Piling on the straw

It has been over six weeks since the Harper government made their announcement about the long-form census and the controversy is still rumbling along.

I find that amazing. Really, it is the census. I cannot think of much else the government does that could be less controversial. I certainly cannot think of much else that most Canadians would not give a second thought to, even on Census Day. After all, it is just one of those little things we all have to do once in a while.

So let's give the Conservatives credit. They managed to take something as innocuous as the Census and turn it into a full blown political crisis for them.

So will it hurt the Conservatives?

In and of itself, no. However, this is just one more controversy for this government which seems to have been mired in nothing but controversy since their re-election in 2008. Really, can anybody remember a time since then when they have not been trying to put out some kind of fire? Hell, sometimes they are trying to put out more than one at the same time as we witnessed during the detainee document controversy and the concurrent Guergis controversy.

I can guarantee that these non-stop controversies are having a negative impact on the Conservative fortunes and that when they go a controversy too far that negative impact will be politically fatal.

This government was on borrowed time before the Census long-form fiasco and it has just brought them that much closer to the end of their time in government.