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Exclusive interview: A conversation with the prime minister In his first one-on-one interview since the election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper sat down with Policy Options Editor L. Ian MacDonald in the PM’s Langevin Block office on February 14. The conversation, in English and French, ranged from what kind of prime minister he hoped to be, to how he saw federal-provincial and Canada-US relations.. "La main tendue" by Stephen Harper On December 19 in Quebec City Stephen Harper delivered his speech on “open federalism,” which became the major turning point in the campaign in Quebec. An excerpt from what will become known as his ”Quebec City speech.” "A very Canadian question of balance" by Robin V. Sears The 2006 election is much more than a matter of who won (Harper), who lost (Martin), who won the consolation prize (Layton), and who took a hit (Duceppe). The Conservatives won the chance to govern with the competence of their campaign, moving to the centre with their policy rollouts, and extending la main tendue — the outstretched hand — to Quebec. The Liberals lost because the incompetence of their campaign exposed the larger incompetence of their government. The New Democrats grew significantly in votes and seats in the new minority House, and the Bloc Québécois just lost — in the popular vote and in seats. Contributing writer Robin Sears assesses the entire campaign and appraises the outcome as a uniquely Canadian question of balance. "How Harper forced a Conservative spring" by L. Ian MacDonald The eight-week campaign turned a lot of assumptions on their heads. Canadians didn’t want a Christmas election, but in the event they didn’t mind. They wouldn’t come out to vote in January, but in the event turnout went up from 60 to 65 percent. A negative campaign would turn voters off, but in the event they were offered positive choices between the Conservatives and the Liberals. The Conservatives would crash and burn, as they had in the 2004 campaign, but in the event the Liberals ran one of the most inept campaigns in modern times. Most of all, Stephen Harper was an angry man running on scandal, but in the event he ran, and won, on ideas. The Conservatives couldn’t elect anyone from Quebec, but in the event, they elected 10 MPs, with strong representation of five ministers in the new cabinet. Policy Options’ editor provides a narrative of the campaign. "Une fenêtre pour le Canada" by André Pratte Stephen Harper’s speech on December 19 marked a turning point in the electoral campaign in Quebec. And yet, writes André Pratte, there was nothing so extraordinary about that speech. Its success seems to indicate that the door to federalism has just opened, but Pratte warns that this breakthrough does not signal the beginning of the end of the sovereignist ideal: “This noble and legitimate dream is deeply rooted in our geography, our history and our culture.” Consequently, he says, we should not expect too much in this regard lest we be disappointed. The myths that colour Quebecers’ assessment of the efficacy of Canadian federalism will die hard, so on the balance sheet the federal successes often vanish from the assets column, “leaving only a long list of liabilities dating back to the hanging of Louis Riel.” However, the inability to quickly settle concrete, immediate problems also hurts the credibility of federalism, and it is in this area that the new prime minister can act, particularly with respect to the fiscal imbalance. "Hope trumps fear: trading places in Canada's 39th election" by Graham Fox and Nikita James Nanos In the campaign that ended in the election of Canada’s first Conservative government since 1993, hope trumped fear, competence trumped ideology and policies trumped values. Graham Fox of the Public Policy Forum and pollster Nik Nanos monitored the progress of the campaign from beginning to end. The CPAC-SES nightly tracking poll foretold the outcome for all parties to within a tenth of a percentage point, by far the most accurate of any polling firm working in the campaign. In this trenchant analysis of the outcome, they tell how Stephen Harper inoculated himself in the first half of the campaign, and grew steadily in Quebec in the second half, achieving a historic breakthrough there — the return in force of les bleus. "Rebuilding the Mulroney coalition - welcome the 'New Harper Conservatives'" by Jaime Watt In the days following the election, the communciations consulting firm Navigator conducted focus groups with Conservative voters in Halifax, Quebec City, Toronto and Vancouver to determine what had driven their voting choice and what they expected from the new government. Navigator Chair Jaime Watt writes that the new Harper coalition is a reconstituted version of the old Mulroney coalition of bleu québécois, Red Tories, Blue Grits and Western Reformers. “The New Harper Conservatives,” he writes, “hold significant differences in their values and expectations. And they hold significant differences within themselves.” Their expectations of the new government are high, especially on accountability and integrity in government. "Les élections fédérales du 23 janvier 2006 : réalignement