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.