Quebec: Layton the Best PM

The Globe and Mail reports on some new polling from Innovative Research Group. And while there's plenty of interesting information in the article (and surely plenty more in the underlying data), there's one finding in particular which could significantly shape the rest of the campaign:

Mr. Layton, who has loudly supported arts funding after a series of cuts made by Mr. Harper, has seen his own popularity and that of his party surge in Quebec – a province where the arts are valued heavily, and one where the NDP held just one seat when the election was called.

Quebeckers declared Mr. Layton the runaway winner of the English debate, and now think he would make the best Prime Minister of all the leaders, the poll shows.

Remember that it was just last week that Layton had first pushed ahead to a clear second place behind Harper in a CROP poll. From the looks of IRG's numbers, he didn't stay there for long - instead taking full advantage of the debates to emerge as the preferred choice for prime minister among Quebec respondents. And that should offer a golden opportunity for Layton to parlay his high standing among Quebec voters into an NDP breakthrough.

A gift to the boardroom

I haven't yet seen any coverage drawing a link between the latest financial news and the federal election. But could Jack Layton and the New Democrats have designed a better example of how corporate giveaways tend to result in a lousy return on investment than today's news that Canada's banks will pocket half of a Bank of Canada interest rate reduction intended to keep the economy afloat?

Update: Not surprisingly, Layton is now pointing out the move.

A steady leadership moment

Shorter Stephen Harper today:
Canadians won't generally be affected by the drop in the stock market because they know better than to make their decisions based on panicked short-term reactions.

Shorter Stephen Harper yesterday:
!!! HOT INVESTMENT ALERT - MUST ACT NOW !!! this stock will EXPLODE !!! BEST RETURNS GUARANTEED !!!

On jujitsu

Early in the election campaign, the New Democrats served notice that they planned to turn the Cons' messaging against them, taking the "strong leader" persona built up for Stephen Harper and painting it as a negative compared to Jack Layton's "new kind of strong". Now, the NDP is again turning the Cons' words against them by pointing out which party is actually asking Canadians to take risks on the economy:

Stepping up his attacks on Harper over the faltering economy, Layton warned that Canadians' pensions and homes are at risk and Harper is doing nothing about it.

Instead of protecting their jobs and savings, the Conservative leader is advising ordinary families to spend their money on plummeting stocks, Layton said.

"Most Canadians are extremely concerned, and yet he's trying to suggest that going out and gambling some of your money is the right strategy," he said after a breakfast rally in Edmonton...

"When economic uncertainty lies before us, it's a golden opportunity for leadership and it's a golden opportunity for us to pull together," he said.

The NDP would draft new regulations for banks to "make sure that no one is gambling with your savings," he said.

I'll leave aside for now the whether or not buying stocks is a good idea for those who have enough disposable income to afford it. But the messaging ties in perfectly with the New Democrats' consistent message about the dangers of deregulation and laissez-faire government, while the use of the "gambling" and "risk" language favoured by the Cons turns the tables on Harper by pointing out that it's a failure in private-sector risk management that's caused the crisis which now has Canadians worried for their financial futures.

All of which offers a compelling reason for Canadians to avoid gambling their vote either on the Libs' carbon tax, or on the Cons' unjustified faith in big business. And that leaves the New Democrats as the safest bet to provide the economic leadership Canadians need.

The common touch

In case anybody was wondering how Stephen Harper could be so far out of touch as to suggest that Canadians facing job losses, declining home values and a credit crunch should look to buy stock, look no further than what his supporters have to say about economic crises past and present. Shorter David at Antagoniste:
How bad could the Great Depression really have been for Canada if no banks went under?

More of the same. Only less.

Jeffrey Simpson's column today manages to include something which every party can disagree with. But let's give Simpson credit for what looks to be the definitive description of the Cons' platform - and make sure that it finds its way to as many voters as possible by next week.

Advance notice

David Akin posts about the drop in turnout at the advance polls for the upcoming federal election, as well as some interesting riding-level trends. But I'm not sure that his conclusions match the data he presents.

As Akin notes, high turnout is generally assumed be better for challengers for incumbents. And in that respect, it seems highly significant to me that turnout seems to be highest in Con-held ridings and lowest in opposition-held ones - suggesting that it's Con (and to a lesser extent Bloc) incumbents who are facing the strongest challenges.

