Harper's big gamble

The National Post is suggesting that Québec premier Jean Charest has turned against Harper, and has become engaged in a "your momma wears combat boots"-style war of rhetoric with the Bloc Québecois over which one of them is in bed with the Tories. On Wednesday, Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe said this:

The Charest government has no backbone. Mr. Charest is making an error. He is hitching himself to Mr. Harper's wagon at any cost to the detriment of Quebec's interests.

and on Friday, Charest countered:

[Gilles Duceppe] represents Quebecers in the House of Commons. If he believes in what he is saying, unless it is empty rhetoric, well then he will vote against the budget in the House of Commons. So we'll see who has backbone.

It's pretty clear what Duceppe's aim is here: a Québec provincial election is likely by the end of next year, and he'd clearly like to see the Parti Québecois take the reins. Charest's aim, on the other hand, is slightly more murky. Until recently, after all, he seemed to be pretty tight with Harper. On the surface of things, the falling out appears to have happened toward the end of May, and over the Kyoto Accord. It's certainly true that Charest, a former federal environment minister under Brian Mulroney, has been feeling some pressure on that front. But my fellow oxymoron from Accidental Deliberations is left wondering whether Charest's sudden chill toward Harper is all just for show, and a prelude to forcing an election now for the ultimate benefit of the Conservatives.

It sounds like a tinfoil-hat notion, but I have to wonder, myself. When I met up with Conservative blogger Greg Staples at the multipartisan Waterloo Blogstravaganza, one of the few things we agreed on was that if we were in Stephen Harper's shoes, we would be looking for the government to fall now. By the fall, the Liberals will have a new leader and almost inevitably the new momentum that goes along with that, and at the moment, Harper's own party's polling numbers are quite strong. We also agreed, however, that Canadians are nowhere near ready for another election, and if the current government seemed to be orchestrating their own demise prematurely, they might come to regret that decision come election time. An obvious strategy to deal with this, we decided, would be to goad the opposition into voting against a confidence motion that was at least superficially bad for the Tories. The Liberals would then be forced to fight an election without a real leader, and a Tory majority could result.

In order for a play like that to work, the issue the government fell on would have to be one that most Canadians tended to like, but only in a superficial sort of way, as we all like the neighbour's new puppy until we start finding our petunias dug up and rubber chew toys in their place. Recent polling about the details of Kyoto suggests that it could well be that issue, since more than two-thirds of us know little to nothing about it. The pollsters who interpreted the numbers even suggested that "the knowledge level of what is in Kyoto is so small that this government, if it plays its cards right, will have some manoeuvrability." It would be a big gamble for the Tories, but they might well decide that it would be worth the potential prize of a majority government.

For all our sakes, I sure hope I'm wrong. But if I turn out to be right, I have to admit that there's a part of me that will almost admire such shrewd and highly complex political gamesmanship. It's often said that the left should underestimate Stephen Harper at its own peril--and he may well be on the brink of proving that right.