Looking Ahead to the Next Election

Following hot on the heels of Jason Cherniak, I'm going to do a little election forecasting of my own. First, no matter how hard Stephen Harper tries to convince himself, the Conservatives, and apparently now the NDP (see today's National Post), there is not going to be an election the day after we open our Christmas presents. It is unfathomable to me why a man who has conceded that the Tories will not win the next election is determined nonetheless to bring down the relatively-stable minority Parliament to force an election before the full results of the Gomery Commission are known. Strategic timing does not seem to be an issue for Harper. Why would he want an election campaign ongoing when all that people are thinking about is the holiday shopping season? Voter participation in this country is already declining, and expecting people to take notice of an unnecessary election is not the way to reverse that trend. That said, the election will happen within the 30 day window of Gomery's final report, so March it is then.

As for the actual outcome, a lot of that will of course hinge upon what is actually in the pages of the Gomery report. Like Cherniak, I'm expecting that Martin will not have the finger of blame pointed at him. As I was explaining to my father last night, the Minister of Finance doesn't sign cheques for the Public Accounts Committee, he spends his time determining Canada's fiscal balance and directing economic policy accordingly. Whether or not Martin "knew" if something inappropriate was occurring is not relevant to his accountability to Parliament. The government accountability structure incorporates the idea that ministers are accountable and answerable to all activities which take place in their departments. If a civil servant in Public Works is doing something illegal or inappropriate, the onus of responsibility falls on the Minister whether he knows of the activities or not. The centrepiece of our system of responsible government is that the government is answerable for all things to Parliament, and must be accountable for them as well. This is the purpose of Question Period: it gives the opposition parties a means to keep the government in check. For that reason, Chuck Guite and Alfonso Gagliano are going to be in a lot of trouble when we find the results of Gomery's work. As the top civil servant and the Minister of the Public Works department at the time of these wrongdoings, they will be held responsible. At that point, it falls on the Liberal campaign people to state that these 'crimes' were not endemic to the Liberal Party and were the sole actions of a handful of people in that department, and that the Prime Minister (current and past) were not involved in those activities.

Also, because the Conservatives have done such a poor job of holding the government to account and been so focused on dissolving Parliament, they have essentially short-circuited themselves. They have not worked dilligently on building a base in Quebec, leaving that seat-rich province largely in the hands of the Bloc and the Liberals (I think that the hostility in Quebec vis-a-vis the Liberals will abate somewhat after Gomery, but the Bloc will still put on a strong performance, maybe 40-45 seats). They also haven't really developed themselves as a strong, national alternative to the Liberals, and on many occasions in recent months when they were on the losing end of decisions their commentaries had a tinge of anti-Canadianism to them, as opposed to their prescribed anti-Liberal sentiments. Referring to the country as a "banana republic without the banana" is not the way to endear a party to the public. I can't see them picking up too many more seats from the last election, and possibly even losing a few in the more hotly-contested regions. I'll give them 90-95 for right now.

That brings us to the NDP. Jack Layton has done a great job in this minority Parliament of using the NDP's 19 (now 18) seats as leverage to get his agenda across in exchange for supporting the Liberals. He's taking a bit of flak for booting out an MP who voted against SSM, but that aside he's had a very good run. I'm going to predict a small downturn for the NDP and allot them 12 seats. There is a political current in this country that favours majority governments, and though they like Layton, quite a few people on the left are going to hold their noses and vote Liberal this time around.

As I do the numbers, on the high end for the Bloc and the Conservatives there are 140 (130 at the low), plus the NDP's dozen, that does provide a recipe for a Liberal majority. It will not be the comfortable majority that Chretien enjoyed, but it will be a majority nonetheless. Martin has demonstrated that he is capable of governing, and though there are some deficiencies in his democratic parliamentary reform agenda (by all means, feel free to ask me for a copy of my term paper), he has done an effective job of leading Parliament in a difficult situation. Should the Gomery Report exonerate him, as I believe it will, he will be rewarded with his first majority mandate.