They are under the very real pressure of not only losing their majority government, but losing the election (to Justin Trudeau no less, talk about adding insult to injury) entirely.
So, instead of doing better and making more rational policies and compromises, the Harper Tories are taking a page out of the GOP playbook and utilizing Orwellian double speak, they have introduced "The Fair Elections Act", a bill that accomplishes the EXACT opposite.
The Harper government is instituting a number of measures that actually disenfranchise voters and attacks non-partisan Elections Canada claiming this is in the name of "combatting voter fraud"...which they have yet to prove actually exists.
Read all about it here...Sorry, but enough is enough. Not to be too partisan, but Harper is directly attacking our democracy, just so he can keep his majority powers, so please, if you love this country, don't vote for the Harper government in the next election. Vote Liberal if you have to and what will probably happen with fair elections, which explains this bill. It was this merger of Reform and Conservative, which lead to the newly re-branded "Progressive Conservative" party. They aren't. That's also double speak.
I don't even care if it's a minority Conservative government under Harper, the man got where he is by being pragmatic. I can admire that. But absolute power corrupts absolutely and he is acting like he is God and is literally trying to turn us into the states...the southern states.
With a majority government, he can actually do that. All his policies are Neo-Conservative, an extreme ideology which mirrors a key group of Harper supporters, the former Reform party members. Basically the Canadian Tea Party.
This isn't a left / right thing. I'm in the middle. Both parties make good points and In my opinion, minority governments are the best thing for Canada.
They force rational compromises from both sides. It allows for reasonable progress both ways, regardless of who is in power. The Reform party are ideologues. Facts be damned, they believe in one thing and force the world into that box, consequences be damned.
Harper doesn't have to compromise and isn't afraid to prorogue Parliament to stifle public debate and just uses his majority to ram through whatever he wants.
He is so ruthlessly pragmatic he even bullies and stifles his own people (both moderate and extremist) so they vote in line with him or in the case of the Reform Party extremists (who he agrees with) says something publicly that could cost them votes.
He has way too much power with a majority and has already shown that he isn't afraid to abuse it.
KB