Ottawa Sun
Published: Thursday, March 17, 2005

Mistakes made

This weekend federal Tories will gather in Montreal to flesh out their policy blueprint for the next election. And unlike the Liberal snorefest held two weeks ago here in Ottawa, the national media will be intently focused on each and every resolution.

The Conservatives must fashion a set of cohesive policy positions which are truly conservative on economic issues and tread very carefully on the social conservative side of things if they wish to convince Canadians that they are a government-in-waiting. Yet even the achievement of this difficult task does not guarantee victory and keys to the fleet of government limos in 2006.

Operational blunders
The Tories must also demonstrate that they have learned from the strategic and operational blunders that plagued the 2004 campaign, a campaign where the surging Conservatives lost focus and discipline and allowed the scandal-ridden, tired and floundering Liberals to snatch minority government survival from the gaping jaws of electoral defeat.

While the Conservatives 99-seat result is substantive in the context of the present Parliament, it is sub-par when one considers the fact that the Liberal government was on the proverbial ropes for 80% of the election period. In addition, we shouldn't forget that the 24 seats the Conservatives now hold in Ontario are essentially the same provincial seats that the Ontario Tories held during their 2003 election wipeout.

It is hardly a glowing endorsement of breakthrough growth. Moreover, none of these seats is to be found in the core of any urban centre (read: Toronto, Ottawa, London) where the federal Tories must win next time around if it is to have any hope of attaining majority or even minority power.

The communications strategy in 2006 must be better thought out, more disciplined and more flexible.

In 2004, the Tories to their credit produced a good platform document and offered up passable (yet passive) campaign advertisements. Where the party failed was in its inability to react quickly (if at all) to the final volley of Liberal attack ads; it basically shut off the media spending taps with one week to go. Such a strategic blunder cannot be allowed to happen again and better people must manage the media buy file in 2006.

With respect to discipline, the outbursts of five fast-talking, slow-thinking MPs not only hurt urban candidates (especially in Ontario), they also derailed the plans and messages that revolved around the Leader's tour and media events.

As a candidate trying to explain away these sideshow comments at the doorstep in Orleans, I could only imagine how Stephen Harper felt under the daily barrage of a biased national media's continuing search for Mr. Harper's mythical hidden agenda. This media witchhunt in and of itself was a circus sideshow, but I digress.

Finally, the 2006 Tory national tour strategy needs to follow this simple maxim: Fish where the fish are! The decision to take the Harper tour out west for the last week of the election was an amateur one, period. There were no seats in jeopardy in Alberta or Saskatchewan. The tour should have gone to the Western base earlier, shored it up and then concentrated on swing seats in Ontario for the last week of the campaign. With 106 seats in play in Ontario, this is a Canadian Politics 101 no-brainer.

For the remainder of the weekend, I hope the Tories will focus on hard-core bread-and-butter issues, including economic growth, trade policy (internal and foreign) declining family incomes, crime and public safety, national defence and democratic reform. It is here in neo-conservative waters that a winning electoral platform must be anchored.

Sailing into the rough seas of theo-conservatism is a one-way ticket to the perfect storm of electoral defeat, just as it was in 1993, 1997, 2000 and 2004.

Issues of conscience
Issues of conscience (same-sex marriage, abortion, euthanasia, etc.) are best left to free votes by Conservative MPs, and ideally, MPs from all parties. To Stephen Harper's credit, this is a position he has rightly and consistently espoused for his entire political career. Hopefully Conservative delegates this weekend will defer to his judgment on this point.

If the Tories follow the advice I've offered above, then the Liberals -- who should be languishing in the pit of public opinion given their abysmal record and stratospheric spending budget -- will rightly become much more worried. If not, look for Paul Martin and company to cruise to a larger minority or even majority victory in 2006.