PRIME minister Stephen Harper’s line-in-the-sand comments last week daring the opposition majority to either bring down his minority government or let him have his way with them raised election speculation to a fever pitch in Ottawa.
Chances for a late 2007 election that all parties insist they do not want suddenly became better than 50-50.
The Liberals and Bloc Québécois are wounded and can’t afford an early election. Conservatives are in the driver’s seat and will make it almost impossible for the Liberals to support them in the parliamentary session due to begin Oct. 16.
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If the government proposes measures the Liberals simply cannot support or agree to without losing political face, as they almost certainly will, the country is into its third election campaign in less than four years.
That seems to be the Conservative plan, despite their protestations of innocence.
With the looming spectacle of an early election come questions from those trying to predict the political future based on where Conservative strength lies.
In political Ottawa, the focus sometimes turns to the Conservative prairie heartland.
Last week produced a typical question from a Parliament Hill veteran: how many seats will Harper lose on the Prairies because of his obsession with breaking the Canadian Wheat Board marketing monopoly?
The answer, with apologies in advance to friends of the Canadian Wheat Board who think this is the defining political issue, is “probably none.”
The Conservatives may lose some seats on the Prairies but the CWB issue will not be pivotal.
For most farm voters, the CWB is not their ballot issue. If it was, polls before the 2006 election would not have shown 70 percent or more of prairie farmers preparing to vote Conservative despite the party’s well-known vow to end the CWB monopoly.
Two personal encounters illustrate, though not prove, the point. The names of the farmers are unstated to protect their political privacy.
During the 2004 election, a prairie farmer spent much time during an interview slagging the Conservatives because of their anti-wheat board stance.
So you won’t be voting Conservative then? “Of course I will. My issue is gay marriage.”
In this election, he may vote against the Conservatives but it will be because gays continue to be married in Stephen Harper’s Canada. And recently, a farmer lamented his local Conservative MP’s support for an end to the board monopoly and talked about making an electoral statement in favour of the board. “But when I get into the polling booth and see that red L, I just won’t be able to do it.”
That surely is the political reality.
Conservative obsession with the CWB monopoly and bully tactics to end it will inspire those who would not vote Conservative anyway or only did so holding their nose. But for most traditional prairie Conservative supporters, other issues will determine their choice.
If they didn’t know the Conservatives were determined to end the board monopoly, they were not listening in 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004 and 2006 when Reform, Alliance and Conservative candidates were clear.
They won the farm majority. Has anything changed?
