I'm
glad there is a lull in the frenetic pace of political activities on
Parliament Hill. I’ll use this time to offer you a better handle on
what’s going on because things are, at the best, confusing and
slightly strange.
The Liberals are in complete disarray.
That’s the understatement of the year. But, at the same time,
the Conservatives are stuck in the low 30s in public opinion polls
meaning that if there’s an election, the Conservatives will win
another minority.
We’re now in an environment where nobody likes the status quo,
but everybody defends it. Aside from the NDP and Bloc Québécois, whose
numeric influence in the outcome of the vote are practically close to
zero, all others, meaning the Liberals and Conservatives, are behaving
like characters in an Ingmar Bergman film. Watching and listening to
Question Period sometimes feels like listening to a dialogue between two
Bergman characters where the question is ‘What’s your name?” and
the answer is “I like hockey.” It’s like the actions and
conversations have been edited disregarding the chronology and content.
I was looking last week at Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz
Hargrove screaming into the TV cameras because, guess what, he learned
that Chrysler was firing more than 1,000 workers in Ontario.
Of course he was blasting the federal government but remained
astonishingly silent during the election in Ontario, the province that
will bear the brunt of this crisis. But it’s not like Hargrove
didn’t have have plenty of warnings. Ontario NDP Leader Howard Hampton
tried hard to get the attention of the media about this problem. I could
feel the frustration of Hampton, similar to those nightmares when you
can’t go through open doors or hear your own voice despite the
screams. He even thought about walking naked down to Yonge Street in
downtown Toronto in order to attract the attention of the media and
Hargrove.
Meanwhile, there’s been an extended Halloween party on the
Hill. The federal Liberals are helping the Conservative government to
approve the GST reduction despite their opposition, but later, realizing
the contradiction, Grit Leader Stéphane Dion told Canadians not to
worry and that he and his party might vote down the policy in the
future.
No one can accuse the Liberal leader of not being creative. He
would have been the first leader to campaign with the promise to
increase taxes. So they dispatched the former minister of defence, John
McCallum, who clarified again: “Liberals don’t increase taxes.”
Whatever.
Dion throws all kind of insults at Prime Minister Stephen Harper who,
through his right-hand man, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan,
challenges Dion and invites him to a high-noon confrontation: “I’ll
wait for you outside.” And, while they throw at each other all kinds
of insults, the leader of the NDP Jack Layton tells us not to believe
them: “Don’t be fooled,” says Layton. “They are friends,” and
he talks about the governments of “Steves.”
Last week, the media reported that the “Liberal Quebec caucus” was
unanimous in asking the leader to withdraw support of the government and
go to the polls. When you hear “the Quebec caucus” you might think
it sounds powerful, but it’s not.
Let’s use some math here. Liberals have eleven members in La Belle
Province, but Paul Martin, Lucienne Robillard, Raymond Folco, Massimo
Pacetti and, of course, Stephane Dion, were not there; so you do the
math and you realize that there is no much left. In fact, when the
chairman of the once powerful Québec caucus reported the position
adopted during the regional meeting to the national caucus, nobody took
them seriously; and voted in favour.
Meanwhile, the Conservative MPs are so disciplined that The
Toronto Star, in
order to find some disagreements in the government’s party ranks, had
to leave Ottawa and resort to potential candidates in Toronto.
So this week is important for everybody to take a big breath and
try to understand what’s going on.
Prime Minister Harper will try to understand how to remove his
fast-running government from the treadmill and connect with the main
roads, while Dion will use this week, probably in a bucolic resort to
recover from the wounds he has had to endure since Dec. 5th
of last year. He might also want to find out who’s on Michael
Ignatieff’s side and who’s on Bob Rae’s side. At this point, I
believe he knows who is on his side.
Somebody told The
Hill Times that
last Thursday, during an unusual meeting of his shadow cabinet, a Quebec
MP suggested that Dion and Ignatieff should spend the week in
Afghanistan. I’m serious, it’s not a joke. Of course, it wouldn’t
be the most picturesque place to recover from wounds, but in Afghanistan
the Liberals might find a solution for their leadership problems. Just
to be on the safe side, deputy leader Ignatieff decided to leave
immediately for Israel. I still don’t know if Dion will recover in
Afghanistan.
As for Layton, he might use this week to prepare a strategy to
lure into his party all the “disenfranchised” Liberals. I hope he
will prepare this strategy carefully because most of the
“disenfranchised Liberals” might be “former disenfranchised NDPers.”
He might want some back, but not all of them.
Lastly, the shadow of Brian Mulroney is back on the Hill. Many
were asking themselves why the Liberals were so forcefully attacking the
Conservatives trying to tie them up with the an issue the former Liberal
government dealt with and not even successfully.
According to sources, Liberals are convinced (the idea comes from
former Conservative MP Scott Brison) that the issue will split the
Conservatives back into the “Progressive” and the Alliance. With the
first willing to support the former prime minister, and the latter still
hating him.
In the meantime it was up to the Bloc and the NDP to ask the
government questions about the crisis in the manufacturing sector.
Spooky stuff, isn’t it? It might be that a week away from the
HalloHill will clear things up.
