Looking Beneath the Surface

E-Day minus 57

On the surface there wasn’t much change in the election campaign this week. The aggregate top line numbers have barely moved since the writ was dropped August 2. Eric Grenier’s CBC Poll Tracker shows the NDP nationally at 34% (+1 since August 2), the CPC 29 (-2) and the LPC 28 (+2).

Ironic for a “change” election. Mulcair is asking if we’re “ready for change.” Trudeau is promising “real change.” And Harper is urging us to fear the uncertainties created by change.

However, there was movement in the polls beneath the surface.

A large poll by CROP shows the federal NDP with more support in Quebec than it got in 2011, far ahead of the opposition Liberals, Bloc and Conservatives. In an extended poll of Quebec, Leger also had a similar picture for the NDP in the province. Taken together both polls and most of the Quebec subsets of national polls show the NDP is fending off a potential challenge by the Bloc, limiting the Liberals to west Montreal and the Conservatives to Quebec City. Solidifying a big seat lead in Quebec gives Mulcair and the NDP an important head start towards government, minority or majority.

In Saskatchewan a substantial provincial poll for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix by Insightrix Research had the NDP a close second across the province to the Conservatives, 35% to 39%. The Liberals were at 21%.

The NDP is also doing unexpectedly well in Atlantic Canada. The latest poll aggregation by Grenier shows the NDP actually leading in Atlantic Canada. The Conservatives are tanking and the Liberals dramatically losing ground.

Lead Now commissioned Environics to poll 13 Conservative-held ridings. They show the CPC at risk of losing all but one of the 13, the NDP sharply up, and generally good results for the Liberals especially in the higher income constituencies.

All of these results reinforce the picture that the CPC is in serious trouble. The NDP is ahead of the Liberals as the choice for change, though that contest is far from over.

It is time to repeat after me, “It is a long way to go to October 19. Anything can happen.” British Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said, “a week is a lifetime in politics”. That was in the 1960s. In the digital age, eight weeks is a millennium. Think back to the reign of Richard III, and then slowly work towards E-Day. That will give you some idea of the terrain ahead.

The other big news of the week is of course the Duffy trial. Or should it be called the trial of Stephen Harper. They cannot be happy in the CPC war room this week. This is undoubtedly the most serious crisis Harper has faced in his political career.  We will see how he handles it.

Three observations amongst the chatter.

First, the political issue arising from the Duffy trial is not whether the PM actually knew about Wright reimbursing Duffy’s housing “expenses” or even when he knew. It is that the Prime Minister started the whole thing. In February 2013 he “ordered” Duffy to repay the per diems Duffy was paid for living in his own house in Ottawa. The PM quite rightly believed that, whatever the rules, Duffy obviously shouldn’t have claimed them in the first place. It was wrong and it looked bad. It hurt the Conservative “brand”. The PM directed Nigel Wright to deal with whole mess on that basis. That was Harper’s mistake. Wright was efficient. He did deal with it. Badly. The PM should have simply left Duffy to figure it out on his own. In the meantime Harper should have had Duffy removed from the Conservative caucus until it was dealt with by an independent audit. And kept well clear of the audit. Easy to say in hindsight. When the whole thing blew up in May 2013, the PM should have admitted he made a mistake and apologized to Parliament, the Canadian people and Nigel Wright. He could still do that. He won’t. It will take him down.

Secondly, it should be clear Duffy never came close to paying back his own expenses. He never intended to and he didn’t. Wright did. And Wright did so, not as a generous private citizen, but as the senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office. It was an official act on behalf of the Prime Minister to whom he reported and represented. It was the least he and the government could do. They appointed Duffy, used and supported him. They were correct in reimbursing the Treasury. They shouldn’t have tried to hide it.

Finally, re Duffy and friends, the real issue to me is not whether Harper was told about the payment but why he wasn’t told (If in fact they didn’t tell him.) And why did they allow the PM and others to stand up in Parliament and in front of the country to say repeatedly something they knew to be wrong, to persistently mislead Parliament and the country? One would think the first time it happened all of them,  or at least one of them, would go to the PM and say he had misinformed the House and the country, presumably unintentionally. Their failure to do that, if indeed they did fail to tell him immediately, is a firing offence. Once the PM learned that they had failed to tell him of his “mistake” he should have acted. His failure to do so is a politically firing offence.

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