The Harper government won its coveted majority. How did this happen? What does it mean for Canada? And what should progressives do before the next federal election, tentatively scheduled for October 19, 2015 -- 1,167 days from today. Over the next four days I'll be posting a series of blogs chronicling my effort to make sense of the May 2 results. I'll also offer considerations for progressives to get us through the next 1,167 days.
(Part one of a series)
This blog post attempts to explain the power behind the dominant frame at play in this election: our economy in peril.
The frame was set by Stephen Harper, who spent 37 days dismissing the democratic need for an election and focused with laser precision on this message: Trust him -- and only him -- to manage the economy.
A minority of Canadians rewarded Harper with a majority government; the rest voted for the NDP, Liberals, Bloc or Greens. Roughly 40% of Canadians chose to sit at home while one of the most dramatic election nights in our history passed them by.
Those are the facts. My disappointment with the plethora of federal election post-mortems stems from this: many pundits are simply reciting the facts and borrowing them as conclusions.
Some question the efficacy of the perennial call for strategic voting. Some blame vote splitting which, in a smattering of ridings, is blamed for helping to elect a Conservative. Some say the Liberal and Bloc campaigns imploded.
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This isn't analysis -- it's more like calling a hockey goal after watching it on replay.
Conspicuously absent from the analysis to date is the word 'insecurity'.
When it comes to explaining the electoral outcome, understanding the emotions behind voter intentions can be immensely helpful, especially for Canadians wanting a different result 1,617 days from now.
For my money, insecurity is the river that runs through it. Insecurity was there even before the recession, and it's in force to this very day.
Yes, we escaped the 2008 global recession relatively unscathed, compared to Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Spain, the UK and the U.S. -- to name a few. But even before recession darkened Canada's doors in late-2008, I witnessed in focus groups "a slow simmering worry" brewing among Canadians.
In the lead-up to the 2008 recession, during the best of economic times, Canadians were taking on epic levels of household debt.
Research from Statistics Canada, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and elsewhere documents a disturbing rise in income inequality over the past generation, reversing what, post-World War II, had become a more egalitarian, compassionate Canada (though not a perfect Canada).
Research also showed that Canadian households were working longer hours, toggling multiple jobs and relying on multiple income earners in the household just to keep afloat.
A concentrated number of elite Canadians were getting so rich from economic growth that it was starting to look like the 1920s all over again -- for the lucky few.
But a growing number of Canadians were admitting to pollsters they were one or two pay cheques away from financial disaster. In essence: They were one piece of bad news away from having the dream of a middle-class lifestyle fall to pieces.
That worry was more pronounced in early spring 2011, when we engaged Environics Research to go back into the field to take the pulse of Canadians.
We asked Canadians: Is the recession over? The majority of Canadians in our discussions told us it may be over in technical terms, but they were still feeling the weight of recession.
The more we probed about the impact of recession on their lives, the more we realized just how many Canadians were touched by the downturn in some way. They had either lost work, experienced reduced job hours, or took a pay cut due to recession -- or they knew someone who had. The worry was more palpable than ever.
Likely, it stemmed out of insecurity: political (an unstable, hyper-partisan minority federal government situation) overlapping with economic (a fragile global economic recovery with all eyes on how low America can go and not implode).
Canadians live in an affluent society. We don't always realize it, but we live in top 10 richest nations on the planet. No one wants to slip into a state of decline. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Canadian economy didn't get hit as hard as other countries during the recession. But we still feel vulnerable.
The thing about insecurity is that it breeds fear -- fear of change, fear of chaos, fear of decline.
The politics of fear exploits, rather than protects. It distracts at a time when we need focus. It divides when what we need is unity.
What we saw in Canada during the 2011 federal election was a master at the politics of fear -- Stephen Harper -- playing the game like his life depended on it. And he won.
Tomorrow's blog looks at how the politics of fear affected support for the opposition parties in the 2011 federal election.
Excellent article! And I agree with your assessment of the Cons framing the election in economic terms.
But I wonder why the other parties DIDN'T try to counter Harper's claim as the "only choice" to manage the economy? There was plenty of evidence (noted above re rising inequality and the middle class working harder to stay in the same place) showing that things were not really that great at all for many in this country. Why wasn't that message repeated and repeated until it stuck in the public consciousness (the way Harper's did)?
You're right, Trish. But in addition to the "stick" of fear, Harper also used the "carrot' of individual financial benefit. Whether it was income splitting for tax purposes (substantially useful only to the well-off), tax credits for children in arts programs, removing the fee for registering a firearm (by removing the registry), insisting (without evidence) that other parties would raise taxes, incessently repeating (without evidence) that corporate tax cuts would save or create jobs, (and on and on), he kept appealing to the wallets of individuals. Voters were increasingly prompted to ask, "What's he going to do for me?". This is disturbing because it engenders an "If I'm doing OK, to Hell with everyone else" mentality. We need a strong sense of community and a feeling of contributing to the community if we are to foster a better society. It will take time and effort to reverse the damaging trend toward individuality that Harper and the Conservatives are encouraging
Yeah he said that and why wasn't he countered with the facts that facts of the matter that he had to be pulled kicking and screaming into parliament to do something about the recession now wuldn't that have made a good tv ad and how about the bank bailout that never happened and what is going to happen as soon as the bank of canada raises interest rates which it has to do as inflation is killing us if you have gone to the shopping market lately and what about the facts that NDP governments have consistentily run balanced budgests and managed the economy better than any conservative government in the history of Canada? Where were the facts and why wasn't Harper being confronted with them by the corporate press or the upcoming opposition? I will tell you one thing, if Layton tries to appease the right at the expense of his base the way Obama has south of the border he can kiss any hopes of being Prime Minister of Canada. There is no sense trying to prove fealty to the ruling class, the NDP has pretty well tried that and Harper was elected anyway with the full backing of the corporate press. We have to hold Jacks feet to the fire and anything less than a national energy program a national jobs strategy a national every thing until things are nationalized in this country and our resources go to our benefit insteaad of multinational conglomerates then we can bloody well spit the NDP once and for all and drive a stake through it's moribund heart. How about that for a strategy. Speaking truth to powe rhas to be more than a sweet sounding platitude. We can help Jack with the fact about the failed neo-liberal capitalist system and how socialist societies fair far better than our capitalist counter parts-people forget that India and Pakistan are capitalist economies as well. Yes we have all the knowledge and all the facts the truth to overcome Harper's orthodox ideology-Now with the NDP as the official opposition the corporate media willl have to present these alternatives to the hegemony that the capitalist class has enjoyed for the past 50 years in this country.