The man sent to kill the issue

The early line on John Baird's appointment as Environment minister was that it signalled the centrality of the environment as the issue of the coming election. Rona Ambrose having become too inviting a target for opposition attacks, the Conservatives had given the job to one of their heaviest hitters, the better to take on Stéphane Dion and his nouveau-green Liberals.

There’s some truth in this, of course. The environment, specifically global warming, is obviously  an important issue, both substantively and in terms of what voters tell the pollsters. A precocious talent in Mike Harris's provincial governments, the still-youthful Mr. Baird has established himself as one of Stephen Harper's most trusted lieutenants, a strong parliamentary performer and a safe pair of hands on a difficult file. And no doubt Mr. Dion’s envangelism on the issue had made it all the more urgent to repair the damage done by the bungled implementation of the government’s own Clean Air Act.

But the issue of the election? Don’t bet on it. The point of Mr. Baird’s installation is to ensure it does not become an issue. Like a hockey coach on home ice, Mr. Harper has the advantage of the last line change: Mr. Baird has been sent out to check Mr. Dion. But the intent is to neutralize, not to polarize.

There is a difference, that is, between an important issue, like the environment -- health care is another example -- and a decisive one. The media are forever mistaking the one for the other, thinking that because voters say these are the issues that matter most to them, they will therefore determine how they cast their ballots.

But it is precisely because these are such big, complicated, important issues that they rarely prove decisive. Their significance being obvious to anyone from a mile off, the parties are careful not to stray too far from one another, but rather hug as close as they can to the centre.  And because these issues are so intractable -- that’s what makes them issues: otherwise they’d have been solved by now -- the public is skeptical that any party has the answer. No one wins elections on health care, and I doubt the environment is any different.

That’s not to say the Tories could not lose an election over it: if a party is, or seems to be, completely out to lunch on the issue, it can simply disqualify itself from consideration. But the Tories will have correctly calculated that much of the public’s concern for the environment is essentially fraudulent. While there are true believers on both sides, the broad mass of the public wants Something Done about global warming, but wants Someone Else to pay for it. All that is required to satisfy these voters is to put on a reasonably convincing show of action, to flatter their consciences without disturbing their pocketbooks. As with gifts and remedial math tests, it’s the thought that counts.

For that matter, it’s to be doubted whether the Liberals themselves want to make the environment the issue. Assuming the Tories are not so foolish as to completely vacate the field, all that the Grits would achieve by so doing is to divide up the left-of-centre vote among themselves, the NDP, the Greens and the Bloc. While there are some votes to be had by consolidating the left, the fairer prospect is to carve off centre-right voters from the Tories. A who’s-greenest bidding war among the left-wing parties only leaves the way open to the Tories to pose as the pragmatic realists in the bunch.

That’s especially so, when the Tories will spend much of the interval between now and the election crafting a compromise clean air bill in cahoots with the NDP, the better to improve both parties’ environmental credentials. In Parliament, the presence of four opposition parties, all to their left, is a continuing headache for the Tories. But in an election campaign, it’s a blessing. They will do all they can to build up the NDP at the expense of the Grits, and the Greens at the expense of the Dippers.

So there’s no doubt that this cabinet was designed with the election in mind, just not in the way that some people envisage. Mr. Baird’s appointment was meant to signal one thing: we get it on the environment, all right? We are not such obtuse hicks as you downtown Toronto sophisticates like to make out. Like gay marriage, global warming has become a cultural signifier, well beyond  the particulars of the issue itself, and this time it appears the Tories are not so willing to give up the urban snob vote without a fight.

You can see the same concern for appearances in some of the other appointments. Vic Toews may be a competent former provincial cabinet minister like Mr. Baird, but at Justice he was everything that made the media climb the walls, a jail’s-too-good-for-them Reform party caricature just this side of Art Hanger. At Treasury Board, while still in an important post, he will be less in the public eye, replaced at Justice by the soothing blandness of Rob Nicholson. 

Likewise, Monte Solberg is among the most appealing spokesmen in the Conservative camp, as likeable as a puppy on Christmas morning. A spending department like Human Resources and Social Development will give him much greater visibility than he had at Immigration. Peter Van Loan as House Leader, Senate leader Marjory LeBreton given new responsibility for seniors, even Helena Guergis as junior minister for Foreign Affairs: the Conservatives are lining up their most media-friendly faces in the shop window. That so many of them come from Ontario is of course entirely coincidental.