editorials from the Globe and Mail, we have him pilloried by The Economist -

PETTY:
And we've got a trend, and that's the other interesting part. You talk about the NAC performance, but as you take a look at your polling over a period of time, the gap between the Tories and the Liberals used to be wide.

GRAVES:
Almost insurmountable; You had a daunting 15-point lead which was understating the Conservative edge, because the Conservatives have a much more committed voter base, so in fact, when they were running 41-42 points, our calculations are that they would have produced a very decisive majority in the neighbourhood of 180 seats at that point. Today, these numbers would suggest that they're at least as close, probably... no they are closer to actually sitting on the wrong side of the House than they are to that goal of forming a majority.

PETTY:
But these numbers aren't just because of prorogation; it's a cumulative effect to which prorogation has sort of added an extra push, in your view.

GRAVES:
Yeah, but it seems to me that now, this latest issue shouldn't be judged just in terms of, "are people really that upset about prorogation?", or has it become something which captures a broader critical mass of concerns about -

PETTY:
Emblematic.

GRAVES:
Yes, and you're quite right. The decline that we'd seen in sort of... "propeller head" terminology was a monotonic progressive straight-line decline. It was up here or... it wasn't oscillating up and down, it was on a very well- behaved statistical pattern. It seemed to have stopped when Parliament recessed, and this newest episode... remember, over the Christmas period, there's really. .. nothing else happened that would explain why we saw a further three-point drop, which in our samples, which are very large, was highly statistically and substantially significant. So, the only thing that plausibly explains it, and when you link it back as well to concerns about this and look where the attrition occurred, it was this same group that we were talking about before, the "boomers", the educated, and so forth, who seemed to have had some serious second thoughts. That may not be permanent, but it's something which is perhaps more important than the usual sort of three-point fluctuations that you might see on a day-to-day basis.

PETTY:
Okay, well you've given us stuff to watch for, and we will watch for it. Frank, thanks very much.

GRAVES:
Okay, my pleasure.

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