Paul Martin has not gotten off to a very good start during the current election campaign. Unlike the 2004 campaign, Stephen Harper quickly began to speak about the issues that face Canadians. During the first week, Harper put out the Conservative Party’s position on the GST, same sex marriage and daycare, robbing the Liberals of one of the main tactics that they so successfully employed last year; that Harper and the Conservatives had a hidden agenda. The first week of the campaign saw Martin playing defense.
The Liberal Party’s campaign will be defined not by what they say but by what they can’t. Gone is the "secret agenda" argument. While Martin will run on his party’s economic record, he has to avoid much of the past 12 years that involved the sponsorship scandal and the reign of his arch enemy, Jean Chrètien. Martin will also find it difficult to make a lot of spending announcements--been there, done that. He’s already promised billions of dollars in socialist spending (or as he prefers to call it, "investments"); so much so that most Canadians saw this spending for what it was; bribing voters with their own money. Of course these billions were on top of the $4.6 billion that Martin used last spring to buy Jack Layton and the NDP.
Nowhere are the Liberals more vulnerable than in the province of Quebec. Barring a complete and total implosion of the Conservatives, the Liberals will have to do a lot better in La Belle Province than they currently are if they want to win a majority.
Personally, Paul Martin has a lot to lose if the Liberals can’t come back with a majority government on January 23. The Liberal Party sees itself as the Natural Governing Party; the only party whose views are legitimate and "Canadian". as a result of this, they will allow their leaders one minority government but not two. The long knives will come out if the Liberals win anything less than a majority. If Martin does come back to a Parliament where the Liberals and NDP have a majority of the seats, Martin might cling to power by once again caving into the socialists. If this happens we would probably be better off with an NDP government. as Linda Williamson pointed out in the Toronto Sun, the NDP will tax us blind but at least they won’t rob us blind.
In their panic over losing more seats in Quebec, the Liberals are playing the national unity card. It didn’t take too long before they made the ridiculous argument that a large Bloc Quebecois in Quebec would lead to Canada having another referendum. It’s hard to see how the Bloc can engineer a referendum while the Liberals are in power provincially. This suggestion was borne of sheer panic.
Then we have the comments of Transport Minister Jean Lapierre, Martin’s little separatist buddy and Quebec lieutenant. Speaking to a group of 600 supporters in Boucherville, Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe said, "Fortunately, the Bloc is here. Fortunately we’ll make the Liberals disappear". Lapierre criticized the Bloc leader by saying "That kind of language, where you say you want to make your opponents disappear, there’s a little bit of a Nazi tone in that."
Lapierre’s comments were criticized by Jewish groups for trivializing the horrors of the Nazi regime. It certainly isn’t surprising that the Liberals would downplay Nazism in order to score political points. To many on the left there is little difference between Nazis and the Conservatives. These are the same Liberals who see Saddam Hussein and his henchmen as poor victims of american aggression.
We all knew what Duceppe meant; he hopes to make the Liberals disappear by taking all of Quebec’s seats, which is highly unlikely but not impossible. Only a member of the mafia, the Hell’s angels or a Quebec Liberal would read something more sinister into Duceppe’s comment.
If that wasn’t enough, the Liberals trotted out ditzy Belinda to say that the Conservatives are a threat to national unity. Separatism is on the rise in Quebec but it’s not due to the Conservatives; it’s due to the fraud, theft, money laundering and corruption that was perpetrated in that province by the Chrètien/ Martin Liberals. Those that seek to have their own country think they can do better than being governed by corrupt Liberals. Stronach had the colossal nerve to compare herself to Winston Churchill and ariel Sharon as people who have successfully changed parties. She used the word "successfully" even though she has never won an election as a Liberal. If Stronach really wants to emulate ariel Sharon perhaps she should form her own party. She could call in the Daddy Party after the man without whom she would be meeting as many people as she is now, but would be asking them if they want fries with this.
It will be interesting to watch a desperate Paul Martin attempt to cling to power by painting doom and gloom about Quebec leaving Canada.
and the campaign isn’t even two weeks old yet.