The first week of Parliament’s fall sitting which began September 20th provided plenty more to think about regarding the course being taken by the Harper Conservative government.

As discussed in the September column, Colonel Pat Stogran, Canada’s Veterans Ombudsman, stirred up a hornets nest over questions related to veterans’ benefits in August. The subject is particularly sensitive for the Conservatives because the Afghan war has created a large contingent of Canadian veterans who have been disabled by roadside bombs and other combat incidents. They thus took an unusual route to try to put this hot potato issue on the back burner before Parliament reopened.

Sunday September 19th the Minister of Veterans Affairs Jean-Pierre Blackburn and the Minister of National Defence Peter MacKay held a press conference in Ottawa where they announced improvements to be implemented over the next five years in benefits for Canadian forces severely injured on the job. The improvements were said to potentially benefit 4,000 veterans over the five year period. Press conferences to announce new government programs on a Sunday are rare, to say the least, but, Minister Blackburn explained the rationale in the press release: "We have been listening to our Veterans and their families, and we are determined to do whatever it takes to serve them as they have served Canada and all Canadians with courage and distinction."

Unlike the Veterans Affairs Minister, Peter MacKay left no doubt about the person responsible for the improvements when he told CTV’s Canada AM on September 20th: “this is the first instalment of another wave of changes that we're going to make to address some of the concerns raised by Mr. Stogran and others." MacKay continued: "What I would say to our veterans (is) please be patient, I know you've waited a long time but we want to make sure that we get this right."
The problem for the Conservatives is that Colonel Stogran has lost his patience, he’s tired of waiting and he has vowed to “make a lot of noise” about the problems faced by Canadian veterans dealing with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Locally we have seen similar evidence of unhappiness when veterans protested Stephen Harper’s 2008 election visit to Courtenay. This is definitely an issue to watch as the Conservatives struggle to placate veterans with a multitude of beefs.

The Conservatives are not as uncertain when it comes to the long gun registry. They lost the September 22nd vote on the fate of the registry by a mere two votes. Immediately after their attempt to scrap the registry through Bill C-391 was defeated the Prime Minister vowed to keep the campaign going: "After 15 years, opposition to the long-gun registry is stronger in this country than it has ever been. With the vote tonight, its abolition is closer than it has ever been," Harper said. "The people of the regions of this country are never going to accept being treated like criminals and we will continue our efforts until this registry is finally abolished."

Why? One simple answer when it comes to the long gun registry is money. The Conservative Party is one of the most successful political fundraising machines in Canadian history and the long gun registry is one cash cow they are not done milking yet. Tom Flanagan, one of the party’s early strategists, described how the Conservatives have been developing their fundraising base in his 2007 book Harper’s Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power: “we have now built up a “voter vault” of millions of Conservative supporters. We contact them frequently by direct mail, email and telephone to find out about their policy concerns and the depth of their support. This continual cultivation of the grassroots is an important part of the success of the Conservative Party.”

All that work has paid off as the Conservatives often receive more donations than all the other parties combined. The Elections Canada contributions report for the quarter ending September 2010 has not been released yet. The Conservatives’ long gun registry fundraising campaign will undoubtedly be writ large when it is, and, may also be part of the reason for the lopsided results for the previous period. In April, May and June 2010 the Conservatives received $4.1 million from 34,431 contributors which almost doubled the amount brought in by the combined forces of the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens at $2.6 million.

One other news event that received a lot of attention was Finance Minister Flaherty’s speech to the Ottawa Canadian Club September 21st. It was a partisan rant that did nothing to inform people about the state of the Canadian economy. Rather Flaherty repeatedly referred to the “Ignatieff, NDP, Bloc alliance” that was threatening to force an election and destabilize the country. After watching a replay of the speech I concluded that the minister either had one too many pre-speech drinks or he was vigorously field-testing something the Conservatives have unearthed in their polling. Either way, it wasn’t pretty, and reportedly many people walked out during the speech.

Walking away is what many people are doing when continually confronted by such negative attack-style politics. They don’t pay attention and they don’t vote. Rather than thinking it can fool people with Sunday press conferences it would be much better if the government’s actions sprang from a positive premise. October 1st Canada’s new Governor General David Johnston was sworn in. Each Governor General gets to design a coat of arms. Mr. Johnston’s contains the motto “Contemplare Meliora” — “To envisage a better world.” Stephen Harper and the Conservative government should have such a positive aim.