In contrast, Akin figures that it's Cons rather than other parties who tend to get their vote out in advance, and looks for a way to spin the numbers in their favour. But while there's probably some argument to be made that the high advance turnout in ridings which weren't particularly close could be interpreted as a sign that Con supporters are voting locally before heading out to closer ridings to volunteer on election day, that simply doesn't fit the pattern which Akin acknowledges as to whether the high turnout normally favours incumbents. And I'd have to wonder whether the Cons have run out of steam on the advance polling front precisely because they're in power rather than having the energy of an opposition party.

On turning points

The current CW seems to be that the Cons' early-campaign rise got turned around based on two factors: Harper's crime and arts policies which have proved toxic in Quebec, and the rise of the economy as an issue in the rest of Canada. But I'm not sure the latter point tells the whole story about how the Cons painted themselves into a corner nationally.

Surprisingly, it's L. Ian MacDonald who provides a grain of truth about where the Cons' national campaign started to go sour:

In the early going, the Conservatives made it about Dion and his carbon tax. In the end game, the carbon tax forgotten, the Liberals and NDP are making it about Harper not having a plan for the economy.

But MacDonald doesn't point out exactly where that shift started. So let's take a spin in the wayback machine:

The Conservatives said Sunday they are refocusing their primary aim on the NDP and the Green party, citing them as a bigger threat to their reelection than the Liberals.

The Tories explained their dramatic shift in strategy, coming as the second week of the federal election begins, as being due to NDP Leader Jack Layton's rising popularity over that of Liberal Leader Stephane Dion -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper's main target last week.

But the Conservatives also said the NDP and Green party are making significant inroads, not only in British Columbia and parts of the Prairies but in northern and southwestern Ontario.

"They're beginning to challenge the Liberals as our primary opponent in a number of key areas," a senior Conservative campaign source said Sunday.

At the time, the theory was that sharing the spotlight between three different parties would dilute the Libs' ability to mount a direct challenge. But consider in retrospect how the shift also changed the Cons' messaging to put them in their current bind.

Before the Cons' strategy shift, they were able to focus their efforts on maintaining and cultivating the impressions of Dion and his carbon tax that they'd worked so hard (and spent so much) to develop in the first place. But the moment the Cons acknowledged that the New Democrats were a threat as well, they lost the ability to frame their message around those critiques.

In contrast, while the Cons couldn't lump the NDP in with the Libs (and Greens) on weak leadership or the carbon tax, they could relatively easily fit all three into a typical right-wing "tax and spend" frame. And so they've done ever since.

But the most obvious problem with that strategy is that Canadians don't seem to have been at all receptive to the Cons' argument that taxing and spending are necessarily evils where the spending is on important priorities like child care or prescription drugs. Which meant that while the Cons now had a consistent message to deal with all the obvious threats, they no longer had one which particularly resonated with the voters they were trying to reach.

What's more, having spent the bulk of the campaign slamming the very idea of government involvement in the economy, the Cons were broadsided by an economic downturn which led Canadians to expect their government to do something to secure their financial future. And that's where the Cons went from merely limiting themselves to arguments which lacked much public force, to trying to sell a do-nothing message which was the last one Canadians needed to hear in a time of crisis.

Now, the Cons find themselves trapped. With the economic crisis now in full swing, any effort to turn the focus back to Dion and the Green Shift seems likely only to make the Cons seem even more out of touch with Canadians generally, while having only a limited chance of success in changing impressions of the Libs back to what they were earlier in the campaign. What's more, with the NDP still within striking distance, even a successful attack on the Libs is far from sure to keep the Cons in power.

But then, the Cons seem to have recognized that they aren't going to win any ground with their anti-government ranting either. Which leaves them without any obvious strategy for the last week other than to put their head down and hope the economic crisis eases up just enough to ease public anger with Harper.

By way of comparison, consider what would have happened if the Cons hadn't had to shift their message to accommodate attacks on the NDP (and Greens). The economic crisis would still have hit in the middle of the campaign - but it would have done so at a time when the main ground of argument between the Cons and the Libs was a tax shift which could easily enough be argued to destabilize the economy even more. And if the Cons hadn't taken their focus off Dion, he likely wouldn't have been able to rehabilitate his image to the point of being seen as worth listening to on the economy.

All of which is to say that rather than serving to keep the Cons in power due to vote-splitting, the presence of multiple viable opposition parties may turn out to be the key factor in ultimately sinking Harper's government. And the presence of several parties exposing the Cons' weaknesses in the last week of the campaign can only help to cement that outcome.

