Wild Wild West

Before I make with the blagging, I'd just like to note that I'm adding this blog to Liblogs, which is some kind of aggregation service for people who like all their commentary to come from people they agree with. I was actually kind of impressed that such a service existed, because previously the only Canadian political blog I'd read was the unquestionably funny but reliably archconservative Filibuster Cartoons. Already, I'm seeing some cool news on Liblogs, including a suggestion that the Liberal leadership race might be moved up. If so, this is an encouraging sign that the Liberals are looking to change course and possibly get ready to fight an election.

Also, I feel it's necessary to respond to Kevin's comment, where he suggested that supporting the budget would be a decision based on political expediency rather than Liberal principles. Perhaps I didn't put enough emphasis on the notion of Conservative concessions, but I would suggest that if the Liberals can work with (or pressure, depending on how adversarial you like your verbs) the Conservatives on delivering a decent economic stimulus plan, then this would be much more in keeping with the strongest Liberal principle - responsible, rational leadership - and would put them in a stronger position for the next election as they could tout their own expertise in solving economic issues and working with other parties in what is most likely going to be a minority Parliament. (Also, it prevents a March election which would most likely give us a majority Conservative Parliament.)

In his last post, Allan touched on Western alienation - the concept that the federal government does not adequately represent the four Western provinces. The coalition is only going to exacerbate this problem, and I'm going to show why this produces a serious electoral challenge for the Liberals. (Throughout this discussion, I'm going to ignore any speculation or rhetoric as to outright separation, by Alberta or any other part of the West. This sort of discussion isn't really grounded in reality, and reflects an attempt by Calgary Conservatives and Toronto Liberals to raise the spectre of an Alberta or Western analogue to the Bloc Quebecois. It is worth noting though that at least one Conservative MP backed separation at one point.)

First, it is essential to point out the precarious electoral position of the Liberals in the four western provinces. Of the seven Liberal seats in the four provinces, every single one had a Conservative canadidate in second place in the most recent election. Moreover, some of those races were really close:A couple of these races were within 1%, and the two big Liberal victories in Vancouver (Quadra and Centre) may prove hard to repeat now that redistricting is likely to carve chunks out of both of these ridings. Ralph Goodale's Wascana riding in Regina looks safe, but Liberals at this point are going to be fighting tooth and nail to keep these seven ridings red.

There are two reasons why the coalition is unquestionably hurting the Liberal's chances in this part of the country.

First, the new coalition seriously reduces the numbers of western MPs participating in government:
In particular, Alberta and Saskatchewan see almost no representation in the coalition, and BC and Manitoba see virtually none outside of urban areas. The Liberals need to step back and reconsider how they can keep going with the coalition and not seriously interfere with future electoral prospects. I'm looking to see at least three of those seven western Liberals in any hypothetical coalition cabinet, as well as an equal number of western NDP, but it remains to be seen whether this is sufficient.

Second, the raison d'être of the coalition - the economy - does not resonate in Western Canada like it does elsewhere. Here are the Conference Board of Canada predictions for economic growth in 2008 and 2009, as released in mid-November:
(Here, red is 2008 and blue is 2009 - sorry for the colours with their unfortunate associations.) As you can see, economic growth out west is healthy, while the rest of Canada is hurting. When Saskatchewan's economy is slated to grow at over 5% this year, I'm hard-pressed to see a strong response from Saskatchewan to a promise to fix a broken economy. From their point of view, it isn't broken.

It's clear that the Liberals have made a grievous miscalculation with the coalition, and now I'm worried that it's going to give us a Conservative majority within a year and a Conservative monopoly between the Coast Mountains and Lake Winnipeg.