Conservative politics of tragedy

There’s a reason why so-called law-and-order issues are favoured by conservatives. It’s because, politically, law-and-order issues favour conservatives. These tragedies tend to follow a sad pattern. First, the crime.

As the whole country knows by now, there was a fatal weekend shooting at Toronto’s crowded Eaton Centre food court, which saw a man killed, many hurt, and a boy critically wounded.

As in the 2005 shooting of teenaged Jane Creba — during a federal election campaign, no less, and a short walk from the latest killing — emotions ran high. There were popular expressions of shock and anger, and the death penalty was up for discussion once again. Next, the politicians — conservative ones, almost always — seemingly rush to capitalize on it. Thus, Toronto’s mayor and Canada’s prime minister, wasted no time in condemning the violence at the Eaton Centre and promising swift and harsh justice.

“I was shocked,” Stephen Harper said in a statement within hours of the shooting. “Canadians should be assured that such depraved and monstrous acts will be met with the full force of the law.”

Ford, too, became speedily available, more so than on any other issue. Said he, again within hours of the event: “We will apprehend the suspect, I guarantee it.”

After that — after the crime, and after conservatives invoked the standard law-and-order cliches — things unfold as they always do. The bad guy gets caught (in this case, the suspect turned himself in early Monday morning), and life returns to semblance of normalcy. Which, the statistics tell us, means violent crime rates remaining low across Canada. Presently, homicides are their lowest level in three decades.

For conservatives, this is all an inconvenient truth. Rationally, citizens know that we have less violent crime than we once did; emotionally, we don’t believe it for a minute.

Knowing this, conservative politicians continually endeavour to stoke fears and anxieties about crime. In election campaigns, they’ve elevated this strategy to high art.

Like Harper and Ford, hardcore conservatives feel they have the political “law and order” market cornered, because they have.

One 2010 Ipsos study found the Conservative government’s preoccupation with violent crime — even when violent crime rates have plummeted — resonates strongly with their core vote, which is male, white and without a university education.

For decades, everywhere, polls have consistently shown that conservatives are perceived as being better at handling economic and law-and-order issues, while progressives are seen as better at dealing with health care and the environment. But on crime, Canadian Liberals and New Democrats are regarded as limp and ineffective. When the ballot question is crime, Grits and Dippers lose.

Smart conservatives, like Stephen Harper, know full well that Canada has less violent crime than it did in the past. But he cynically exploits the issue to harvest votes by truckload.

And it works. According to another Ipsos survey, the precise moment at which the Conservative Party surged ahead of the Liberal Party in the 2005-2006 election didn’t come with the income trust imbroglio, or the sponsorship mess. It came on Dec. 26, 2005.

The day Jane Creba was murdered.

Original Article
Source: toronto sun
Author: Warren Kinsella