The lines are drawn, but is the die cast?

As I set thoughts to keyboard Thursday morning, it is surprising to find that so little has changed. The Conservatives are close to achieving the majority that puts fear into the hearts of those who don't regularly shop at Wal-Mart while the vote of the ABH (Anybody But Harper) splits across four earnest parties to the left of him. So far, the best hope for a Canada not of Steve's remaking remains the Bloc Quebecois. Who said irony is dead?

In a twist on the great sovereignty debate of the last 20 years, a bumper sticker declares: My Canada Includes the Bloc Quebecois!

Elizabeth May, the best political mind on the campaign trail, is already alerting Canadians in the ABH majority that this time they will need to vote strategically if they wish to protect their version of Canada's global future. Taking the train across the country was a brilliant political move, I should add, reminding many Progressive Conservative why they liked their old party; you know, the one with a national dream that wasn't just hand-me-downs from Washington.

Still, there were a few other surprises this week. The first concerns the broadly theoretical question of government's role in the regulation of industry. Since the 1980s there has be a significant move away from regulation: from communications, to water treatment, to agriculture, to banking (in the U.S.), all on the grounds that government regulation negatively limits the growth and vibrancy of the economy; or even more blindly, that industry can regulate itself.

The counter-argument is while capitalism may well be the engine of economic growth, unbridled capitalism is a danger to us all. Until the "common sense revolution" of neo-conservatives in Harris's Ontario, where our current Federal Minister of Finance cut his teeth and until the recent listeria crisis in Canada and the near collapse of the U.S. economy due to a lack of regulation of the financial sector, those who opposed deregulation were treated as cranky naysayers. It appears yet again those ringing bells of caution were right.

Surprising it hasn’t played more here

It is surprising the issue of regulating the economy has not played more in the Canadian campaign. Steve Harper argues that in times of economic trouble we should turn to him, as an economist with a steady hand.

Beyond his poor record of management of the nation's surpluses, more telling is his long-standing commitment to less regulation in the economy. On economic theory, Steve is an American Republican.

Barak Obama has made considerable gains in recent weeks indicating that John McCain has been a champion of the sort of deregulation that has hit Wall Street and the pocketbooks of Americans.

Why haven't our opposition parties called our PM and his Finance Minister more effectively on their commitment to deregulation? As Jack Layton rightly declares, strong leadership is not just about acting confidently on your beliefs, but much more importantly about the content of those beliefs.

Here’s another surprise

A second surprise is Steve's persistence in making this election about making more conservatives out of us by sharpening lines of political division. The best example of this was his criticism of literary, artistic and musical culture in Canada, implying that what Canadians value is the schlock on TV, not the health of the Arts.

This playing to the lowest commonest denominator in our ambitions for our country has some political value in solidifying his hardcore supporters. But it is at the considerable political risk of offering the country a dumbed-down reflection of itself.

I think Steve will be surprised to find how many "ordinary folks" value the Arts and our reputation in producing some of the world's best. Just as he will be surprised to find that promising to put 14-year-old kids in prison for life plays better to those already on the Conservative bandwagon than to those who might wish to hop on. (Is it really true that these troubled kids act so horribly because they have calibrated the time they would serve?)

The third surprise this week has been the degree to which some (Iggy-like?) Liberals are already accepting defeat and beginning the blame game.