Justin Trudeau passes through the Calgary Centre riding, as seen by the media. Actual Liberal Party of Canada leadership candidates may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: Conservative Party candidate Joan Crockatt, still the front-runner in the by-election that hasn’t been called yet; Liberal candidate Harvey Locke looking outdoorsy; the real Mr. Trudeau.
With the federal Liberals suddenly looking as if they have a little momentum courtesy of the media’s incipient relapse of Trudeaumania, perhaps there’s the vaguest possibility of a horserace in the eventual Calgary Centre by-election.
At any rate, the Liberals have a respectable Calgary Centre candidate in the person of conservationist and lawyer Harvey Locke, who may not have the highest profile around but at least can reflect some of the glow of media ardour for Justin Trudeau as he passed through Cowtown just before announcing his own grab for the brass ring.
Mr. Trudeau’s high-profile Liberal Party leadership bid, in turn, has boosted his once-flagging Liberals’ popularity into and beyond the territory occupied by the NDP, at least according to poll results published yesterday by the National Post.
The Greens also have a reasonably appealing Calgary Centre candidate in author Chris Turner, who writes about sustainability issues.
Alert readers will be aware that all of this matters because Prime Minister Stephen Harper must soon call a by-election in the downtown Calgary riding where his Conservative Party of Canada in late August chose as its standard bearer market-fundamentalist on-air talking head Joan Crockatt.
Alas, while the New Democrats are finally getting around to trying to nominate a local candidate after a few higher-profile names declined their party’s proffered parachutes, it’s hard to see how the likes of Brent Macklinson, Scott Payne or Matthew McMillan can use the contest to do much to raise the profile of Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair in the West.
Well, maybe the NDP have stirred the entrails and written Calgary Centre off, which wouldn’t be unreasonable given the habits of that city’s voters. Or maybe a bigger name is still waiting in the wings.
The riding was vacated back in May by former Conservative MP Lee Richardson, who had a reputation as a slightly pinkish Tory. Mr. Richardson went to work as Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s principal secretary, a position for which a meaningful job description seems to be lacking. A by-election must be called by Nov. 18 if the vote is to take place before Christmas.
Why this has been taking Mr. Harper so long is a mystery to everyone, since in the normal course of events the Conservative candidate in a Calgary riding, Ms. Crockatt, should be a shoo-in. The longer the PM waits, the greater the chances Ms. Crockatt will slip her foot into her mouth, creating opportunities for her opponents.
Which brings us back to the matter of the suddenly lustrous Mr. Trudeau – who is certain to adopt the standard and frequently effective Liberal practice of flashing left while preparing to turn right. Stating this axiom is all very well, but it would be a terrible mistake – as former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney suggested not so long ago – to underestimate Mr. Trudeau.
The main knock against the Liberal leadership contender seems to be that he lacks legislative experience. But legislative experience is a commodity that may in fact be the kiss of death for anyone campaigning nowadays on a claim they can reinvent politics – which is very likely exactly why Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae decided to pull the plug on his own ambitions.
From an Alberta perspective, anyone inclined to laugh off the 2012 beneficiary of the Trudeaumania phenomenon would do well to remember two other politicians with limited legislative experience – Alison Redford and Naheed Nenshi. The former is now the premier of Alberta and the latter the mayor of Calgary after each ran just the kind of “transformative” campaign Mr. Trudeau is bound to try.
Getting back to Calgary Centre, perhaps His Nibs the prime minister continues to temporize in hopes the Supreme Court will rule in his favour on the case of Etobicoke Centre and he’ll only have to call three by-elections.
In Etobicoke Centre, the Conservative MP is appealing a ruling of an Ontario court that his election day victory is null and void because of campaign shenanigans. The court, like the prime minister, is taking its time. Two additional vacant ridings, one in Ontario and the other in B.C., also await by-election calls.
Meanwhile, back in Cowtown, it is said the word has gone out to the city’s many Conservative MPs (and that would be all of them) that they are to behave themselves and campaign for Ms. Crockatt.
Calgary East MP Deepak Obrai obediently went door knocking with Ms. Crockatt last week, and other Calgary MPs can be expected to join her as their marching orders come through.
Mr. Harper, however, may want to make an exception of his neighbour, Calgary West MP Rob Anders, and demand instead that Mr. Anders stay home.
It’s not that Mr. Anders doesn’t support Ms. Crockatt – au contraire, he shares her enthusiasm for the sort of nutty neoconservative economic nostrums that are apparently still popular in Calgary. It’s just that, well, he is known to be Canada’s Most Embarrassing MP, and it’s entirely possible that he would not be a particular asset to Ms. Crockatt’s election bid.
Then again, no matter what you may have read about the supposed sophistication of the downtown riding, it is in Calgary, and we all know what Calgary always does at election time.
With or without Mr. Anders’ participation, it sounds as if Calgary Centre should brace for a Christmas by-election.
This post also appears on Rabble.ca.
So Trudeau survives the next election with honor but the Liberals as a party are decimated because their foundational political technologies have become antiquated compared to their new opponents?
Maybe 2015 history makes this the most inspired photo choice ever.
Liberals political technologies were ethical in comparison to opponents Cons & NDP who gathered everything on voters except shoe size!!!
Information gathering wasn’t a technology I had in mind. I understand your point though. But I think I’ve read that the Lib’s have for the last year or so been addressing that.
That photo of Cruise and his teeth is I believe from the scene of the final suicidal charge up the middle of valley into the new machine gun technology. In contrast the samurai’s war technologies… methods and weapons and tactics, were antiquated, if I’m using the term correctly.
So it got me to thinking of things like the Harper Con’s constant attack campaigning for example as a new political ‘technology’ that has been partly responsible for the Lib’s losses. Traditional conservatives never did that.
And in response to Harper’s political technologies, the Lib’s have not yet adapted much of theirs… and mostly rely on their traditional centrist positioning as their primary ‘political technology’, i.e. they have upped the frequency of offering their centrist position as the principal reason to vote for them, compared to the radical ideologues to the left and the right. Bob Rae even decided to use Occupy as a part of smear statement to position NDP way out to the left.
Tom Cruise and Justin Trudeau riding up the middle because that’s the tradition that’s always worked before. Cruise’s character knew it was futile and suicidal. I used the word ‘maybe’ because I’m not sure Lib’s in 2015 will or won’t survive if they put Trudeau out front to lead the charge and mostly rely on pitching voters to join them because they are in the middle of political spectrums.
BTW… I bear no particular heartburn toward the libs… and No other party federally would use voter data, like all the evidence makes it appear, as the Cons did during the election. It also seems to me that the unethical, undemocratic, and probably illegal actions of this Harper crowd could actually destroy the ‘Conservative’ brand for anyone but a Canadian version of the Tea-Party base by the time their done with it. But as a once upon a time small c Lougheed conservative I’d have that old optimism about small c conservatives actually having more integrity than this gang at the top, wouldn’t I.