Campaign Week 1 wrap up

The first week is now over of the campaign and so far it appears the Tories have a sizeable lead although only a few polls actually show them winning a majority. The Liberals are certainly behind, although it seems that while the Tory numbers are pretty constant, the centre-left vote is being fought over between the Liberals, Greens, and NDP. The Prairies is strong Tory as expected, British Columbia the Tories lead although the Liberals are struggling and the NDP gaining. In Ontario, the Tories appear to be up although again the centre-left vote seems to be uneven meaning it is unclear whether the Liberals are as low as the low 30s or as high as the high 40s. The Bloc continues to struggle in Quebec while the Tories are fairly competitive outside of Montreal. Atlantic Canada, the Liberals are still in front, NDP gaining, and Tories struggling in this one region. As for each party, below is my summary since my last post.

Conservatives

Not exactly the greatest week in terms of gaffes. First the poopin puffin and then Ryan Sparrow's remarks about a father of a soldier killed in Afghanistan are all negatives against the Tories. Although Harper has taken on a softer approach during the campaign, if you have a mean nasty style at other times, it only makes sense he would surround himself with people who have a simliar style and unlike him not all will be able to switch modes easily. In terms of it not hurting their polling numbers, I would argue that it is still too early in the campaign to say for sure. A few gaffes rarely sink a campaign, but repeated gaffes eventually cause a party to plummet so if the rest of the campaign is gaffe free it likely won't hurt them, but if there are several more gaffes than it should hurt them. In terms of policies, Harper promised to pull out of Afghanistan in 2011, ease rules for foreign investment, and lower small business taxes. I support lowering small business taxes, which incidentally the Liberals have long championed and likewise also pulling out of Afghanistan in 2011, another thing the Liberals have supported long before the Tories. As for relaxing rules on foreign ownership, this seems like a risky policy, although I agree with parts of it and disagree with other sections. In the case of banking, we already have competition is foreign ownership rules only apply to Schedule I banks, but Schedule II banks are subsidiaries of foreign owned banks and Schedule III ones are foreign banks, so really no need to change here. In the case of telecommunications, I wouldn't mind seeing Bell Canada, Telus, and Rogers facing a bit more competition, so I support opening up service providers to foreign competition, however ownership of the lines should remain predominately Canadian as this is essentially a natural monopoly. For example, here in Ontario, Bell Canada owns all the lines, however, one can get service from other companies if they so choose and they simply pay a fee to use the lines. As for Airlines, I am not opposed to raising it to 49%, but no higher provided the other country reciprocates. Since it is 49% in the EU but only 25% in the US and unlikely to change anytime soon there, it would mean more European ownership. I flew to Europe twice last year, once by KLM and the other time by Air Canada and the service by KLM was far better so it would be nice if our airlines could learn a bit from European airlines such as KLM-Air France, Lufthansa, and British Airways, however I am not keen on more American ownership here as their airlines over even worse service. However, I disagree with Harper on making changes to ownership of uranium. Since this can be used for nuclear weapons, we should not even think about raising foreign ownership rules here. As much as I support free trade and liberalized investment, this is an area that should be off limits to more foreign ownership and this affects our sovereignty and national security. His feud with Danny Williams seems to be continuing. Although I agree with much of what Danny Williams says about Harper, my question to him is how is he going to work with him if Harper is re-elected which is looking increasingly likely. If he feels so passionate about federal politics, he should resign as premier and run as a Liberal candidate. If the Liberals win, he would be a strong minister due to his experience, while if they lose, he could help re-energize what has been a lacklustre opposition. There is a place for vicious attacks against the PM and place not for them and Danny Williams is not in the proper place. I don't have a problem with him campaigning and endorsing any given party or candidate, but there is a civil way of doing it and an over the top way of doing it.

Liberals

Lots of strong well reasoned policies and certainly reading their website and their promises I am impressed with them. However, the problem is I am keen follower of politics and will read the newspapers from back to front and go to their website. For the non-politicos, they won't do this and that is partly why the party is struggling. They need to get their policies on the front page of newspapers and make their policies easy to sell in only 10 seconds as most people don't follow politics as closely as I do. You can have good policies, but you will not win if you cannot sell them. We have good policies, now is the time to sell them to the public. Their promise of increase funding for health inspectors is definitely a good one in light of the listerous outbreak. I also think their immigration policy on the whole sounds reasonable, although I oppose increasing our immigration intake until we can resolve the backlog and help ensure those already here are able to get jobs that match their skills (i.e. cut the number of taxi drivers with Ph.D's). Only after this is achieved should increases be considered. That being said, all of this I got on the Liberal website, not from the front page of any newspaper. Therefore the Liberals need to get their message out a lot better. I will be voting for them, but I will admit if it didn't follow politics as closely as I do, I don't know if I would be leaning towards the Liberals now. They also handled their one candidate in Quebec who made an insulting comment about aboriginals in 1990. While the riding of Quebec is strictly a race between the Bloc Quebecois and Conservatives just like Halifax is a race between the NDP and Liberals (Conservative candidate was dumped here), having a candidate with negative baggage is never a good thing.

Bloc Quebecois

Once again, their campaign continues to falter. Much of their raison d'etre is gone as sovereignty is no longer a major issue. Now they are trying to position themselves as the centre-left alternative to the Tories, but the problem here is the Bloc Quebecois was always a diverse coalition of unionists and progressives mainly found in Montreal ranging to more conservative nationalists found in the regions. The only thing uniting them was the desire for an independent Quebec.

NDP

While the Liberals are staying off the front page, the NDP is doing a good job of being on it despite being a fourth place party in the House of Commons. Jack Layton promises to tackle high gas prices which is good politics, however regulating gas prices is extremely dumb economically. If the oil companies are colluding, we already have laws to stop this as well as price fixing, but setting prices below world market prices will only ensure more of our oil is exported where prices are higher and less used here. He also promised $10 billion more in equalization to Newfoundland & Labrador which may help him win seats there, but I doubt this will go over well in Ontario especially considering Newfoundland & Labrador is on the verge of becoming a have province while Ontario is on the verge of becoming a have not province so the idea of a poorer Ontario transferring money to a richer Newfoundland & Labrador just doesn't sound right.

Green Party

Lots of attention after being in the debates, but little on policies yet. In addition, it appears any gains they are making are coming at the expense of the Liberals and NDP, not the Conservatives so if anything a strong Green Party will only increase the chances of a Conservative majority.

As for predictions, while the Conservatives definitely have a large enough lead that their chances of winning are better than the Liberals, there is still enough time that the Liberals can come back and win although at this point I think a Liberal minority is probably the best case scenario. A Conservative majority is possible, but I would still say not likely.