ou parenthèse ?" by Louis Balthazar While historic, the Conservative victory was not a resounding one, and the new government will not have an easy time of it, says Louis Balthazar. Writing from Quebec City, he analyzes the campaign and offers some points to ponder for the aftermath. To rise to the challenge, Stephen Harper must pursue three objectives: move closer to the centre, like the former Progressive Conservative party, at the risk of alienating his more right-wing supporters; maintain his foothold in Quebec by capitalizing on the fact that the “vast majority” of Quebecers are deeply federalist; and rebuild Canada’s relationship with the US. Although nothing is certain, everything is possible, observes the Laval University political scientist, because historically “diplomacy and a spirit of compromise have been instrumental in both Canada-US and federal-provincial relations,” and the new prime minister seems to be taking this approach. "Replacing the pan-Canadian consensus" by Ray Pennings and Michael Van Pelt The 2006 election may prove to be the beginning of a political realignment, making a decisive shift away from what the authors term the “pan-Canadian consensus,” which has governed Canada since the 1960s. Ray Pennings and Michael Van Pelt suggest that the Liberals may have their work cut out for them in renewing their franchise in opposition, and that it would be a mistake for them to assume they can return to government simply by electing a new leader. A second theory is that with the return of the Conservatives as the national alternative, there are now two mainstream political brands. But the third and most interesting theory is the one they propose: “It requires us to revisit the very idea of a ‘Canadian consensus’ and ‘Canadian values,’ and ask whether there really is a homogeneous mainstream that represents, whether with a right or left emphasis, a clear path on which to govern.” "The 2006 election - seven reasons to cheer" by Andrew Cohen Author and journalist Andrew Cohen lists seven reasons to cheer the results of the election. First, the Conservatives won. Second, the Liberals lost. Third, it's a minority government. Fourth, the West is in. Fifth, the Conservatives did well in Quebec. Sixth, the Bloc lost support. And seventh, democracy won. “What did it all mean?” asks Cohen. “Perhaps a Conservative renaissance. Perhaps a realignment of national politics. Perhaps a Conservative interregnum.” "Je me souviens: the Quebec campaign, 2006" by Graham Fraser In the three decades that Graham Fraser has been covering Quebec politics, he has noted that for all the cleavages created by the sovereignty movement, there is equally a yearning among Quebecers for reconciliation in the family — the immediate Quebec family and the extended Canadian family. Since the death of Meech Lake in 1990, a sense of rejection has motivated many frustrated federalists and soft nationalists to park their votes with the Bloc Québécois. But then in the 2005-06 campaign, along came the man from Calgary, Stephen Harper, offering la main tendue, the outstretched hand, to Quebec. His “open federalism” speech on December 19 in Quebec City, was the most significant since Brian Mulroney's SeptÎles speech in August 1984. Graham Fraser hears the resonance of history, and explains the significance of Harper's breakthrough in Quebec. "Harper can satisfy Quebec" by Éric Montpetit [summary not available] "Inside the poll story - who got it right, who got it wrong, and why?" by Bea Vongdouangchanh and Kady O'Malley It wasn’t just the parties that had a lot at stake in the election. The fiercely competitive Canadian public opinion research community — the pollsters — had their own reputations and brand names on the line. The biggest winner was clearly SES Research, whose final nightly tracking poll for CPAC on January 22 had all four parties’ popular vote within one-tenth of a percentage point of the outcome. The big losers were the Strategic Counsel and Ipsos Reid, which both missed the slight Liberal rebound to 30 percent in the closing four days of the campaign. At one point in the final week, a Strategic Counsel poll for The Globe and Mail and CTV had a 42-24 Conservative lead over the Liberals; on the same day the CPAC-SES poll had only a 37-30 Tory lead. We asked Bea Vongdouangchanh and Kady O’Malley to follow up on their post-election analysis of polls for The Hill Times, and drill down deeper into the story. They learned that The Globe and Mail interviewed Nik Nanos of SES on the discrepancy between the two polls, but never ran the story. Read on. "Just when you thought it was out, policy is pulled back in" by Blake Andrew, Antonia Maioni and Stuart Soroka Building on a data set collected for the 2004 federal campaign, McGill University’s Observatory on Media and Public Policy (OMPP) has once again investigated election coverage in seven major Canadian newspapers, for the 2006 federal election campaign. After analyzing all election articles for a variety of factors, such as focus (issues-oriented vs. horse-race-oriented), tone, first mentions and issue content, their principal conclusion is that newspaper coverage was mainly issues-oriented. Relatively speaking, journalists allocated much