On investment opportunities

Cameron nicely pegs the most obvious self-inflicted wound among Stephen Harper's comments today:

“I think there are probably some great buying opportunities emerging in the stock market as a consequence of all this panic,” Mr. Harper told reporters.

But let's note that while Harper's quote shows just how far he is out of touch with the economic reality facing Canadians, it's at least somewhat self-reinforcing. After all, based on the Cons' miserable performance in the second half of the election campaign, there's probably plenty of money to be made short-selling Con seats in the UBC Election Stock Market.

Ad hockery

It's interesting to see 1337hax0r's reviews of the latest New Democrat ads which disagree almost perfectly with my own take. I've discussed before why I think the Chalk Talk ads could be highly effective, particularly in attracting the attention of voters who are just now tuning in to the election. (See the latest one on health care here.)

But I find it especially interesting to see a highly positive review for what looks to me to be the most disappointing NDP ad of the election cycle, being the latest Quebec ad attacking the Bloc.

It's easy to see how the New Democrats' Quebec ad strategy was set up to try to shift public opinion of each party. And it's obvious that the Bloc was next in line to be dealt with based on their recent boosts in the polls - not to mention the need to convert Bloc votes to the NDP to push ridings into the New Democrats' camp.

But I'm not sure that the actual ad hits the mark. While it includes a few interesting concepts (notably the square-wheeled bike, a strong soundtrack and the puns off the Bloc's name), it avoids a direct critique of anything the Bloc has actually done or failed to do. And that seems to me to be a serious omission: how can an ad make the case that it's time to unblock specific issues without even attempting to present examples of how they're blocked at the moment?

And that problem is only amplified by the lack of any direct mention of NDP policies or a specific reason to vote for a New Democrat as opposed to any other party. In effect, the ad works somewhat on the level of attaching a negative association to the Bloc - but could just as easily serve as an ad for the Cons or the Libs aside from the presence of Layton.

Now, I'll hope to be wrong in the above analysis. But I'd think there's some reason for concern that the much-vaunted Quebec ad strategy will fall short of giving progressive Quebeckers the spur they need to shift their votes from the Bloc to the New Democrats.

Turn your head and COF

I haven't yet seen a full copy of the Cons' platform online, so there may be even worse ideas in there somewhere. But it would seem virtually certain that this is at least near the top of the list of utterly useless proposals which the Cons are trying to pass off as a meaningful vision for Canada:

They're also promising a “Charter of Open Federalism” to enshrine the original division of powers among provinces and Ottawa.

From what I can tell, the promise effectively amounts to a declaration that the Constitution Act, 1867 - which has of course governed the division of powers between the federal and provincial levels for the past 141 years - will continue to do so.

Now, it could be that the Cons' microtargeting efforts have unearthed a surprisingly large number of Norberts and Esmereldas who have been on the edge of their respective seats wondering whether Canada's constitutional documents continued to exist. But I'd have to figure that a lot more voters will recognize that the Cons are flailing for lack of anything useful to offer - making it highly unlikely that the Cons' hastily-assembled platform will do anything to stop the Cons' slide in the polls.

Harper. Deficit. Repeat.

Over the past week, Stephen Harper has been forced to admit that he's been aware of serious problems with the Canadian economy even as he's jetted around the country preaching that everything was just fine. Now, Harper has opened the door to future deficits, papering over that danger with only a bare assertion that he doesn't plan to do that based on how things look at the moment.

Needless to say, there's little reason to trust Harper in his claimed evaluation of Canada's current economic conditions. But yesterday's interview does seem instructive in what Harper doesn't mention, as there's no indication that the Cons would reconsider any of their tax-cut grab bag to keep the federal government from going into deficit.

Which means that after two and a half years of the Cons grinding away at the federal government's fiscal position, there's plenty of reason for concern that yesterday's interview is intended to set the stage for deficits to come. And for Canadians who would rather have a government that pays its bills in the present rather than putting corporate tax cuts and vote-buying measures first, this may be the revelation which finally cements Harper and his party as irresponsible money managers.

Anything is possible

Michael Byers' entire interview with the Tyee's Monte Paulsen is worth a read. But for now, let's highlight Byers' point about the opportunities in play in the ongoing federal election:

I disagree that there is very little chance the New Democrats will form a government. I think that Canadian politics is in a period of enormous flux and almost anything is possible. That's what makes it exciting.

"This is arguably the most important election in Canada for decades. And so much is changing so quickly that I don't think anyone should make any assumptions about what the outcome should be.

