steaming pile leads the polls

Conservative juggernaut will crush Canada's ruling Liberals, polls predict

Telegraph UK

January 17, 2006

By Francis Harris in Toronto

Canada's Conservatives appear to be steaming towards a historic general election victory, opinion polls have predicted.

With less than a week until polling day on Jan 23, yesterday every survey showed that the party that has been out of power for more than a decade is poised to crush the ruling Liberals headed by Paul Martin, the prime minister.

The latest polls give the Conservatives a 10-point lead over the Liberals, with some showing a widening gap between the two parties.

Amid growing signals of panic in the Liberal ranks, the party has launched a series of crudely anti-American commercials. One stated that victory for the 47-year-old Tory leader, Stephen Harper, would "bring a smile to George W Bush's face".

Another described Mr Harper as "pro-Iraqi war, anti-Kyoto, socially conservative... Bush's new best friend".

But despite strong anti-Americanism among voters, the adverts have had little effect on the polls. Voters appear far more concerned about domestic issues such as corruption. The Conservatives have already promised not to send troops to Iraq.

Liberal sources have begun briefing journalists about widespread internal dissent. One Liberal told the Toronto Star that Mr Martin, in office since December 2003, would pay the price for a failed campaign.

"He'll be out of here on election night," he told the paper.

Senior Liberals publicly admit that they are in serious trouble. A senior campaign strategist, Mike Robertson, told a television interviewer: "I don't think any of us are going to disagree that if you look at the polls, there is no question that if the election were held today the Conservative Party would form a government."

Pollsters say that the Tories look certain to poll most votes but cannot yet be sure of winning a majority in the 308-member House of Commons. Frank Graves, the head of the Ekos polling organisation, said that was now the election's biggest question. "Clearly, he [Mr Harper] is going to achieve a government of some sort," he said.

In elections 18 months ago, the Conservatives also seemed poised to triumph but the party fell back as the Liberals launched a fierce last-minute assault.

But this time the Tory surge looks more sustained and their message clearer. The party is promising clean government, tax cuts, a tough line on crime and much increased funding for the hard-up armed forces.

The Liberals have been hurt by a bribery scandal when it was revealed that the party gave millions of taxpayers' dollars to allies in public relations agencies. Further questions over the party's ethics have dogged it through the campaign.

Canada now faces the prospect of a majority Tory government for the first time since the party's disastrous 1993 showing, when the prime minister Kim Campbell lost office in a tidal wave which reduced her party from 169 MPs to two.

Mr Harper is viewed by some as a strangely insular politician with an aversion to the press. Those who have watched him closely explain this as the result of the way he despises the politics of soundbites and stunts.

William Johnson, who has been researching a book on the party leader, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation he has "contempt for politicians, for the cheap tricks they play". Instead, for Mr Harper, politics is about policy.

Yesterday he emphasised a traditional Conservative interest: defence.

He said: "I have made no secret of our desire to rebuild the Canadian military to have the capacities of a sovereign nation, and to make foreign policy decisions that are not only independent, but are actually noticed by other powers around the world."

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Excerpt from an article written by Henry Porter in the Guardian UK:

"If only on the grounds of Canada's economic success, Americans should take more notice. Last week, the Liberal government announced that it would cut C$30 billion out of the budget because of the enormous fiscal surplus, currently running at about C$13.4bn a year. Just over C$5bn is to be given back to Canadians on taxes collected this year. And in the future, some of the the surplus will be spent on training, the settling of new immigrants and student grants.

The main point, which you never hear in Britain or America, is that Canada alone among G7 countries is balancing its budget. When you compare its performance with the Bush administration's (the US trade deficit is $706bn; the budget deficit is predicted to be $521bn this year), it's a wonder Canadians aren't a bit more cocky. But during a week in Toronto, I didn't hear the tiniest bit of chauvinism, economic or otherwise.

Canadians are sceptical to a point where they appear simply unable to recognise that they live in a very successful and civilised country. 'We peer so suspiciously at each other,' Pierre Trudeau once said, 'that we cannot see that we Canadians are standing on the mountaintop of human wealth, freedom and privilege.'

He was right. Some 32 million people occupy a territory which is larger than Russia and is blessed with enormous natural resources. Canada is democratic to its marrow, relatively enlightened on environment, health and welfare issues and its political discourse, unlike America's, is recognisably connected to the rest of the free world. That is almost certainly because the centre ground of politics, the place where you find a nation's core values and you can most easily read its character, is some distance to the left of the centre ground in the US.

Canadians are obsessed by two things - politics and national identity. I am on a book tour here and have been amazed how knowledgeably and intensely these things are discussed in ordinary conversation. Canadians are engaged in their politics in way that Americans aren't, and they read obsessively. Canadians spend as much money on books (C$1.1bn) as on newspapers and going to the cinema and double the amount spent on sporting events.

To the outsider, Canadian politics is often mystifying and the conduct of the debate between Conservatives and Liberals seems slightly less genteel than a couple of ferrets in a sack. But on the big issues, the political class makes some good decisions. For example, Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister for 10 years who left office in 2003, refused to go to war with Iraq unless there was a second UN resolution, which is exactly the course Tony Blair could and should have taken. Canadians only grudgingly thank him for his sound judgment.

...Just at the moment, Canadians seem to have got things about right."

Uh huh. Sure we do. Canucks head to the polls on January 23rd - don't forget to vote... anyone but Harper!

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