WITH the 39th election in Canada’s 137-year history looming, political parties are frantically developing strategies and planning campaign logistics while leaders are honing their “elect me” message for voters.
The election question is no longer “if” but “when.” Whether it will be triggered this week, as Conservative leader Stephen Harper wants, or next January, as prime minister Paul Martin wishes, Canadians will be voting within eight months.
Let’s assume, considering widespread disappointment with Liberal and Martin performances in the past 18 months, that it is Harper’s election to lose.
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How could the leaders most effectively appeal to swing voters who will decide the makeup of the next government? Here is some free pre-election advice for the politicians and their speech writers from a chronicler of almost a dozen federal campaigns.
The key is to give sympathetic voters hope that their vote for you can make a difference.
Harper: Ladies and gentlemen, today I want to talk about what the Liberals would like you to believe is my scary hidden agenda. It is neither scary nor very well hidden.
My hidden agenda on health care includes a continuation of the public-private system first created in 1962 when Tommy Douglas lost his battle to put doctors on salary. Since then, health care has been a public-private mix, supported by Douglas and legislated nationally by Lester Pearson.
We promise to keep universal access to basic services paid for by public dollars and to experiment with how the existing private service side endorsed by generations of Liberals can be improved.
My hidden agenda includes making sure my finance minister does a realistic accounting of federal finances and unlike recent Liberal governments, looks at potential surpluses and designates a third to program expansion, a third to tax cuts and a third to debt reduction.
My hidden agenda for farmers includes a promise to try to devise a system that delivers help when they need it, not two years later.
Martin: Fellow citizens, I took office a year and a half ago promising to make government more transparent and accountable and I have done that through the Gomery Commission. It has not always been easy reading but it has been necessary.
For the future, I promise to be more focused on key issues of concern to you and to resist pressure from the opposition and their hidden agenda of reducing spending on programs and legislating morality while giving the private sector more say.
I promise continued surpluses and spending on priorities Canadians have identified.
For farmers, I promise we will stand by you as we have with more than $2 billion since BSE was announced. We will protect you at trade talks.
Layton: Fellow Canadians, in the last Parliament our caucus of 19 proved the value of having a progressive voice in the debates. We leveraged our votes to win almost $5 billion in spending commitments from the Liberals, for programs Canadians want strengthened.
To paraphrase Tommy Douglas, double or triple our caucus and we’ll turn Parliament upside down. Send 160 New Democrats to Ottawa and we’ll turn Parliament right side up.
Duceppe: … Ah, who cares?
