Conservatives take big risk in face of low pre-election polling
With every federal election season comes the leaders’ debates—one each in French and English—televised on major Canadian news networks to give voters a better idea of who and what they’ll be voting for when they head to the polls. Though the format, content, and rules for inclusion have varied and wavered throughout the tradition’s nearly-50-year history, the leaders’ debates have become a generally expected and anticipated institution in Canadian politics.
This is all set to change this year, with current Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative party, Stephen Harper, making a bold move in the face of the October 2015 elections.
On Thursday, May 21, four of the five major political parties—the NDP, the Liberal party, the Green party, and the Bloc Quebecois—agreed to the traditional leaders’ debates format, with one English and one French debate to be broadcast by the CBC, CTV, Global, and Radio Canada.
The Conservative party, however, will not be agreeing to the debates hosted by the country’s big broadcasters, having already agreed to debates hosted by The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, TVA, and Munk Debates. There is also speculation that they will agree to a debate to be hosted by La Presse.
Harper’s move is not unprecedented; in the most recent leaders’ debates held in the UK, British Prime Minister David Cameron chose not to attend —and the consortium moved forward without him. In Cameron’s case, the move wasn’t necessarily harmful, as his opponent, Labour leader Ed Miliband, had to face the smaller party leaders on his own—to the party’s detriment. Stephen Maher for National Post, however, notes that, for Harper, the move could be much more problematic.
“The dynamic would be different [for the Canadian leaders’ debates] because many voters would like to have a different prime minister, but they disagree on whether it should be Thomas Mulcair or Justin Trudeau,” wrote Maher. “If the two of them square off (with Elizabeth May) in the only English debate to be broadcast on millions of TV screens, the non-Tory voters might settle on one of them.”
Maher also points out that such a risky move could be harmful for a Conservative party already facing dismal numbers in pre-election polling. An Ekos poll for iPolitics on Friday, May 22 showed a three-way tie between the Conservatives, the NDP, and the Liberals. More troubling for Harper, however, is that approximately 40 per cent of those voting for the Liberals or NDP would rank the other party as their second choice. Only 13 per cent of Liberal voters and eight per cent of NDP voters indicated that they would consider voting for the Conservatives, while 58 per cent of Canadians indicated that they would not vote for the Conservative party under any circumstances.
It will be interesting to see how Harper’s decisions in this critical part of the election trail will affect the Conservative party as October’s race to the polls draws closer.