Indeed, it's worth noting that the situation may only have become more fluid over the past few days. Both the Cons and Libs are apparently running below their 2006 numbers, leaving a more obvious opening than there's been in a long time for some new ideas to make their way into one of the top two positions. And both obviously have room to drop further, particularly with the Cons' economic message falling apart and the Libs' perpetual infighting emerging once again.

With that background, and boosted by the best campaign of any federal party, the New Democrats are now within a plausible late-campaign surge of overtaking both. Which means that the main task now is to turn the obvious potential for real change into reality over the course of the next week - and it's not hard to understand why Byers is just one of many New Democrats excited about the possibilities.

Coalition-blocking

Shorter Gilles Duceppe:
It's true that I've spent the election campaign rightly bashing Stephen Harper's lack of fitness to hold power. But just so we're clear, he can still buy my party's support any time he wants to.

Chalk talk

Following up on yesterday's post, below are links to the New Democrats' new ads.

First off, on the economy. And second, on leadership - which was the ad which I'd discussed yesterday.

It's worth noting that the ads apply the new, caricatured look and style equally to the Libs and Cons - making for a fairly striking contrast when compared to the New Kind of Strong series. But again, the most important goal at this stage of the campaign is to leave a distinct enough impression to come to mind when voters mark their ballots. And there's plenty of reason for optimism that both will manage to do just that.

(Edit: Removed embedded videos, replaced with links.)

Nothing doing

There was never all that much doubt that the Cons' attempt to run on a nonexistent plan to deal with impending financial doom could be taken as a signal of the party's lack of anything useful to offer. But Harper's attempt to try to deal with that problem today goes even further than I'd expected in showing just what kind of do-nothing party they're dealing with:

Mr. Harper said the government is watching "very carefully" to see if the U.S. financial crisis, and the aftershocks it is unleashing worldwide, will have any "rebound effects" on the Canadian economy.

"We're putting some secondary plans in place if that becomes necessary," the prime minister told reporters. Asked what those plans might be, he said later in French that the government is considering proposals to help the banking system.

The prime minister did not provide details on what that would involve, but his chief spokesman later clarified that the Conservatives aren't considering any major intervention in the banking system, or an emergency fiscal stimulus package to boost the economy.

Rather, they are looking at "routine" options that have come up in the government's regular meetings with Bank of Canada officials, he said.

"We're not talking about something larger or a policy change here. This is more routine and technical," spokesman Kory Teneycke said.

Last week, the Bank of Canada doubled the amount of money it makes available to Canadian banks to encourage them to lend to individuals and businesses. It appears the Conservatives are considering more liquidity-pumping options along these lines, although the Bank of Canada would have the final say on such moves.

That's right: Harper's plan in the event of a crisis is to give serious consideration to the possibility of suggesting that somebody else should think about taking action. And the Cons apparently expect Canadians to believe that such a lack of interest in doing anything somehow makes Harper uniquely well-suited to deal with risks to their financial security.

Of course, the Cons seem to have managed to confuse the issue enough that today's headlines don't match reality. But it shouldn't take long for their slide in the polls to accelerate once voters realize that the Cons' "steady hand" is really nothing more than rigor mortis.

CanWest Editorial Policy: Benefits? What Benefits?

With the Cons' announcement that they'll correct a couple of the more glaring flaws in their "child care benefit", each of the three main federal parties has now offered at least some additional funding for Canadian families through tax benefits. And by any direct comparison, the Cons' proposal offers the least support of the three.

So naturally, CanWest's post on the topic...utterly ignores the New Democrats' and Libs' child tax benefit proposals, instead comparing the Cons' proposal to the other parties' plans to build a national child care system.

Which means that instead of providing an accurate picture - that the other parties are both making greater benefits available, and planning to create child care spaces where the Cons have failed completely - CanWest manages to give the false impression it's only the Cons that are proposing to provide any money directly to families. And all this under a headline and introduction which mirror the Cons' language about "modest" programs.

Fortunately, CanWest's previous efforts to do the Cons' work for them don't seem to have paid off all that much. But the fact that the other parties will once again have to try to correct misleading information from the media can only give Harper an undeserved advantage going into the last week of the campaign.

Less than noble sentiments

Shorter Haroon Siddiqui:
I implore all Canadians to eschew needlessly simplistic analysis of the federal election, and instead fully exercise their democratic franchise by casting a ballot for the party whose policies best mirror their values. That is, after they've accepted my advice to arbitrarily ignore all but two of the options.

