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Sorry Justin, this just won’t work

May 6, 2015   ·   0 Comments

JUST WHO WAS JUSTIN Trudeau targeting this week when he came out with a pledge to cut the income-tax liability of the so-called middle class, in reality middle-income earners?

It was supposedly the ruling Conservatives and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose tax cuts have tended to benefit principally those with higher incomes.

But in our view it was aimed more at potential supporters of the New Democrats, by demonstrating anew that there’s precious little difference between the two parties’ policies.

After all, the only significant difference between the parties in recent months involved their approaches to the so-called war on terrorism, with NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and his official opposition opposing the majority Conser-vatives’ legislation strengthening the powers of our spy agencies and the Liberals supporting it while criticizing the continuing absence of parliamentary oversight and promising to fix that if they weere to win the election scheduled for October 19.

Such policy differences have little or nothing to do with the two parties’ virtually identical location on the political spectrum, now that the New Democrats have seemingly abandoned unfettered socialism and truly become “Liberals in a hurry.”

In the circumstances, efforts by Mr. Trudeau to court potential NDP voters will do little or nothing to dislodge the Harper Conservatives. At best, the promise to produce a balanced budget while lowering the income tax rate for those with  earnings between $44,701 and $89,401 will woo away a few votes from “Red Tories.”

The pledge, and virtually anything else the Liberals may come up with in their election platform will still do little more than guarantee another four or five years of majority government for a party that has never won the support of more than four out of 10 voters.

With the Liberals and New Democrats seemingly having learned nothing from the merger of the far-right Canadian Alliance and more moderate Progressive Conservatives that produced ever-greater successes at the polls, perhaps they could at least look to Tuesday’s election in Alberta as fresh evidence of how successful a centre-left party can be in confronting a divided right, even in a province that has always been strongly conservative and where more than half the votes went to the two conservative parties.

(Watch how many weeks it takes for a move to unite the PC and Wildrose parties.)

As matters stand, the federal Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats all have the support of roughly one-third of the electorate, with the NDP still particularly strong in Quebec, the Liberals potent in the Maritimes and the Conservatives solid (federally) in Alberta.

All the Tories need to do now is to use their immense war chest to belittle Mr. Trudeau in attack ads and continue to portray themselves as the only truly fiscally conservative party as well as the only one prepared to do battle with crime in general and terrorism in particular.

While that predictable approach won’t likely do much more than solidify the Conservatives’ base, it will likely sway enough fearful Canadians to produce another majority government, effectively disenfranchising roughly 60 per cent of the electorate.

Is there any way that could be prevented, without a Liberal-NDP merger (into a Liberal Democratic Party or LDP)?

Of course there is, with one example being the election in 2011 of Elizabeth May, the federal Green Party leader, as MP for the B.C. riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands.

Following up on a decision to lend their full support to her in a 2008 Nova Scotia byelection, the Liberals ran only a token campaign in 2011, spending just $50,000 (much less than any of the other three candidates) so Ms. May would get a large share of votes that normally would go Grit.

Obviously, the same approach could be followed across Canada, with the Liberals and NDP agreeing to soft-pedal candidates where the other party had a candidate seen as capable of wresting the seat from the Tories.

And maybe they could even allow some local riding associations to field one candidate who was endorsed by both parties.

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