Perhaps they care after all

The Prime Minister thought Canadians wouldn't care when he prorogued Parliament.

Slightly left-wing Toronto radio host John Moore agreed.

I also had asked whether Canadians truly cared.

However, latest numbers show the Tories are tied with the Liberals in support.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has paid a large price in popularity for shutting down Parliament, with his Conservatives effectively tied with Liberals in a new poll by The Strategic Counsel.

Conservatives are at 31 per cent, compared to 30 per cent for Liberals, in the poll conducted by Strategic Counsel late last week, as controversy was starting to build over Harper's prorogation of Parliament until March 3.

That's the lowest the Conservatives have been since last June in Strategic Counsel polling.

"Proroguing of Parliament has hurt the Tory brand," said Tim Woolstencroft, the managing partner at Strategic Counsel, who believes that Harper's Conservatives must be seeing the same kind of numbers, because the government has appeared to be in a defensive posture all week. "I think the government is worried about it," Woolstencroft said.

When the Liberals, without laying out alternative policies, with a leader still not broadly popular, with only Facebook numbers for comfort, can be tied with the Cons, perhaps the reports of their death had been highly exaggerated after all.

Harper going (pro)rogue

In a great piece of investigative journalism the Toronto Star has found that majority of Canadians oppose Harper suspending parliament.

What to me would have been a more illustrative question would have been "Do you care?".

We will have the Olympics, then Parliament will resume and come election time, no one will remember this incident. That's why these polls mean nothing.

Opposition "Outraged" At Prorogue

Er... except that Michael Ignatieff is somewhere in Europe and Layton is surfing in Belize.

Seriously.

Harper suspends Parliament ... again!

Why?

This is not Windows... that you can restart with Cntrl-Alt-Delete whenever you want to and all is well. This is the engine of our functioning democracy.

More than Harper, our Governor General Michele Jean should be ashamed. Perhaps there was a reason to prorogue Parliament last year due to the Coalition. There is no reason to do so now.

This might be the first of many that entices people who were OK with Harper and uncomfortable with Ignatieff to start voting Liberal again.

Harper's To Lose

And so we are off.

At this moment I have to confess it is hard for me to imagine how Dion would win this election. From the Star:

Harper will run on his record, outlining the tax-cutting promises kept since the 2006 campaign, and slammed the Liberal "green shift" plan to tax carbon fuels and offset the impact with other income tax cuts and subsidies for hard-hit sectors and individuals as a risky gamble.

I believe Dion hadn't had time to fully sell his Green Shift to the general population.

At work, hardly many people know the details of the Green Shift. More people know about the tax increase on pollutants than the income tax relief that Dion has proposed. With the Green Party also doing well, Dion could leak support to them as well.

All in all, it will come down to the English debates where Dion has to invoke a "gotcha" moment vs Harper - and I am not a big optimist that his English will improve sufficiently in time.

Stephen Harper - Shame On You

Today Stephen Harper has proved himself to be a man without class. I am ashamed to have such a man as Prime Minister.

Despite all the politics that politicians play - there were unwritten laws that you do not harm the family of parliamentarians, you do not drag them into the fray.

Harper has consistently proved that he will sink to any low if he thinks it will help him. During the election three years ago he called Paul Martin a child pornography supporter (or something like it). Today, he was engaged in a drive-by smear on the family of a Sikh Member of Parliament, based on an unproven story of a tabloid newspaper, with neither the accused present to defend himself, nor the allegations proven in any court of law.

As such, Harper has shown himself to be below the dignity of the chair he now occupies. When the next election comes, I want this moment to be played again and again in all the immigrant communities that Harper will no doubt try to court. No wonder we immigrants see the Conservatives as a party of racists, bigots and old farts.

Gloves Come Off - The Star