SIMPLISTIC SOLUTIONS TO COMPLEX PROBLEMS WON'T WIN VOTES

Conservative Campaign Flyer Brings Thinking Straight Out Of The '50s
To Deal With The Troubled Downtown Eastside

Party officials have denied that the Conservative campaign flyer that
landed with such a thud in east Vancouver was written specifically
for that riding.

That's easy to believe, since if any group of constituents in Canada
would be offended by its contents, it would be the voters in the
riding that contains the troubled streets of the Downtown Eastside.

They understand more than most that any promise to "clean up drug
crime" with a package that will get "junkies" and "pushers" off the
street is aimed primarily at people who want to believe it could
possibly be so simple, people who know nothing about the nature of
addiction and long history of the failure of similar wars on drugs.

The one-page flyer featured a picture of a syringe lying beneath an
empty swing with a child playing soccer in the background.

A single word asked "safe?"

The message, just like the language used to describe the problem, is
straight out of the 1950s. It's attractively simple and outrageously
misleading.

We do have a serious drug problem in Vancouver, but no government --
not the Liberals in Ottawa in their 13 years in power, the New
Democratic Party and Liberals in Victoria, nor the Conservatives that
formed the national government through the 1980s -- has stood "idly
by," as the brochure claims.

That they have failed in their approach is obvious to anyone who has
visited the Downtown Eastside.

But politicians peddling a simple solution are either simply ignorant
or worse, preying on what they hope will be the ignorance of others.
Sadly, we see a lot of that in election campaigns.

We're not officially in one yet but we could be soon.

With Prime Minister Stephen Harper hinting that he is about to break
his promise of a fixed election date and pull the plug on Parliament
this fall, Canadians are going to be bombarded with a lot of strong
messaging over the next couple of months, either as part of a
campaign or as part of the softening-up barrage.

The promise of a fixed date four years after the last election was
made in the context of more open and accountable government. It's
unlikely, however, that many voters will care if Harper decides the
time is ripe now.

After watching one of the longest-lived minority governments operate
for almost three years now, Canadians will care less about why it has
been terminated than about what the Liberals and Conservatives are
offering for the future.

We think the next election will turn on leadership and the economy,
not drug policy. In that context, the Conservatives have a lot to
offer as we head into uncertain times.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion has not impressed many Canadians and the
early read on his carbon tax plan is that it is going to be a tough sell.

But the Conservatives' knee-jerk, law-and-order policies of the kind
highlighted by the simple-minded brochure distributed last week and
others that pander to our natural fear of crime many continue to
persuade many voters to keep look elsewhere.