Canadians are going to the polls in a few days, and if the public opinion surveys of the past weeks prove accurate, Stephen Harper's Conservatives will win enough seats in Ontario and the West to form a government.
Harper has run a promise-a-day campaign that includes an assortment of tax cuts and credits, a get-tough approach to street crime and new spending on a bundle of things, including more police and new polar icebreakers.
Prime Minister Paul Martin and his Liberals, who face the prospect of electoral defeat for the first time since 1988, have failed to present a coherent program and have spent a lot of time warning voters of the perils of a Conservative victory. Martin contends that the Tory leader will turn Liberal surpluses into Conservative deficits.
The Liberals have been very precise. They say that Harper's program will produce deficits of $12.4 billion over a five-year period. The Conservatives, meanwhile, submitted their platform to the Conference Board of Canada for an independent analysis and the board concluded that government revenue will more than cover the Tory program, as well as allow annual payments of $3 billion on the national debt.
The average voter has no way to sort out the truth of these claims and counter-claims. However, common sense and past elections suggest that Harper has promised more than he can deliver in a single mandate, just as Brian Mulroney did in 1984 and Jean Chrétien did in 1993.
But apart from the strengths and weaknesses of the Conservative platform, there are several reasons why a Stephen Harper victory would be a good thing for the country. First, Canada needs a prime minister from the West. The country has been governed by leaders from Quebec for almost 40 years since Pierre Trudeau ascended to power in 1968, the only exceptions being the brief interludes when Joe Clark, John Turner and Kim Campbell held office.
Over the course of the past four decades, the West has grown more populous and more prosperous. Two of its cities, Calgary and Vancouver, have become substantial centres of economic power, one as the head-office capital of the country's oil and gas industry, the other due to an influx of capital and people from the Pacific Rim.
But growing financial clout has not been matched by political influence. Quite the contrary. Rightly or wrongly, Canada's political system has repeatedly excluded westerners and western influence.
Voters west of the Manitoba-Ontario border had little influence on the outcomes of four of the past seven elections - those of 1980, 1997, 2000 and 2004. Voters east of that divide have rejected a succession of Western Canadian leaders - Clark, Preston Manning, Stockwell Day and, in 2004, Stephen Harper.
Alienation and discontent are the natural byproducts of exclusion and both are on the rise. According to a public opinion poll conducted last summer for The Western Standard, 42 per cent of Albertans and more than one-third of all westerners believe that the four western provinces should examine the idea of creating their own country.
That's a long way from advocating separation. Nevertheless, another Liberal government will give discontented westerners more time to stew and western grievances more time to fester. On the other hand, a Harper victory would give westerners a reason to buy into federal processes and institutions, something the country sorely needs.
Canada also needs a leader and a party that can unify the country by winning support from all regions. Harper and his Conservatives are not there yet.
If they win, it will be because they are the choice of voters in Ontario and the West. However, if they govern well in a short minority Parliament, they would be in a position to sweep the country the next time out.
It is difficult to be optimistic about another Liberal minority. Martin failed to win a strong mandate from all regions of the country in the June 2004 election.
He is failing again this time. His chances of succeeding any further are somewhere between slim and remote.
Martin can only return to office as a wounded leader. He will have little support in Quebec or the West. He will be outnumbered in the House of Commons. His enemies in the Liberal party, and there are many, will be trying to stab him in the back. That is hardly a formula for good government.
Finally, Canada needs younger leadership. The United States has had two Baby Boomer presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both of whom were born after the Second World War. Great Britain has had one post-Second World War leader in Tony Blair. Canada has had one in Kim Campbell, but she hardly counts, given her brief term.
Youth for youth's sake would be folly, but Harper's youthfulness may be one reason he is poised to become the first Boomer to move into 24 Sussex Drive.
He has appeared in this campaign to be more energetic, more confident and more thoughtful than his main opponent.
And he seems to embody renewal whereas the aging Martin looks tired and seems to stand only for more of the same.
(D'Arcy Jenish can be reached at jenish@businessedge.ca)
