Fall Election Likely Won’t Lead to Great Changes

By JUSTIN BELL Intercamp (Grant MacEwan College) EDMONTON (CUP)

It’s that time of year again – no, not back to school. Nor is it time for the leaves to turn as fall sets in. No, it’s the worst of the September rituals: election talk. Michael Ignatieff, leader of the federal Liberal party, has announced he and his caucus will no longer “prop up” the Conservative government. In fact, they’ve gone so far as to say they will actively seek the downfall of Harper’s minority, pushing a vote of no-confidence in mid-October and taking every chance until then to bring down the government. The parties are already ramping up the rhetoric in anticipation of a fall campaign; the Liberals jumped out in front with the release of some campaign-style ads over the Labour-Day long weekend. Prime Minister Harper made a trip through the Arctic during August: expect some talk of “keeping our borders safe” or a “strong arctic” to tinge the Tory campaign material. With a minority government in play, it should come as no surprise that parties are in constant campaign mode. The ability of the opposition to gang up and bring down the government at any moment means they have to be prepared to stump at the drop of a hat. But what ever happened to working together? While I would express no sadness over seeing Harper and his band of cronies thrown out into an Ottawa snow drift, I’m not so sure I want to be dragged through the fourth election in less than six years. But the Liberals have made up their minds, and Jack Layton’s NDP prides itself on voting constantly against the Tories, so it looks almost inevitable that a fall campaign is in the works. But Canadians don’t want anProxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 lection – not because they’re happy with the Conservative government, nor because they want to see them replaced by the Liberals. They don’t want an election because they don’t foresee any great changes being made. Recent polling numbers show the Conservatives with a slight edge nationally, polling at 35 per cent compared to the Liberals’ 30 per cent support. The picture becomes even more glum for the Grits when broken down regionally. In vote-rich Ontario, they trail the Tories by two points, while they’re behind almost 20 percentage points in the West. The only place they aren’t behind the Conservatives is Quebec, where their 23 per cent support is less than half of the Bloc Québecois. With a margin of error approximately 3.1 percentage points, it means the Liberals might be a bit closer than the polls indicate – but they’re definitely not out in front, nor are they any closer than the last election. The best result they could hope for from a fall election would be another 10 or 20 seats, bringing their total to the 90-mark. But that would still leave them short of governing and keep Stephen Harper at 24 Sussex. This should be enough to deter the Liberals from defeating the Conservatives and dropping the writ, but they are on the warpath and no amount of common sense will knock them off. They need some sort of ego boost and are gambling that an election could bring their support up slightly. What we’re about to end up with is a $300 million morale boost for the Liberals.