The Conservative plan for the permanent election

| May 10, 2011

Stephen Harper had the 2011 election won before the writ was dropped. All he had to do to win the most seats was not lose popularity during the campaign.

Harper won the May 2 election through months of expenditures of public money prior to the election making fraudulent claims about a Canadian Economic Recovery, though it was clear to keen observers that the economy still needed to recover.

He won more seats than any other party through extensive party ads over the years between elections attacking the credibility of the Liberal leader and by extension the Liberal party and its candidates. The Liberal leader lost his seat to a Harper candidate, and the Liberals lost enough seats in the GTA to give the Conservatives a majority.

The Harper campaign talked incessantly about hard working Canadian families. It was as if they were looking to take the side of the working class in the struggle against the capitalists, when in fact the opposite was true. The Conservatives have worked for years to build tight relationships with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the Canadian Taxpayers Association, and the National Citizens Coalition. These Conservative business allies were key to influencing voters into believing the Harper government had the answers on the economy, and the other parties did not, though there was no solid evidence for this view.

The Conservative approach is to target potential supporters, and then woo them with policies and promises. Right under the nose of the Liberals, the Conservatives set out to win supporters within traditional Liberal leaning ethnic minority communities.

As far back as 1984, following the massive Mulroney majority, the Progressive Conservatives looked to build the Canadian economy by establishing a new category of newcomer to Canada: investor immigrants, ready to put serious money into domestic businesses. Twenty years later, after the Progressive Conservatives and Reform/Alliance party banded together as the Conservative Party of Canada, Stephen Harper took his message that tax cuts were good economic policy into immigrant communities considered to be solid Liberal, but where small business was a way of life.

Harper counted on the Liberal opposition to corporate tax cuts to brand Michael Ignatieff as anti-business. The strategy succeeded in wresting key Toronto area ridings from Liberal hands.

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Just as the Conservatives had built up a big lead, the Liberals started behind, and lost ground during the campaign. As rabble.ca columnist Murray Dobbin showed in his biography of Paul Martin, at the riding level, the Liberal Party was torn apart by the Martin takeover of virtually every constituency. The move, aimed to push Jean Chrétien from power, and leave Martin alone to claim the Liberal leadership, worked. But Martin never got around to rebuilding the party, before he failed as prime minister, and left office.

The Liberal party inherited by Stéphane Dion, no party animal, was too weak to walk across the street, let alone run a permanent election campaign. Ignatieff could not turn things around.

Stephen Harper looks to improve his permanent election advantage by abolishing the $2 per-vote subsidy parties receive, based on past election results. This would leave the political tax credit, a generous tax back given to party donors, as the main source of party finance, along with the repayment of a portion of election expenses. Only the Reform Party and its successor, the Conservatives have succeeded in using the tax credit to recruit donors on a large scale.

Both the per-vote allocation, and the tax credit are subsidies using public money. The per-vote rewards parties according to voter popularity, the tax credit rewards parties for the money they take in from donors. The Conservatives plan to use the tax credit to maintain party strength, and count on the withdrawal of the per-vote grant to weaken the opposition. Stephen Harper wants a big financial advantage as the current stage of the permanent election campaign begins, well before the next election is due in four year time.

Duncan Cameron is the president of rabble.ca.

Tags:

Stephen Harper political funding NDP Michael Ignatieff federal election

Comments

Submitted by lucmenard on May 10, 2011 - 9:02am.

All parties have 1600 days to built a war chest for the next election. It all starts now with the support of the voters that will agree to give $10 a year for the next 4 years and get to pay only $2.50 (less than the cost of a coffee at Tim Horton) per year and received 75% as an income tax credit for the $10 contribution to a federal political party.

If my assumption is correct and that all voters contribute that minimal $10 per year, the war chest of the opposition parties will totalled more than $88 millions per year (8.88 millions voters cast a ballot for the opposition parties) for a grand total of $350 millions after 4 years. This is a lot more than the $2.00 per year per vote they actually received.

If opposition parties get their act together, they will exceed the Conservative contributions and will be able to publicize their platform to Canadians in a better way.

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Submitted by Sibley_Home on May 10, 2011 - 12:38pm.

Thanks for the well written article 'The Conservative Plan for Permanent Election'. Too late to stop Harper from eliminating the Per-Vote Allocation we all need to think about what it really means.

I am old enough to remember politics before the per-vote allocation came into being. The per-vote allocation was a huge win for ordinary Canadians...Per-Vote Funding was one of the good things to come out of Trudeaumania and Trudeau's less-then-permanently fruitful efforts towards a Just Society. It was meant to promote fairness among political parties based on true voter support. It was meant to enable Canadians, region-by-region and riding-by-riding, by guaranteeing them a voice in Ottawa promoting their needs and wants. It acknowledged that Parties and Governments exist to serve the will of the people as a whole not just the moneyed few.

