The political arena is reactivated this week as the parties and leaders resume the campaign for the January 23rd federal election. The election campaign, which was precipitated by Liberal government's defeat on a confidence motion in early December, has been reasonably calm and boring until the holiday recess. In the first weeks, the Conservative Party and its leader Stephen Harper (hereinafter known as CP and SH) seemed to be error prone and destined to lose ground. The Liberal Party and its leader Paul Martin (hereinafter known as LP and PM) were keeping their heads down and their powder dry while the opposition went into self-destruct mode. It is a foregone conclusion that the Bloc Quebecois will dominate in Quebec and the Green Party will poll insignificant returns. The New Democratic Party and leader Jack Layton (NDP and JL) showed not signs of life in the first few weeks and were risking serious loses as suggested by the Canadian Auto Workers union abandoning the NDP and giving its support to the LP.
Then, over the Christmas holiday, a story broke that the RCMP is investigating a possible leak of a tax-change from the Finance department and, suddenly, there are allegations being thrown around of LP corruption. I really wish, instead of spending thousands of dollars on an investigation into whether a few traders had inside information and profited by a "leak", that the RCMP would pull-up a copy of The Globe and Mail from the day the announcement was made. My recollection is that the morning newspaper speculated, about 18 hours in advance, that the Finance minister would be making an announcement. If the geniuses on Bay Street couldn't guess what the announcement would be, they don't deserve their 7-figure salaries!
The CP response has been to haul out a series of very nasty TV advertisements accusing the LP and PM of corruption and all sorts of nefarious deeds. JL is content to join the chorus in an attempt to stem any flow of support he has left to the LP. Maybe they should just be calling their brokers and asking why he didn't advise them of the opportunity.
After having led in the opinion polls for months (almost all the time since the previous election) the LP slipped to a tie with the CP yesterday and 1% behind today. The LP response has been to launch very positive policy advertisements stressing how a Liberal government would differ from a CP one. It will take a few days to see if the strategy has any traction or whether the LP will also have to "go negative" to stop the CP momentum. The Liberals were in a similar position in the last election and aren't treating the situation as desperate but it makes one concerned.
