The Liberals appear to have designated Belinda Stronach as their Conservative attack dog on the national unity file, what with her claim that she defected on the eve of last May's confidence vote because Stephen Harper was willing to "work with the separatists":
Harper's determination to bring down the Liberal minority government was "an ill-conceived assault" on federalism in Quebec that would have stifled progressive social spending and been socially divisive, Stronach said. "I didn't work so hard to put the two conservative parties together to have Mr. Harper break apart this country," Stronach told the Canadian Club in a speech Monday.
Only the Liberals, she said, were capable of keeping Canada together.
This is unfortunate spin -- it is untrue and coarsens the debate -- but it is to be expected. This line is no doubt going to be repeated ad infinitum for the duration of the campaign, although the fact that Belinda is the spinner may deaden the effect.
Fear-mongering is what the Liberals do best. The Tories have to hit back hard, and in my view ought to go as far as laying out a concrete and detailed plan for reforming Canadian federalism. The arguments for this approach are numerous; among them the fact that it would help draw in voters in Quebec, and maybe even the West. The drawbacks are that the Liberals would have something to shoot at (although that approach seems to working fine so far) and that many Canadians don't care about constitutional issues.
On a separate note, David Mader's blog has become indispensible reading, especially in the area of poll and data interpretation. Great stuff, especially considering he lives in Texas!