more space to substantive policy discussion than they did to polling coverage and the vicissitudes of the campaign trail. The policy agenda was also not one-dimensional; government accountability was just one of a number of salient issues over the campaign. National unity, crime and taxes were among the broad range of policy issues that shared media spotlight. Perhaps most importantly, the shift away from corruption and accountability — particularly during weeks 2 through 4 — coincided with the positive shift in Conservative coverage. Policy discussion, accordingly, appears to have been critical to the final outcome of the 2006 campaign. "The Liberals reap what they sow: why their negative ads failed" by Jonathan Rose In the 2004 election, the Liberal attack ads on Stephen Harper and the hidden Conservative agenda were effective because they were performance-validated by gaffes in the Conservative campaign. In 2006, the Liberals’ attack ads blew up in their faces and became an object of comedic ridicule because the scary Stephen Harper depicted in them was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Harper was inoculated against the demonizing effects by his calm, measured demeanour during the Conservative policy rollouts in the first half of the campaign. By the time the Liberals delivered their negative ads to market on January 10, including the infamous “soldiers in the streets” spot, it was too late to portray Harper as scary. He was on television January 9 and 10, winning the debates in a quiet, reasonable tone of voice. Jonathan Rose examines the negative ads of the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP, and explains why some worked and some didn’t. He concludes with some recommendations for improving the environment of campaign advertising. "Oui, la publicité électorale a un impact !" by John Parisella For a political party, many factors contribute to a good electoral campaign, and publicity is among the most visible. Does it really have an impact? Does it allow parties to reach out to and influence the electorate? The president of BPC, John Parisella, analyzes the four major parties’ publicity campaigns and concludes that, when it is closely tied to the commitments and themes of the electoral campaign, “publicity provides the necessary momentum for convincing electoral results.” And in 2006, the Conservatives were particularly successful in this regard, he says. "2006 - year of the blog" by John Bowman The 2006 campaign marked the emergence of blogging as part of the political game in Canada. Bloggers abounded — professional bloggers like Paul Wells and Andrew Coyne, amateur bloggers with exotic names, bloggers who sought fame and bloggers who insisted on anonymity. Anybody with a Web site can now be a pundit. Bloggers broke some significant stories, even if their facts were sometimes in need of further checking. Bloggers outed Mike Klander after he took down insulting comments from his own juvenile blog, resulting in another really bad day for Paul Martin’s Liberals. Bloggers conducted reality checks, formerly the domain of campaign war rooms and newsrooms. John Bowman, who wrote the blog report for the CBC News Online election Web site, assesses their role and their impact on the campaign. "D'une minorité à l'autre : chronique d'une campagne en forme de renversement" by Jean Paré In early November, in anticipation of the federal election, Policy Options invited Jean Paré, former editor of L’Actualité, to keep a “campaign diary.” At times derisive, often scathing, he comments on the vagaries of the long election campaign, challenging some conventional wisdom in the process. "A loss for Liberals, not liberalism" by Patrick Gossage [summary not available] "Canada's new and dangerous mission in Afghanistan" by Sean M. Maloney Canada is at war in Afghanistan and has been since 2001. After removing the Taliban “shield” protecting al-Qaeda and dismantling the international terrorist infrastructure, coalition forces have been building up Afghanistan's capacity to protect itself from the remnants of the Taliban regime, who are supported by the al- Qaeda network. Canada's latest series of commitments are unique: they involve both “kinetic” operations (military force) and “non-kinetic” operations (capacitybuilding partnerships with other Canadian government agencies) in support of this important international effort. "Le défi de la diversité" by Marie Bernard-Meunier Last fall, many French cities were shaken by riots involving young, often deprived, people of immigrant backgrounds. Canada’s former ambassador to Germany, the Netherlands and UNESCO, Marie Bernard-Meunier, explores some of the key issues surrounding this crisis, including the strengths and weaknesses of the different models for integrating new arrivals. “In Europe,” she says, “the debate focuses primarily on the question of integration, whereas the real issue today is how to manage an increasingly diverse society.” While immigrants to Canada may be better off than their European counterparts, she concludes, we must be vigilant because “on the difficult path to accepting diversity, no progress is, alas, irreversible.” "Au tour de Stephen Harper" by Alain Noël [summary not available] |
