A national Conservative convention scheduled for the end of the month was always going to divert attention quickly from the just re-opened parliamentary theatre.
With the ink on next week’s throne speech barely dry, Harper and his ministers will head to Calgary on Oct. 31 for the party’s bi-annual gathering. Until it is over, much of the political energy of the government will be focused on ensuring that the convention showcases its strengths and not the ethics-related cracks that have appeared in its caucus as a result of the Senate expense scandal or the pre-leadership manoeuvring of some ambitious ministers.
The opposition parties already have major extra-parliamentary distractions of their own in the shape of a handful of byelections expected to be called later this fall.
But those are all garden-variety diversions by comparison to some unforeseen events that threaten if not to completely derail the government’s mid-mandate agenda, at least to reduce its efforts to push the reset button to an exercise in futility.
The high-stakes political standoff in Washington has the potential to turn the best-laid economic plans of the Harper government — and indeed of the international community — on their heads.
For every week that American budget crisis remains unresolved, the probability that its consequences will trickle down unto the Canadian economy goes up, as do the risks of another recession.
And then with every passing day, the odds increase that Quebec Premier Pauline Marois will throw the dice and make a bid for a majority government in a fall election.
The writ would have to be dropped as soon as the province’s municipal elections are completed in early November for Quebec to go to the polls before the end of the year. Under that scenario, Quebecers would vote on Dec. 9.
With only a few weeks to go until that narrow fall election opening, the sound of the government’s campaign engines being revved up is becoming louder.
On Monday the PQ government unveiled a glossy multi-year multi-billion-dollar economic and industrial blueprint — complete with a ‘Jobs First’ slogan.
Stealing a page from Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, the 145-page plan was presented outside the walls of the national assembly, in front of a hand-picked audience. At a subsequent news conference Marois declined to rule out a fall election.
Over the past weeks the PQ government has delivered a steady string of job creation grants to the private sector, with no amount too modest for the premier to show up in person to preside over the event.
Last month the government gave the green light in great pomp to an extension of the Montreal subway system that will not actually get underway for at least a few more years.
There are persistent (but so far unconfirmed) rumours that Pierre-Karl Péladeau — the Quebecor CEO that Marois appointed as chairman of Hydro Québec earlier this year — will run as a PQ star candidate in the election in an effort to beef up the cabinet’s economic team.
Marois will soon decide whether to take her polarizing values charter in a campaign as it currently stands, or retreat to the more consensual grounds advocated by her PQ predecessors.
There is no doubt that the vote potential of each option will be weighted carefully before the government makes its bed.
When the PQ failed to win a majority last year, Harper dodged the first real unity bullet of his tenure as prime minister. But if Marois succeeds in obtaining the stronger mandate that she craves, expect her government to turn its considerable energies to try to create the conditions for a winning referendum — with attending impact on the federal agenda.
For domestic and external reasons that are out of the prime minister’s control, the shelf life of Harper’s mid-mandate throne speech could be very short and the issues that are top of mind in Canada by the new year substantially different from those that inspired next week’s address.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Chantal Hébert
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