Stephen Taylor

The latest Ipsos Reid poll was released today at 6am for public consumption. The poll shows the Liberals and the Conservatives in a virtual tie with 32% and 31% voter support, respectively. As for seat rich Ontario (TM), the Liberals lead the Conservatives by an 11 point margin (44-33%).

We’ve seen the Liberals and the Conservatives switch positions not once but twice in Ontario, which indicates high volatility in that province. This indicates a ‘fickle’ electorate in Ontario which means that whoever dominates an election campaign in the near future will likely win the province, and the election.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the poll comes from some sneaky questioning by Ipsos pollsters. In a featured section of the poll, pollsters ask why Conservatives want an election now. Two options are presented: “they just want to be in power” and “they sincerely believe they can no longer support a corrupt government”. The poll splits 58%-37% on this question. The answers to this question provide a “right” and a “wrong” answer for media analysis and Liberal spin. The answer “they just want to be in power” presents itself as a selfish motivation for an early election and allows Liberals to label the Conservatives as “power hungry”, which, of course, is not how anyone would want to be described. The “right” answer is that “they sincerely believe they can no longer support a corrupt government”. This answer presents itself as the noble choice. Now, of course we see that Canadians believe that the Conservatives want an election so that the party can be in power. Is that such horrible motive? In fact, it underlines what Canadians and all citizens in any democracy wish for: an election fought on the merits of the platform of all parties involved.

Of course Conservatives are sincere in their desire to dump a corrupt government. But Canadians should hope that the Conservatives, or any party for that matter, should also be fighting to have an election so that they can implement their platform. Since Conservatives aren’t going to be able to implement their platform in the budget (the union masters of the NDP have already beat the Conservatives to it), Conservatives do desire that an election should be held as soon as possible. The Conservative Party wouldn’t want an election, unless they believed that they could win it. Therefore any desire to go to the polls indicates a sincere belief that Canadians want better government and that Canadians believe that they would find this in the Conservative Party of Canada. But you wouldn’t know this from the juxtaposition of the noble answer against the “power hungry” answer. Wait for the Liberal spin, it’s coming. Thanks Ipsos!

I’d like to see some one-sided questions posed about the Liberals in the next poll (they are, after all, the party in power, hmm?).

Is the Liberal government corrupt?
A majority of Canadians believe that the Liberal government is corrupt

What is the motivation behind the Liberals cancelling opposition days and playing procedural politics?
The Liberal government just wants to stay in power

What is the motivation behind tabling the budget without the confidence of the House?
Paul Martin wants the budget defeated, not passed, so he can have a stick to beat the Conservatives with

When the Economist, labelled Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin “Mr. Dithers”, did the Liberal spin machine go into overdrive to counter the article’s claims? And, are they trying to shed the perception that the government itself has no direction on policy?

The answers (here, and here) come courtesy of Google.

You could start a drinking game based purely on Scott Brison’s answers during Question Period.

“The Prime Minister has been clear” — Do a shot
“We should wait for Mr. Justice Gomery” — Do two shots
“I’ve decided that I cannot sit with party X and will be sitting with party Y” — Finish the bottle

Since Paul Martin sold out to the NDP and their union masters, I’ve been thinking of ways that the Conservative Party can craft their message for the upcoming campaign.

Remember the days post-merger that Conservatives were pasted with those labels such as “Conservative-Alliance”, and “those members opposite in the ‘Reform-Conservatives'”? In fact, it still happens to this day.

But now we can play the same game with the Liberals. The Conservative Party of Canada, its members, strategists, and members should now refer to the Liberal government as the left-wing Liberal government, the NDP-Liberals, the Worker’s Liberal Party etc.

Canadians should not be made to think that this radical shift on the political spectrum is nothing to worry about. There are profound negative consequences to a left-wing government in this country.

There are many centrist voters that were abandoned when the Liberal party shifted to the left. Let’s win those votes by offering Canadians a centre-right government-in-waiting as the do nothing and say anything leftist Liberals sell out any principle to stay in power.

Will it be YOUR job that will lost in that $4.6 Billion business tax relief flip-flop?

Is this country going to lose fiscal sanity to the NDP-Liberals?

Are provinces going to go from fiscal imbalance to fiscal FUBAR under this new left-wing coalition?