Per-vote Allocation was brought in to hamstring the influence of money-only influence in Ottawa. Even 'back then' money bought power in policy, legislation and allocation of tax dollars. The few 'governed' the many. The 'many' were the advocacy groups who were disenfranchised, unorganized or weakly organized due to lack of funding and because of logistics challenges. Canadians as a whole back then saw it as means to insure the that the views of under populated regions would be heard and underdogs like Ed Broadbent’s NDP could flourish.

Even 'back then' we knew it was a step in the right direction but not enough in and of itself. Trudeau was not around long enough build in more safeguards and Mulroney certainly was not interesting in doing so. After Mulroney came the pain of eliminating a huge deficit and all else faded into the background. The Liberals...Trudeau's own Party... have now been thoroughly punished for neglecting 'everything else' while deficit-busting...oops..I digress.

A present day proof that per-vote allocation works would be the Green Party. Green issues proved important enough to many Canadians for Elizabeth May and the Green Party to garner enough votes from coast to coast to become a real national presence (and a threat to some of the powers that be). That interest in the Green Party translated into donations, volunteer hours, and new third-party initiatives. Fair Vote and Strategic Vote supporter were able to develop a real presence in the political landscape. Quite the bang per vote for less than a Toonie per vote in tax dollars allocated. One tiny part of the vision of Trudeau's Just Society Dream made real. It looks like Green Party will be the last to benefit from per-vote allocation.

If the Green Party is the last to benefit, the Reform Party was the first to maximize the potential of the per-vote allocation. Stockwell's Alliance was the second beneficiary and Harper's 'merged' rightwing party the third to fully capitalize on the allocation dollars. All three maximized per-vote dollars to build their serious and steady money-contributing party base and to sell their message...before, during and after elections. Harper's coffers are full to overflowing. Say what you will about the Right...they know putting their money with their voices brings power, presence and influence.

The Liberals and NDP appear to have squandered the potential of per-vote allocation over all these years. Although it must be said that Liberals and NDP supporters were never overly generous about party support in terms of dollar donations. There support base was dominated by individuals with less discretionary income than the typical Right Wing supporter and the 'big' dollar contributors were unlikely to contribute to parties that didn't put their Bay Street and similar et al agendas first. Average Canadians carrying no party cards, leaning left of center or firmly centrist, either failed to see the potential benefits of per-vote allocation or lacked an infrastructure capable of accessing and maximizing the benefits. The Right Wing Movement did see it, did have the infrastructure _ and they milked it for all it was worth. I would love to say it was wrong of them or unethical of them.. However, the truth is they did what they were supposed to do. They built a strong Party Voice.

Unknowingly, or simply because it was the right thing to do, Trudeau handed the extreme Right the bullet that would ultimately destroy the Centrist Liberal Party that was his legacy. I guess the old adage that what one generation builds, the next rides and the third dismantles (I am misquoting in the extreme) applies somewhat.....too bad per-vote allocation did not last a full three generations. Three full generations would have been enough, I believe, to push through reform of our First Past the Post system.

Per-vote allocation could be viewed as a weak tool to make FPTP appear to work fairly in Canada. A tool that could be and was abused and a tool that was in fact ignored by groups that could have benefited. We are about to be left with FPTP in its original state. Advocates of all stripes who have limited cash flows will be dealt a potentially not survivable blow by this Parliament's intent to dismantle the Per Vote Allocation mechanismparticularly advocates for the reform of FPTP. Public will for Proportional Representation is higher than it has ever been and the possibility of implementing PR lower that it has ever been.

The challenges for ordinary Canadians abound and we had best be prepared to have door after door after door slammed in our faces. There will be few windows of opportunity and we had best become used to finding mouse-holes to wiggle through. I for one am counting the 'new' communication mediums like this one to birth a new movement. A fully organized movement that can harness the support of the huge base of progressive thinkers in this country. No small challenge since change can only be implemented fully by our governing body and our justice system. For all functional purposes, both have barred the doors to any cause that does not win the approval of Bay Street and its International counterparts. I will not get into the Senate issues.

The good news is that none of us will have an excuse to be bored. Somehow, we need to establish consensus. A consensus that acknowledges a central organization, strongly funded by supporters is the only way to fight the coming storm. We are losing the one and only mechanism provided average Canadians that had the capability of promoting a fair voice for Canadians at Large within the Halls of Power in Ottawa...Per Vote Allocation. It may sound overwhelming...but Per Vote Allocation was only $1.79ish per vote per election. Many of us spend that much at Tim Horton's and the like every day. That part is the easy part....the hard part is where to send it.

We have a scant four years to build a centrist voice for a Canada built on diversity....and as of May 2nd we are all standing on Ground Zero. Either we build it or we accept Harper's Permanent Election as a fait accompli. The times will definitely not be boring.