What is the True Cost of Government?

It now appears the opposition may be maneuvering to bring down the "Harper Government" on ethics before the federal budget is introduced in the House of Commons on March 22. The triple-bill of: allegations of improper conduct against Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, the ongoing issues surrounding Bev Oda and her handling of the CIDA Kairos affair, and the charges from Elections Canada in the "in-and-out" scheme the Conservative national campaign conducted during the 2006 campaign have made the Tories vulnerable on one of their major bread and butter issues.

The opposition smells blood and the Harperites are in full damage control mode. If the Liberals, NDP and Bloc are looking at the political landscape, they must be thinking this might be their last, best chance to take down the Tories.

For some weird reason, the Conservatives have the economy issue locked up (despite running the country into a record deficit situation, which may not have been necessary had they not chopped corporate taxes and the GST at the exact moment we went into a recession they denied was on the horizon, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary). Taking the government down on a budget vote would necessarily make the election about the budget, and the opposition has had little luck standing toe-to-toe with Harper on policy.  They've landed a few body blows that hurt a bit, but nothing that would take out the champ.

The issue of ethics is different, though. The Tories claimed the mantle of accountability and transparency when they beat Paul Martin in 2006. Five years later, the Liberals (even with the sponsorship scandal) look no better or worse than these guys on ethics. If the government is vulnerable to having anything stick to them, it's anything that calls their integrity into question.

Worse for them, should there be continuing negative publicity from the court case associated with the in and out scandal, it will likely come out during the campaign. The sight of Tories walking into a courthouse to face charges they made illegal claims to get money from taxpayers in excess of campaign spending limits must be too juicy for the opposition parties to easily dismiss.

What I want the opposition to do, though, is link the economy and the ethics issues together by asking a basic question - even if you, Everyday Canadian, accept that the Tories are the best stewards of the economy, what is the cost to democracy to continue Conservative rule? At what cost to our morals, values and ethics do we re-elect Harper and Co. to office?

Line up all the questionable activities, the arrogant dismissals of criticism (and critics), the ministerial indiscretions, the prorogations and the like, and have a tally sheet that looks like a financial spreadsheet. Attack the Tories on their financial record (which, despite John Ibbitson's musings, isn't all that great) and graphically increase the fiscal deficit shown to Canadians when you add in the democratic deficit. 

Make the case that Canada is poorer today than it was five years ago, but not in ways Canadians had expected. Remind Canadians again and again they elected the Tories to clean up government, not to make it MORE secretive, MORE control-obsessed or MORE corrupt than the Liberals. And yet on the issue of ethics, what have the Tories done for us lately?

The biggest problem, of course, is the party best situated to try and topple the Tories are the very Liberals who gave us the sponsorship scandal. Have five years in the electoral wilderness been enough to purge that party of its worst instincts? Perhaps, perhaps not. That's for the electorate to decide. 

But there probably will be no other glorious moments of weakness for the Tories after this one. They are bloodied by this issue, not floored, and are still quite capable of staging an effective counter-offensive. Plus, they start with the advantage in the poll numbers that gives many Liberals pause. 

But I think honestly that this is as good as it's going to get. Find your moment, put forward the non-confidence motion of your choosing, and force the issue, Liberal Party of Canada. Fail to do so now, and we'll be talking about a Harper majority in six months.