Michael Ignatieff and the Quest for the Golden Wedge Issue

The Liberals search for something, anything to weaken the Conservatives hold on power.

With an election fast approaching (or not, who knows) the Liberals are looking for an issue that they can use to beat the Conservatives. The Vancouver Sun’s Barbara Yaffe charitably describes their efforts so far as producing “mixed success,” with the lone bright spot being their ability to drum up some anger over the prorogation of Parliament last February. “But Conservatives do have a few vulnerabilities as part of their record that are potentially as potent as prorogation,” Yaffe says, listing the census, the G20 fiasco, the Oliphant Inquiry, and the Conservatives’ climate change record as potential weak spots.

The Toronto Star’s Bob Hepburn has a similar take, arguing that the Liberals still have a chance to win an election if they can exploit Canadians’ perception of Stephen Harper as authoritarian, his missteps at the G20, and fears about his “far-right leanings,” evidenced by “his attempt to scrap the gun registry, his refusal to fund safer abortions in developing countries and his approval to spend up to $16 billion for fighter jets that Canada may not have needed.”

With due respect to these intelligent columnists, this sounds like daydreaming to us in The Mark Newsroom. The prorogation issue that Yaffe describes as “potent” has failed to swing support towards the Liberals in any significant way, and if shutting down the democratic process twice in two years doesn’t turn people off the Conservatives in droves, it’s hard to see how comparatively minor issues like the gun registry, fighter jets, or an inquiry most Canadians haven't heard of are going to. Nor will the fact that Harper made life in Toronto miserable for three days trouble the rest of the country much. And the last time the Liberals tried to hammer the Tories on environmental issues was also the last time they had a well-defined platform. That was Stéphane Dion’s Green Shift, and it ended in defeat and resignation.

That’s not to say these issues shouldn’t be important to voters, but there’s just no indication that they outweigh concerns like the economy, an issue that is rightly or wrongly seen as exclusive Tory domain.