Winnipeg Free Press April 23, 2008

Not just a gender gap, but a gender chasm, has opened in Canadian federal politics, according to the latest Harris-Decima Canadian Press poll.

The survey, released last week, gives the Liberals a statistically insignificant three-point lead over the Conservatives, 33 per cent to 30 per cent, within the error margin of the other major polls.

The Liberals are ahead of the Conservatives in every region except the Prairies. The Conservatives’ five-point lead in urban Canada on Election Day 2006 has turned into a seven-point lead for the Liberals.

But the real story, according to Harris-Decima president Bruce Anderson, is the shift in voting intentions among women.

In January 2006 the Liberal advantage among younger, single and urban women was about five points. Today, the gap is 24 points, with the Liberals at 40 per cent, the Conservatives tied with the Green party at 16 per cent and the NDP at 15 per cent. Among married women, the Conservatives had a seven-point lead in January 2006. Today, they trail the Liberals by five points. Among women under 35, the Conservatives’ three-point advantage in January 2006 has turned into a 14-point Liberal advantage. And among women over 50, a Conservative lead of 10 points has become a 10-point lead for the Liberals.

Canadian women, like women in other democracies, see their political choices through the prism of social issues. Traditionally, they have selected the Liberal party as a closer fit to their core values, Anderson says.

In 2006, women took the Conservatives at their word that they had shed their right-wing, social conservative agenda. Now, they’re witnessing the surfacing of a 16-year-old anti-homosexual diatribe from MP Tom Lukiwski, the indirect reopening of the abortion and capital punishment debates and accusations from Canada’s election commissioner that the Conservatives “made materially false and misleading statements” on their 2006 election returns.

There’s another, perhaps even more potent, reason why women are backing away. They’re already turned off by the strutting machismo that characterizes too much of politics. And the minority Stephen Harper Conservatives have taken strutting machismo a quantum leap forward into cold, calculated determination to intimidate or destroy anyone who stands in their way.

They fire Canadian Nuclear Safety Commissioner Linda Kean. They subvert the Military Police Complaints Commission over the treatment of Afghan detainees. They sue the Liberal party for libel. And they’ve repeatedly smeared Elections Canada and its two senior officers with accusations of “political bias” and “working for the Liberal party.” This, although both officers are Conservative appointees and Elections Canada counsels countries around the world on how to hold democratic elections.

A government that browbeats and intimidates independent Crown agencies cannot pretend to believe in transparency and accountability.

A government that authors a 100-page manual for crippling parliamentary committees — the most potent of which is for the Conservative chairman to run out of the room if the opposition majority tries to hold a vote on an issue embarrassing to the government — cannot claim to be interested in democracy and the popular will.

A government that slams its doors tighter than its predecessors on access to information cannot call itself “clean” in its throne speech.

A government that constantly tries to control and manipulate the media cannot sell itself as a champion of openness.

A government that strong-arms the Canadian Wheat Board to violate the Privacy Act and give the agriculture minister access to individual farmers’ personal marketing information cannot insist it owns the patent on respect for liberty and the rights of the individual. But above all, it’s the personal venom that keeps the glass ceiling so low on this government’s polling numbers, especially among women.

On Wednesday, April 9, Ontario Conservative MP Jeff Watson rose in the Commons to compare Liberal Leader St ©phane Dion to Britney Spears, saying he is so friendless he relies on his dog Kyoto for political advice. “Kyoto says ‘down boy’ and the Liberal leader responds by driving his poll numbers in Quebec way down. Kyoto says ’sit’ and the Liberal leader responds by having his caucus sit vote after vote after vote. When Kyoto says ‘roll over’, the Liberal leader obliges… However, the Liberal so-called leader is saving Kyoto’s best advice for last. In the next election, which the Liberals now pretend they will call in the dog days of summer, their so-called leader will finally play dead.” All the while, Conservative MPs roared and jeered.

Ottawa Citizen political columnist Susan Riley, who was in the House for the attack, noted that Dion’s wife, Janine Krieber, had been in the public gallery but “didn’t stick around to see her husband savaged further… In the pungent, locker-room ethos of Parliament Hill, verbal pile-ons, puerile attack ads and wildly embroidered smears are theatre… But there is a personal edge — a cruelty almost — to the Harper style that hits new lows… You don’t have to be a fan of Dion’s, or a Liberal, to be sick of it.”

Just ask Canadian women.

This article was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 and is filed under Canadian Issues and Politics, Extra! Extra!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.