From what we can observe in the present election campaign these days, it appears that with the current Conservative surge in public polls, now at 39.1% versus 26.8% for the Liberals (16.2% NDP, 12.6% Bloc and 4.6% Greens), things might go one way or the other: either Stephen Harper will create his own remake of Brian Mulroney’s 1984 decisive victory over the Liberals, or Paul Martin will win in a landslide over the Conservatives as thousands of Canadians scared by the possibility of a Tory majority government -as is now a possibility according to some polls- flock back to the Liberals in complete terror, just like in 2004, and end up giving him a minority government.

That’s the million-dollar question now among most Canadian political analysts.

And the answer to this one depends on whether or not Canadians are gullible and impressive enough to believe in and buy Paul Martin’s same old desperate rhetoric demonizing the Conservatives and trying to paint them as right-wing extremists. To add even more weight to that already well-known theory, consider the new negative Liberal ad about “the increase of armed soldiers in urban centers across the country”. I heard about it this morning on a CPAC rebroadcast of the 650 AM CKOM Saskatoon morning show with John Gormley as he ran the radio ad in question so people knew what he was talking about and started taking calls afterwards.

That Liberal ad never ran anywhere. However, it still matters to me that the Liberals are once again trying to distort the truth (as they’ve always done) so people adhere to their view. The ad went like this:

“Stephen Harper actually announced he wants to increase military presence in our cities. Canadian cities. Soldiers with guns. In our cities. In Canada. We did not make this up. Choose your Canada.”

Wow, that’s low. Insanely low. Never mind that the army personnel of the Canadian Forces are proud servants of democracy and not dangerous at all and are ALREADY stationed in military bases around Canadian cities, you can say anything when you’re a Liberal desperately looking to keep power. Indeed, if that’s not a very negative unjustified smear attack ad distorting the truth and implying things that were never said, then nothing is. I was totally flabbergasted. I didn’t think they’d go that far. And Harper warned the population in an ad that Liberals would go negative. But I’ve come to realize that you’ve got to expect the worst from Paul Martin’s Liberals as they’ll do anything - I repeat: ANYTHING to stay in power.

And especially for that reason among many more, they have to be defeated on Jan. 23rd. Not defeating the liberals this time would be an extreme danger for the country and our institutions as it would be exactly like telling the Liberals this : “You can do anything while in power. You can steal all the taxpayer’s money, You can create any programs that you possibly want and you don’t have to have anything checked. You are the only party that can actually govern Canada and therefore you’re entitled to being in power ad vitam aeternam. Don’t worry about anything, you can do whatever you damn well please. You’re going to be reelected next time anyway.”

I can only cringe at the thought of what an already completely corrupt Liberal party could do if it was reelected in 2006. It’d be even worse than you could ever imagine. Corruption times ten. If they’re doing all this now even with the actual consequences, I can only begin to imagine what they’d be doing knowing there won’t be any consequences at all. I can’t believe Canadians could be idiotic enough to reelect them. And I don’t want to see what happens this time around if they do.

So I really prefer the 1984 scenario over 2004. And we’re long past due for regime change in Canada.