What is true is essentially beside the point

Heading into a highly charged meeting Monday between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader(less) Stephane Dion - one that Dion had said he wouldn't participate in - Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc (Beausejour) made the following public statement:

"It would be completely out of character for Mr. Harper to compromise or co-operated. He refuses to understand that a minority government has to work with the opposition. Instead, he tries to bully them."

There are two main observations to make about that argument.

First, the idea that Harper is a "bully" who will not listen to any other viewpoint is one that all the opposition parties have been trying to make since the onset of this minority government.

Second, it's obviously not true. Why? Well, since the Harper minority long ago beat the Canadian record for longevity of minority governments, how can it legitimately be said that Harper doesn't understand the numerical realities of keeping a minority government alive?

Not to worry though, for the fact is that with a federal election apparently about to be called for early October - although at the time of this writing it had yet to be officially launched - what is true and what is not true (and this goes for the Tories as well as the opposition parties) is essentially beside the point.

Once they're into an election, all bets are off. It's down and dirty and may the toughest scrapper win.

As things stand, it appears relatively obvious that Harper will win, but it remains a real question whether or not he can win a majority. Most commentators say he can't. This one says it's certainly not guaranteed, but it's there for the taking.

Consider that a weekend Angus Reid poll put the Conservatives at 36 per cent, eight points ahead of Dion's Liberals and double Jack Layton's New Democrats. That's just shy of majority territory, but given the fact that a)-public opinion polls routinely underestimate Tory strength for a variety of reasons; and b)-overestimate Liberal strength; and c)-the Tories almost always increase their support during election campaigns; it's no wonder Harper is anxious to pull the plug.

Another thing about the aforementioned poll: for reasons unknown to anybody in the real world, it tells us that the Bloc Quebecois is at nine per cent "nationally" even though the Bloc, as we all know, only exists in Quebec. It likely isn't doing well in Saskatchewan or Newfoundland, but it's silly - and pointless - to report its' "national" numbers when it's only running in one province.

That being said, however, polls have consistently shown that the Liberals - apart from the Englishspeaking enclaves in downtown Montreal - have essentially lost their historic base in Quebec, which has now become a two-way battle between the Bloc and the Tories. What that means is that the Tories stand to pick up several seats in Quebec, a reality which certainly could help them edge ever close to a majority. Add to that the probability that the Tories can pick up seats in Ontario and the Liberals are in danger of losing most of the few seats they hold in the West - thanks to their idiotic strategy of punishing the West for the heinous crime of being oil producing provinces - and Harper has more reason than the other leaders to be optimistic about an election outcome.

The main reason, of course, why the Tories have an excellent chance of capturing a majority is that the Liberals are led by Dion, a weak choice for leadership even before he decided - to the chagrin of many in his own party - to make his carbon tax policy the hallmark of his campaign.

At a time when high-energy prices are getting up everybody's noses, Dion's strategy is to offer Canadians even higher energy prices. While airlines are laying off thousands of workers because of high jet fuel prices, Dion's answer is to slap even more taxes on jet fuel to make it even more expensive. And so it goes.

If it weren't for the fact that two major factions within the Liberal party - the Michael Ignatieff crowd and the Bob Rae troops - want an election because they want to take over the leadership after Dion loses - you can bet that the party would have stopped Dion from offering up such a losing policy as his major electoral plank.

Just as Jean Chretien enjoyed electoral success, not so much for what he accomplished but because his main opposition, the Conservatives, were badly divided among themselves, Harper too is ready to win a majority against a Liberal party hampered by both a weak leader and an internal struggle for post-election control.

No wonder Harper wants to bring it on. Who wouldn't?