Will Harper Call The Federal Election This Spring Or Wait Out The Economic Uncertainty

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Conservatives have also fallen on hard times naturally due to their heavy emphasis on Alberta oil as an economic driver but which has since tanked worldwide forcing them to postpone the budget. The fear of more economic collapse would mean that they will be even more vulnerable to a loss to the Justin Trudeau led Liberals which many Canadians are seeing an alternative to the Conservatives’ divisive agenda. The Conservatives have also lost support of the ethnic communities it gained in forming a majority government, especially the two largest – Chinese-Canadian and South-Asian – communities. Both Chinese and South Asian as well as other immigrant communities are unhappy with way the Conservatives have gutted the immigration system with unnecessary delays and processing wait times and are now looking to vote Liberal.

OTTAWA– Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative party has a big decision on their hands – to pull the trigger soon by calling the election in early spring or wait out the economic uncertainty and wait till the fall.

It’s a crucial decision for the Conservatives who are desperate to hold on to power so that they continue their highly criticized foreign policy with unnecessary and idiotic fights with Arab nations and unreasonable support for Israel and all their violations in the region.

However, these idiotic fights on the international front have taken their toll and the Conservatives have also fallen on hard times naturally due to their heavy emphasis on oil in Alberta which has since tanked worldwide forcing them to postpone the budget. The fear of more economic collapse would mean that they will be even more vulnerable to a loss to the Justin Trudeau led Liberals which many Canadians are seeing an alternative to the divisive agenda that has been carried out by the Conservatives over the last decade.

The latest opinion polls put the Conservatives slightly ahead of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals but the polls have been swinging back and forth between who is leading between the two front-running parties for more than a year now.

Political science professor and columnist Geoffrey Stevens told News 1130 that a big sign a spring election is pending is the Conservatives postponement of the budget.

“It’s partly their need to finance election promises which, with the decline in revenue, they’re not going to be able to do. They don’t even have the billions that they need at the moment to pay for promises which they made in the fall, in terms of income splitting and the child tax benefit.”

Stevens says the timing will never be better for Harper to call a snap election.

“If they go through the summer, they’re likely to be dragged down. Economic problems will become greater. The fact they can’t keep their election promises will become more and more evident. And you never know with terrorism — things could get a whole lot worse.”

He predicts we’ll go to the polls in April or May. He believes a spring election would be fought on the basis of the challenges facing the nation rather than on the record of Harper’s decade in office.

What do the opposition parties need to do to gain support if an early election does happen?

The parties need to take the government head-on on the things that are seen to be its strengths, says political analyst Dennis Pilon with York University.

One example is the economy.

“If you ask people directly, ‘How’s the economy working for you?’ you’re going to hear people say they feel insecure, they’re not so sure, they’re worried about their investments, they’re not sure about their retirement, they’re worried about their kids, they’re worried about the costs of things like education and housing and transportation,” says Pilon.

He adds the problem for the Conservatives is they’ve been the majority government, so it’s all on them, and blame can’t be shifted on to anyone else.

Pilon doesn’t agree with Steven’s view that the Conservative party is looking particularly good.

As for who Canadians will look at as the main party to go after the Conservatives, Pilon says Harper will try to foster a sense of division between the Liberals and the NDP.

“I think it’s a genuine difficulty for Canadians because as much as our friends in the press try to characterize the NDP and the Liberals as ‘the left,’ in fact the Liberals have much more in common with the Conservatives, particularly on financial issues.”

“So, I think it’s a very difficult choice, I think there are a lot of Canadians who would like, for instance, to stick with the New Democrats. But they’re worried that it’s going to split the vote. So, I think that’s the difficulty, that the NDP are now the official opposition, but the polls, for the last year and for a long time, have suggested that the Liberals have the advantage.”

Pilon thinks it will all shake out when the campaign starts, saying that is when we’ll start to see where support is through the polls.

“Is this just a lot of PR that we’re seeing around Trudeau?” he wonders. “So far, Trudeau hasn’t had a lot of great photo-ops. Once people start to hear him talk for longer than a sound byte, are they going to like what they hear? We could see some really interesting dynamic changes in the first weeks of the campaign, as people start to hear these different leaders. They’ve heard a lot of Harper, but not so much of the other two.”

Pilon adds to succeed, the opposition parties need to both go after the Conservatives and show what they are all about.

No doubt that the Trudeau Liberals are going to hit the Conservatives hard where it hurts, bringing up not only the bad economic management, the Duffy scandal that leads right to Harper’s door, the mistreatment of Veteran and other Conservative corruption scandals.

The Conservatives have also lost support of the ethnic communities it gained in forming a majority government, especially the two largest – Chinese-Canadian and South-Asian – communities. Both Chinese and South Asian as well as other immigrant communities are unhappy with way the Conservatives have gutted the immigration system with unnecessary delays and processing wait times and are now looking to vote Liberal.