Three Tips to Save the Conservative Campaign

The Conservatives need to bypass the media and explain the following three things to Canadians in simple and honest terms.

1) Explain how the opposition parties' plans would lose jobs and further devalue Canadian companies. Jack Layton wants to increase corporate tax by the tune of 50 Billion dollars. This would lead to companies relocating or finding those savings elsewhere, such as payroll. Dion's 'plan', if you could call it that, is to consult with 'experts', the same experts that Harper has been working with throughout the last year and during this crisis. My guess is they would explain to Dion that what Harper is doing is what needs to be done. Along with consultation, Dion would start taxing CO2, which we all know is something we need to power industry and these increases in costs would be passed to the consumer. If the consumer is outside of Canada, this will make it even harder to sell when people around the world are going to slow down their buying. In short, both of the other major parties plans are far worse that simply riding it out.

2) Explain in some details what the Conservative plan is and why it’s the best course of action. Explain to Canadians that The Prime Minister has already consulted with all of the 'experts' that Dion will consult with in his first month and inform people that they have already recommended the current course of action as the most prudent. On top of this, role out some details on what the continency plans are if things start to get a lot worse. People want to be reassured that the government is listening to their concerns and have backup plans to protect them if and when times get tougher.

3) Announce a buy in Canada plank to the platform. This may sound like a page from the NDP or the Green party, but if the government lays out a plan to source as many contracts within Canada and ask Canadians to do the same in their personal spending, it would go a long way in showing the Conservatives care about Canadian jobs and it would talk to the patriotic side in all of us. I would argue that they should even go as far as targeting investments in industries to make them capable of supplying the government where these industries are now deficient, such as the Montreal textile industry to create our military uniforms or Canada's ship building industry in manufacturing our military ships. This would have to be done with some prudence, but Australia did it with its submarine fleet and the government could leverage these investments to collect more tax revenue as these economic sectors succeed and start producing products for the larger world market. Like I said, this would have to be done with prudence to find which sectors could provide the largest return on investment as it shouldn't be corporate welfare.

What do you think? I'm no strategemist or political scientician, but it’s the best I could come up with on short notice.

Conservatives Could Be in Trouble

The opposition, whether by design or by dumb luck, have landed a big shot on the Conservatives and Stephen Harper in the English debate last week. At the time I didn't even notice. Overall, people in the know believed that the Prime Minister held his own, but to the average Canadian, a huge weakness was perceived about Stephen Harper. I say perceived because this weakness is not based on reality, but on a false perception. This perception must be corrected this week or we could all be in for a surprise on the 14th.

I was talking with co-workers on Friday and almost without an exception, they all said that they are worried that Stephen Harper doesn't have a plan to deal with the current economic crisis in the US. They are worried about their jobs and mortgages. I repeatedly informed them that the job market in Canada was solid and that our banks and other financial institutions were in good shape, but they wouldn't believe me. The opposition and the media have totally whipped Canadians into a panic, a panic that could very well lead to the doom and gloom that they are worried about. The most threatening thing to the Canadian economy is loss of equity of Canadian firms through the stock market and a slowdown in Canadian buying. We all know that trade with the US will go down, but if we lose these other components of the Canadian economy, we will be in serious trouble.

I find it sad and terrifying that otherwise smart, university educated people would have no idea how our economy works, but there you have it. Dion, May, Layton, and Duceppe, along with their friends in the media, have found the sweet spot among the Canadian electorate and they will exploit it. What's really sad is that by doing this, they may cause the very crisis that they are telling us Stephen Harper isn't dealing with, and none of their plans would do anything but make the situation even worse.

If anyone from the Conservative campaign is reading this, you have a week to change this perception. You can't claim it’s not real and try and explain why. You have to convince Canadians that you have a solution even if the problem doesn't exist... you may want to contact Al Gore and David Suzuki for tips.

The Debate: Dion's Plan on the Economy

Stephan Dion, with his last minute 'plan to save the economy' shows just how unprepared he is to deal with the economic slowdown. Removing all the rhetoric and politcal speak here are the positions of the two leaders:

Dion: If elected, I will spend the first 30 days to try and figure out this economy thing, what the hell is going wrong with it, and try and come up with a plan that will fix it.

Harper: I have been on top of managing this crisis a full year before it had even happened. I don't need to come up with a 30 day plan, I've been implementing my plan since last-frickin-year.

Who do you think Canadians are going to pick?

Its 2005 All over again!

• December 14 : Liberal officials released a 1997 speech by Harper that referred to Canada as "a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term." Conservative officials said that most of the comments were in jest.
• December 15- The leaders of the four major political parties gathered inVancouver for the first of four televised debates. The leaders debated in French.
• December 16 - The four party leaders participated in the English televised debate in Vancouver.

Bonus: Liberal Plagiarist not expelled: Pablo Rodriguez who interrogated former PM Brian Mulroney using a series of questions provided to him by CBC parliamentary journalist Krista Erickson (unattributed of course)!