….another deadlock:
The survey, administered March 18-20 by Ipsos Reid, showed that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives and the Liberals led by Stéphane Dion are in a virtual tie in public support. The Grits, with 33 per cent of the decided vote, were up two points from a previous poll conducted March 4-6. The Tories remained at 35 per cent. The New Democratic Party moved down two points to 13 per cent, and the Green party had eight-per-cent support, down one point. Seven per cent of Canadians were undecided.
With the polls remaining close, you must wonder why Jim Flaherty and the Conservatives continues their unprecedented assault on Ontario and its Budget plans. In a deadlocked country, it should be rather obvious that you need to keep your Ontario seats to retain power, and expand them to get a majority. Continuing to diss Ontario when 2/3 of those polled here say they pick Mcguinty’s view over Flaherty’s (knowing full well how much of a disaster he was when he was Ontario finance minister) puts you at risk of losing most of your suburbia seats here.
Perhaps the Flaherty/Harper strategy is that they feel bashing Ontario will get them votes and make up seats elsewhere - but I have my doubts that strategy will work. The other reasoning is they’re trying to make McGuinty’s government a scapegoat for the economic downturn that is coming that won’t be helped by their failed federal policies — that probably makes more sense to me. The Conservatives have invested in blaming everyone else but themselves for problems that have popped up during their tenure, so this would follow that pattern
"Passing the buck" is my theory. If fits with Rovian strategy, and follows the pattern of behaviour used when Harris was in power in Ontario. I doubt Harper would allow Flaherty to use his position to push for personal gain at John Tory’s expense, and, anyway, Tory recently got enough support to stay in as the PC leader.
Make no mistake, these attacks are all at Harper’s command, and suit his agenda.
Steve has a great post on this as well, pointing out (among other things) that the more damaging corporate taxes are being reduced in Ontario, such as property tax. The corporate tax reductions are important because, unlike normal corporate taxes which are tied to profitability, corporate property taxes are charged regardless of the state of corporation’s books, making them far more important to corporations during hard times. Corporate taxes are not paid during hard times when profits are not happening.