An ad to remember

For the first time in this year's election campaign, a New Democratic ad is set to take aim at Stephane Dion and the Libs. (I'll point to the description at the end of this article for the moment, and update this post once a version of the ad itself becomes available online.) And it's worth noting the difference between the NDP's early-campaign ads and what looks to be the party's late-campaign strategy.

The NDP's previous ads - all based on the "New Kind of Strong" theme - each followed a consistent pattern of first hammering away at Stephen Harper's areas of weakness, then providing an understated, upbeat statement of the NDP's plan. And assuming it was time to start going after the Libs, there's no apparent reason why the New Democrats couldn't have done that within the existing concept - continuing to present a dark and ominous portrayal of Harper's direction, but including some mention of the Libs' role in helping Harper to push his agenda.

But the strategy to deal with the Libs looks to have gone in an entirely different direction. Rather than trying to use a particularly sharp tone to emphasize either the similarities between the Libs and Cons or even Dion's role in giving Harper an effective majority for the past year, the new ad almost treats Dion with kid gloves in a few ways.

First, it relies on a simple, background-free layout - making no effort to link Dion visually to the problems the NDP is looking to deal with, many of which can easily be laid at the feet of Dion's party.

On top of that background, it uses caricatures rather than actual images or quotes to depict Dion (as well as the other leaders).

And even the criticism of Dion is based on a line about confusion rather than weakness or incompetence - making for a more generous portrayal of Dion than even numerous sources within the Libs have put forward since Dion took over.

All of which is to say that the ad can't be described as hard-hitting. But then, that may reflect a better appreciation for the nature of the New Democrat/Lib swing vote than Dion and company have shown so far.

After all, it hardly makes sense to try to win over votes now parked with one party by shrieking that it's completely unreasonable to have ever supported them. Which is where the Libs' current messaging against the NDP figures to be counterproductive.

Instead of matching that strategy blow for blow, the NDP is apparently looking to win over Lib voters with a soft-sell approach. Rather than painting the choice between the New Democrats and the Libs as a particularly stark one, the new ad's visuals only gently reinforce the idea that Layton is the better choice to stand up to Harper - offering swing voters a reason to choose the NDP without implicitly slamming them for considering the Libs.

Now, that strategy could prove problematic if there wasn't something original enough about the ad to give it a chance of coming to the forefront of a voter's mind at decision time. But that's where the use of caricatures rather than real photos or videos may prove particularly interesting.

By using images which haven't been used elsewhere and are simple yet explanatory enough to stick in a voter's mind, the new ads would seem to maximize the chances that Canadians will remember their message about the NDP being better positioned to stand up to the Cons when they vote. And that may prove to be exactly what the New Democrats need to keep their momentum headed in the right direction as election day approaches.

On credit crunches

The latest economic message from Jack Layton still stops short of focusing on the link between the New Democrats' platform and economic stability. But it seems to set the stage for just that kind of link by emphasizing how the Cons' mismanagement is making it tougher for Canadians to keep up with their cost of living:

NDP Leader Jack Layton says Canadians should show "Stephen Harper the door" rather than give him a majority government because he didn't help working families as prime minister.

Layton said Harper and his Tories haven't shown strong leadership, but have instead given corporations and oil companies billions in tax breaks.

"This isn't the kind of leadership we need, is it? In fact, I don't think you can call it leadership at all," he said at a Sunday morning campaign stop in St. John's, N.L.

He said Harper wants a majority government even though he had for the past year what Layton called "a virtual majority" with Liberal and Bloc support in Parliament.

People are saying, "let's throw out Stephen Harper and let's bring in Jack Layton and the New Democrats," he said.

Layton warned the audience that a U.S. financial-sector-style economic meltdown is possible in Canada. He said he's been talking to Canadians who have told him they can't make their credit card payments or renew their mortgages because banks won't extend them credit.

"This is exactly what happened in the U.S.," he said.

Now, it's worth noting that there may be one significant difference between the two countries which Layton hasn't yet mentioned. After all, the U.S. meltdown was based in large part on derivatives which created massive immediate risks within the financial sector when mortgages started to go bad - in effect ensuring that corporations who were leveraged beyond their means began going under shortly after the first wave of consumers started doing the same.

In contrast, Canada's situation figures to leave a larger portion of the up-front damage at the consumer level, while potentially delaying the point at which financial institutions would start to go under as well. But that doesn't make matters any easier for Canadians facing a credit crunch in the short term. Which can only heighten the need for a government which will both pay attention to the needs of consumers, and consider it a top priority to make it easier for families to stay afloat.