Presenting the downside

Susan Riley has a solid overview of some of the seeming problems facing the Cons which haven't received their share of media attention amidst the refrain that a Harper majority is in the works:

All this draws attention from glaring confusion in Tory ranks on the environment. First, the prime minister and John Baird insist that Canada won't participate in an international carbon market -- an initiative they trivialize and misrepresent as "buying hot air from Russia." Then the environment minister attends a European summit, learns how the carbon market works, picks up enthusiasm among his foreign colleagues -- and, no doubt, hears from Canadian businesses eager to participate -- and hints that Canada may join after all. A short time later, that door is firmly shut again by the prime minister.

This is a hint of how ill-briefed the government is on a complicated file. But it is also a reminder that the environment minister in a Harper cabinet, be it Baird or Rona Ambrose, ranks one step above the baggage-handler.

There have been other significant Harper policy reversals, some noticed (income trusts), others not so much. The original Tory child care plan offered tax credits to companies prepared to build their own spaces. Experience in Ontario suggested the private sector wasn't likely to take up the offer, but that was ignored. Then, in the budget, a tacit admission of the weakness of an ideologically-blinkered approach to policy: the $125-million annual tax incentive was redirected to the provinces -- what the cancelled Liberal plan would have done, only more generously.

Instead of learning from this mistake, the Tories commit another in the new budget. It offers tax breaks of $1,000 or $2,000 on certain fuel-efficient cars, despite credible claims that this is money wasted -- that it only rewards people who were going to buy green anyway. Even on top of similar provincial incentives (which haven't changed buying behaviour), the federal bonus doesn't close the price gap between ordinary cars and more fuel-efficient hybrids.

Of course, it's far from news that Harper has received unreasonably positive media treatment which has helped him politically. And there are still plenty of columnists out there - both Con hacks and otherwise - still looking for far too many excuses to give Harper the benefit of the doubt at every turn.

But with Riley's column ranking as just one of many finding serious problems with the Cons' budget and general governing style, the tide may finally be turning. And if the media is willing to start portraying the Cons as they really are, then public opinion can't be far behind.