Hey, Flaherty’s getting in on the whole “an election will destroy Canada” thing

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has become the latest member of the Harper cabinet to stress, yet again, that now is not the time for an election.

In what the CBC cheekily called “a campaign-style address” to the Canadian Club of Ottawa yesterday, Flaherty argued that the triggering of an “unnecessary” fall election and the formation of a coalition government would jeopardize our economic recovery “just as we enter the home stretch.”

Well, you know what that’s all about, right? Whenever things aren’t going well for Harper’s Conservatives, they drag out the same ghost story about the terrible things that would happen to our nation and our economy if we were to exercise our right to try and elect a better government.

Note that Flaherty raised the issue, which is also how this tends to work. He brought it up just to put it down, like Harper and his fellow colleagues have before. It’s this aspect of the play, more than any other, that rightly makes it look like what they’re really saying is “Don’t get any ideas about voting us out.”

But what would make the Conservatives think that Canadians would want to vote them out? Could it have anything to do with their disastrous drop in the polls this summer? Or the beating that their credibility has rightly taken over the gun registry vote, which will take place in the House of Commons tonight?

Can we expect the same sort of reaction to the news that the Harper government has tripled its spending on advertising to a record $130 million? With no visible benefit to the average Canadian? During a period that our Conservative Finance Minister identifies as crucial to our economic recovery? Or is the government actually going to justify their reckless spending with more than the usual vague threats about what will happen if we’re given the opportunity to vote them out?

I got a call this morning from an NDP volunteer working at the office of my MP, Jack Layton. She told me that in spite of the Conservative assertion that now is not the time for an election, the party has ramped up its own marketing.

Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re preparing for an election. After all, you’d expect their advertising presence to increase now that they’re spending a record amount of money on it as a matter of course. Besides, we’ve already seen example after example of these guys spending huge amounts of money to attack their opponents outside of election cycles.

But I have to admit that the notion that they’re giving it an extra push suggests that they’re scared. And you know what? They probably should be. Because with all due respect to Mr. Flaherty, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s starting to think that there’s no such thing as a bad time for the next election.

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