Or: The Duffy on Duffy Incident

Last week I touched on the momentum of Canada’s Conservative Party, and now almost one week later and with the benefit of the two remaining debates behind us, that momentum is sustained. Stephen Harper’s conservatives have created a huge gap and are now leading the incumbent Liberals by some ten percent. And with thirteen days left on the campaign trail it is time for the battered incumbent to go negative, big time.

Yesterday a series of Liberal attack ads was launched, the most vicious one suggesting that Stephen Harper as Prime-Minister would send the military into major cities. It’s hard to fathom what the Liberal campaign team was trying to bring across here: Are the conservatives staging a coup? Are the conservatives prepared to use any means to stifle dissent? Judge for yourself by going here (Liberal attack ad about Harper and military presence), and then compare the ad with the succinct response that Kate McMillan crafted. Needless to say, there are many Canadian servicemen and women who are rightly furious over this ad, especially as it is coming from a party that has always had a deep disdain for its own armed forces. Working from memory I believe there was actually one Canadian Prime-Minister who sent troops into the streets and that was actually a Liberal: Pierre Trudeau in 1970.

Well, the ad has been pulled, and in what I can only call an extremely un-Canadian display of anger and emotion CTV political commentator Mike Duffy attacked his guest, Liberal campaign strategist John Duffy. He assailed the latter Duffy for refusing to answer questions about the ad and for intimidating him during the commercial break to not further question the ad. Duffy the strategist was dumbfounded. Liberals in Canada normally aren’t questioned that way and certainly not by the very media outlets that serve as proxies to ram their agenda down the Canadian throat. (here’s a series of video links, highly recommended).

More than anything - and I discount for a moment the controversial nature of the ads - I believe that this “Duffy on Duffy incident” reveals what is now happening in Canada. The sheer robustness of Conservative poll numbers indicate that thirteen years of Liberal omnipotence is starting to crumble and the nation is readying itself for – excuse the term – regime change. And with that it is now becoming far easier, and perhaps strategically wise for those that can look ahead, to question some of conventional wisdom and tactics that so far have often been taken for granted in Canada. Corruption, heavy handed tactics, arrogance and disdain for average Canadians have now been put on public display in an unprecedented manner.

Remember I argued that only an economic crisis could help unseat the Liberals? Canadians never had it so good, right? Of all people I should have known that low interest rates, a booming stock and property market, low unemployment, and endless budget surpluses are no guarantee for electoral success. In The Netherlands in 2002 the Fortuyn insurgency proved that riches don’t always guarantee that the incumbents get a free pass at the ballot box. It took a compelling politician and a lively campaign to force the Dutch to ask some hard questions and to mark a few unusual boxes on the ballot. Now that we are witnessing the first cracks in Canada’s dispassionate disinterest, it may indeed signify a monumental change in the direction of its politics.

OTHERS BLOGGING: Angry in the Great White North rightly notes that the media are "shaking off the funk they've been in".

UPDATE: Canada's MSM takes note too: "the most captivating 30 seconds of TV of the campaign thus far".