Will the Conservatives be Less Popular with a Leader?

Scott Piatkowski wrote an interesting column that appears on rabble.ca. He argues that the Conservative Party will be less popular once they've chosen a leader.

His argument is that whoever wins will alienate voters in one part of the country or another, and he brings up a number of reasons why Harper (the likely winner) will almost certainly do badly east of Alberta.

Living in Vancouver, but being originally from the Maritimes (I'm including Newfoundland here, where most of my family still lives), I find that a lot of people out in this part of the country have a remarkable ignorance for the central and eastern parts of Canada, but the east coastal regions in particular.

What a lot of people in BC and Alberta forget, is that their provinces have been built on the easy availability of natural resources. The only major source of natural resources historically for the Maritimes have been the fisheries, which have largely collapsed.

Cutting down trees and pumping oil out of the ground ain't exactly rocket science. But instead of recognizing their bounty for what it is, westerners have taken the puzzling position that they have some sort of innate self-reliance and go-get'em attitude that brings in money. Harper in particular has repeatedly expressed this western attitude without seeming to understand its natural resource foundation.

For an example of how Albertans react to hard times, look at how they squealed for government support with the damage to the cattle industry brought on by BSE, a crisis created by their greed to save money by using cheap polluted feed.

But more importantly, where an election is concerned, Harper has in the past, expressed the epitome of western bias toward the Maritimes and Quebec in past comments. Piatkowski, lays out a number of Harper's quotes in detail to remind us of his knee-jerk bias.

If Harper becomes leader of the Conservatives, the other parties simply have to remind the electorate of Harper's own past words. He'll get little or no support in either Quebec (which will likely vote Bloc or Liberal) or the Maritimes (which will likely vote Liberal or NDP). The big question will be what will happen in Ontario, because BC and Alberta are likely to be solid Conservative territory, and Saskatchewan and Manitoba will probably be a mix of all three national parties. I just don't see Ontarians, after an election campaign, being able to see Harper as a national leader. They'll either be scared off by his western bias, his Alliance roots in social conservatism, or his brown-nosing pro-Americanism (he was pro-Iraq War after all).

Before the Conservatives can ever hope to be considered a serious national party, they have to come up with a real national candidate. Stronach isn't ready, she'd get eaten up in debates, especially once everyone switched to French, and her lack of experience would lose her a lot of support come voting day. What about Clement? He has less leadership charisma than my dachshund. Feisty, sure, but he also has a lot of Ontario Conservative baggage.

One thing is for sure, the election is going to be messy.