PM doesn’t want to meet with premiers, doesn’t want ‘a big grandstand’

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose political style is to try to keep expectations low and over-perform, didn’t meet with Canada’s first ministers recently in Halifax and won’t meet with them in November on the economy because he doesn’t want it to  “turn into a big grandstand,” say political observers.

A former senior Conservative staffer, who did not want to be identified, said that Mr. Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) is working hard to keep expectations low, which is why he did not take part in the recent premiers meeting of the Council of the Federation meeting in Halifax and will not be taking part in the upcoming finance ministers’ meeting with the provinces also in Halifax.

“He just wants to keep going from election to election and this is why he’s not indulging. He won’t meet with the premiers because it will turn into a big grandstand. So he’s doing everything he can to keep things low and expectations low,” the former staffer said, noting this is a good strategy. “In this Twitter age, people get excited quickly and easily over nothing and stories become stories when they’re not stories. … People in the middle of summer, when it’s 30 degrees, don’t want to hear about the government.”

Andrew MacDougall, the Prime Minister’s director of communications, recently told The Canadian Press that Mr. Harper will not be attending the upcoming first ministers’ meeting, adding that Mr. Harper meets regularly with the premiers on an individual basis, citing 74 meetings since 2010. Mr. Harper has not met with the premiers as a group since 2009 when they gathered to talk about the economy and the global financial crisis.

Regardless, Conservatives are doing well during the summer break, insiders said last week.

“It’s always tough to judge how parties are doing in the summer. You can look at polls to try to guess how parties are doing in the summertime, but even those are hard to read, given the level of attention on politics and the level of priority that the general public puts on it, at the best of times, is also often not that high and can be lower in the summertime,” said Hill and Knowlton vice-president Mike Storeshaw, a former Conservative Cabinet Hill staffer. “Summer is not always about moving the needle it’s kind of about making sure you lay some foundation and groundwork with your own supporters and keep your name out there as much as you can.”

Ekos president Frank Graves told The Hill Times recently, however, that various controversies over the last year since the Conservatives won a majority government are cutting into the party’s public support. He noted that the last time a governing party lost so much ground a year after it won a healthy majority was Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives who had 169 seats after the 1988 election and by the 1993 election the party was reduced to only two seats. The Progressive Conservatives won 211 seats in 1984.

“It’s not that the public are reacting to any individual pratfall. It seems to be more of a critical mass of frustration with the government’s management style—the way they’re conducting themselves in office,” Mr. Graves said, noting the spring session’s controversies over the F-35 procurement, the omnibus legislation process, and recent ethics issues surrounding Conservative MPs Dean Del Mastro (Peterborough, Ont.) and Paul Calandra (Oak Ridges-Markham, Ont.).

In the most recent Ekos survey, the New Democrats were ahead of the Conservatives by 2.1 percentage points. The poll, taken June 27 to July 5 with 2,098 Canadians, found 32.3 per cent of Canadians would vote for the NDP while 30.2 per cent would vote Conservative. The margin of error is 2.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The same poll found that the Liberals had 19.5 per cent support and the Green Party had 10 per cent, while the Bloc Québécois had 4.9 per cent.

This is compared to election day, when the Conservatives garnered 39.6 per cent of the vote, the NDP 30.6 per cent and the Liberals 18.9 per cent.

Former Conservative Cabinet staffer and pundit Yaroslav Baran, a principal with Earnscliffe Strategy Group, said last week, however, that the unless pollsters poll specifically for certain issues, it’s unfair to determine the underlying causes of declining or increasing support.

“The government has just come through a difficult budget cycle, cuts, downsizing a fragile economy. On top of that it was a divisive spring with all the natural resources politics, but the 1,000-cuts thesis to me seems to be without foundation, unless the pollsters have actually tested specifically on things like omnibus bills, or orange juice, or whatever else they think might be underlying it,” he told The Hill Times. “Pollsters are trained to get a numerical aggregate snapshot, but unless they actually test the potential underliers, then they can’t really extrapolate what those motives are. They’re then making a transition from pollster to pundit.”

 Mr. Baran said that all governments face ups and downs, but that the balance the Conservatives hold has not fundamentally shifted.

“Virtually, the entire government program is based on important priorities that are in line with the public’s priorities: economic stabilization, tax relief, expanding markets for Canadian trade, a justice system that better reflects Canadians’ values, and using our immigration system to fill our economic needs. At the end of the day, that’s what the Prime Minister is going to be judged on and I’d argue that he’s in really good shape to face the voters on those issues,” he said.

Mr. Storeshaw agreed, saying that each post-election period is always different. He noted that with the NDP’s new leader, and the Liberals without a permanent leader, the polling numbers could be artificially inflated and deflated.

“At the end of the day, it’s guesswork as to what’s causing it. I also don’t think it’s necessarily a big cause for concern with any party because you’ve got that unique situation where frankly [Thomas] Mulcair has largely been skating on open ice,” Mr. Storeshaw said. “By the same token, I think perhaps the Liberal number might perhaps be a little artificially low right now just given that they haven’t had a permanent leader and remains to be seen whether they might get a bump of three or four or five points when they do choose a leader, but these things have to take place in a very long time before the next election. We can’t lose sight of the fact that there’s a long way to go.”

Regardless of what’s causing a potential decline in Conservative support, the former staffer said that it’s not new for any government that’s been in power for more than one mandate.

“That’s like owning a car, the longer you own it, the more it gets scratched, but as long as it keeps working and people have faith that when they get in and turn the key it’s going to get them where they want to go safely, I’m not sure they’re worried,” the staffer said. “Harper’s quite aware of long-term use and wear and tear on a government. But if you’re not on people’s radar, they’re not looking at your scratches. … The whole point is to just keep going. … It’s all about people. Right now it’s Stephen Harper versus Mulcair versus nobody. Harper has always believed that there should be a polarization.”

Meanwhile, politicos last week said they don’t expect there will be a full Cabinet meeting this summer, but that Cabinet committees have been meeting regularly, focusing on issues such as the economy and international trade. The national Conservative caucus is expected to meet at the beginning of September in Ottawa prior to the House returning on Sept. 17.

Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Bea Vongdouangchanh