Did Andrew Scheer just blow the election?

So Andrew Scheer dropped the Conservative Party Platform today and it is not pretty.  Depending on who you talk to it contains $35 to $53 billion in budget cuts for the Federal Government.  That is over 5 years but anyway you slice it cutting that much money in that short amount of time cannot have any impact but a negative impact.

Of course, the Conservatives want to do this to "balance the budget".  

When I first heard the news my gut said, "Holy crap, he just threw the election away." but then my intellect took over and I thought about it for awhile.

It is very true that a rather substantial part of the electorate do not like deficits and debt.  For the most part they do not like it because they equate government debt with household debt, which is completely wrong but trying to convince them of that is like talking to a block of wood.  Fortunately, they are mostly part of the Conservative base to begin with so they would vote for the Conservatives regardless of what was contained in the Platform.

However, there are a few of what I call the non-aligned swing voters that are centrist but lean to the right.  Under normal circumstances these voters might decide that this is a good idea as well but for the experience in Ontario.  Many of these right leaning centrists voted for Doug Ford and many of them are experiencing some buyers' remorse.  

The voters of Ontario tend to choose governments of different political stripes in Ottawa and Toronto and this Platform document might just remind them of the wisdom of that practice.  

So what does this do to the election?

I believe it will shake the electorate out of its apparent stupor to begin with and not just in Ontario.  The Conservatives released this Platform late on Friday before a long weekend, probably to reduce the chances of anybody hearing about it but that is rather stupid considering we are in the last nine days of an election campaign.  People are going to hear about it and that is for certain.  The Conservatives essentially gave their chief opponent a bat with which to beat on them for the next nine days, which is plenty of time for Canadians to learn about the implications of the Conservative Platform.  The Liberals will be selling investing in Canadians while the Conservatives will be selling divesting in Canadians.  Most Canadians are going to choose the former.

Of course, the question then becomes whether those voters focus their votes on the one party that can actually prevent the Conservatives from implementing their proposed cuts, namely the Liberals.  I believe the answer is yes.

As an aside let's understand that the Liberals knew going into this election that their victory would go through Ontario and retaining their majority would go through Quebec.  As a result they have developed a strategy to target all of the winnable seats in those two provinces and they have been implementing that strategy since at least June, probably earlier.  They poured resources and effort into those ridings to identify as many Liberals as they can.  They will have a GOTV effort in those ridings that will reduce the number of swing voters needed to put them over the top in those ridings.  That is the reason why the Liberals have only made passing comments to Quebecers about not voting for the Bloc and the reason why Mr. Trudeau has not rushed into Quebec to attempt to shore up their support.  I would bet a substantial amount of money that their internal data is telling them they are still on track to win a majority government despite what the public polls and the media are saying.  You always have to remember that a national election campaign is like an iceberg.  The leader's tour is just the tip.  It is what is happening out of sight that wins campaigns.

There is a very good probability that the Conservative Party platform will make the Liberal's implementation of that strategy easier.  Left leaning voters that were dabbling with the idea of voting for some other party but the Liberals are going to look at the Platform and freak.  The argument that only the Liberals can stop the Conservatives from implementing their plans will resonate with alot of left leaning voters.  The argument that only the Liberals can stop the Conservative cuts will probably also resonate with many of those Quebecers that are dabbling with the idea of voting for the Bloc.  The Liberals argue that Quebecers would be better served by a large contingent of Quebec MPs on the government benches instead of the Opposition benches.  That message probably would have resonated with the ever so pragmatic Quebec electorate before October 21 anyway but the Conservative Platform may just cause it to resonate more.  

I have stated before, in this space, that the ballot question is going to be "Do Canadians want a change of government?"  I do not believe so.  There is no "throw the bums out" vibe this time around.  The radical change from the status quo that the Conservative Party Platform represents may reinforce that.

So to answer the question in the title of this post.  I believe the answer is No and yes.  No because he was a long shot to win to begin with and yes because this could very reduce his chances to near zero but we will know for certain in nine days.