As the NDP now has 20% support, what does the NDP have to do to move its support to 25%, Part 6

This augers quite well for the NDP

Harper burning his bridges

Quote:

Government strategists argue that the modalities of the next census are not important enough to most voters to cause long-term damage to the party's election prospects. But that was also the Conservative mantra about the culture cuts in the summer of 2008.

Prior to the cuts, the Conservatives had pulled ahead of the Bloc Québécois and Quebec looked like it was about to provide Harper with a majority. By election day, the party was lucky to hang on to most of the seats it already held.

In Quebec, the perceived Conservative attack on culture touched on a larger nerve. And Harper's wilful blindness to its existence turned what could have been a small mishap into a game-changing event.

Harper never recouped the ground he lost in Quebec in the 2008 campaign. He currently leads the least popular federal government in the province's modern history.

The status of culture in Quebec is unique in Canada but Ontario - the post-2008 focus of Harper's efforts for a majority - also has its distinctive icons.

As the home of the national capital and the province that has traditionally most readily identified with the country's institutions, Ontario is, by definition, the least predisposed to buy the current Conservative census narrative on the intrusiveness of big government.

If anything, Ontarians are the ultimate insiders of the federation. Framing the census debate as an overdue battle against an establishment that they have always tended to call their own is, at best, counter-intuitive.

Since he has become Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has burned more bridges than he has built and he is in the process of destroying his last best avenue to a governing majority.

 

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/844407--hebert-harper-burning...