From NY Times



January 22, 2006

Conservative Party in Canada Appears Poised for Election Victory
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
TORONTO, Jan. 22 - Unless every national poll here is off, what is
perhaps the world's winningest political party is heading toward a
humiliating defeat on Monday.
Stephen Harper, 46, an economist and social conservative who is writing
a history of ice hockey, appears poised to lead his Conservative Party
to victory over Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal Party, something
that seemed highly improbable just a few weeks ago. The Liberals won the
last four national elections, governing Canada for 13 years - as the
party did for three-quarters of the last century.
But whether a Harper victory would represent a seismic shift in a
country that has long promoted itself as a beacon of social democracy
and frequent critic of American foreign policy remains an open question.
If he cannot muster a majority in the House of Commons, Mr. Harper may
lead a weak, unstable government opposed by three left-of-center parties
represented in Parliament.
Mr. Harper - in a campaign largely free of ideology - promised to cut
the national sales tax, grant families direct child care for
preschoolers and introduce mandatory prison sentences. A longtime member
of the House of Commons representing Alberta, he has a conservative
record, but he steered clear in recent months of promising major changes
to the national health insurance program.
The absence of strong ideological overtones would appear to make a
Thatcherite-style revolution unlikely, even in the face of a strong
Conservative showing. Mr. Harper even noted that judges appointed by
Liberal governments and an appointed Senate filled with Liberals would
serve as checks on his power.
"I'm basically a cautious person," Mr. Harper said in a recent speech.
"I believe it's better to light one candle than to promise a million
light bulbs."
A change in Ottawa would almost certainly bring, at the least, a warming
of relations with Washington, which have been strained since the
American-led invasion of Iraq and have worsened over a series of recent
trade disputes and Canadian moves to soften domestic drug laws.
Mr. Harper, while careful not to appear overly supportive of President
Bush, has suggested he would reconsider Canada's refusal to join
Washington's missile defense program. He has also promised to increase
military spending to make a bigger contribution to NATO and peacekeeping
operations in places like Haiti and Afghanistan. But he also said
recently that he had no intention of sending troops to Iraq.
Mr. Martin, a former finance minister and shipping executive, has tried
to emphasize the Liberal government's stewardship of the strong national
economy, marked by low inflation and unemployment, a strengthening
currency and a large federal budget surplus. He has promised to create a
national child-care program, expand aid grants to college students and
ban handguns.
These are not unpopular stances, but the decline of Liberal fortunes is
due less to any shift in Canadian public opinion than to two years of
federal inquiries documenting an embarrassing party money-laundering and
campaign-finance scheme designed to counter separatists after the close
1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum.
Adding to the Liberals' troubles, in the middle of the campaign federal
police investigators announced that they were looking into new reports
of possible Liberal government leaks of tax information to friendly
investors that spurred a flurry of insider trading.
And in Quebec, once a bastion of Liberal support, the party's free fall
quickened with the publication of a book documenting accusations that
the federal government laundered millions of dollars of illegal aid to a
group opposing separatists during the referendum campaign.
"Will you tell us, Mr. Martin, how many criminal investigations are
going on in your government?" was one of many stinging lines Mr. Harper
offered up in four televised debates. "We'll get past the scandals and
establish accountability in Ottawa."
In recent weeks, the Liberals tried to recover votes with attack
advertisements linking Mr. Harper to President Bush, who is unpopular in
Canada, and suggestions in speeches that Mr. Harper would attempt to
reverse the legalization of same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
"A Harper victory will put a smile on George W. Bush's face," one Martin
commercial said.
"The farthest of the U.S. far right - that's what Stephen Harper means
when he says it's time for a change in Canada," Mr. Martin told a rally
here. "Well let me tell you, Stephen Harper, the United States is our
neighbor, it is not our nation."
Various national polls in the final days of the campaign have shown the
Conservatives about 10 points ahead of the Liberals, but the
Conservatives may still fail to win a majority in the House of Commons.
A last-minute seepage of support from the social democratic New
Democratic Party to the ruling party might deny the Conservatives a
clear victory. Polls at the end of the week showed the Liberals making a
modest comeback, but pollsters said it would take a miracle for them to
win.
Mr. Harper leads a party that only three years ago merged a very
conservative Canadian Alliance Party with the much more moderate
Progressive Conservative Party, and the coalition is marked by regional
differences in social and economic outlook.
"There are different factions and backgrounds and points of view in the
Conservative coalition," noted Desmond Morton, a McGill University
historian. It will not be easy to manage the factions, he said.
"Can Harper control his own ideological instincts or clothe them in
language and concepts that most Canadians tolerate?" Mr. Morton asked.
Mr. Harper's greatest success has so far been his surprising
breakthrough in Quebec, a socially liberal province that has rejected
the Conservatives in the last several elections by taking votes away
from both the Liberals and separatist Bloc Quebecois.
The Bloc had been hoping to attract better than 50 percent of the vote,
which would have been an enormous symbolic victory heading into an
expected third sovereignty referendum in the next five years. Polls now
show the Bloc falling quite short of a majority, to the relief of
federalist forces that have been in retreat the last two years due to
the Liberal scandals.

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