OTTAWA - Stephen Harper's minority Conservatives will celebrate their first anniversary in power Tuesday with a gathering a glittering downtown hotel, but analysts say the honeymoon with the electorate has ebbed and surviving a second year in office will be a feat.
The Conservatives were never threatened with defeat during their first year in office. The Liberals were distracted choosing a leader, the NDP was just as intent on attacking the Liberals as they were the government and the Bloc Quebecois needed time to assess the Conservatives as a threat in Quebec.
That allowed Harper to pass much of his key legislation virtually unopposed.
Voters - particularly Westerners - gave the Tories significant leeway through their first months in office, says Faron Ellis, a political scientist at Alberta's Lethbridge College.
But those same voters are now looking beyond the promises delivered during last January's election, Ellis said Monday.
"We've moved through that 'benefit-of-the-doubt' stage into some cautious concern over where this government is headed," Ellis said in a telephone interview.
"Just how far it feels it needs to go in order to win a majority government."
The Conservatives were elected on Jan. 23, 2006, promising to fulfill five key goals - cleaning up government, cutting the GST, cracking down on crime, paying parents $100 for each child under six and establishing a health care patient wait times guarantee.
The medicare wait times promise is as yet unfulfilled.
Most polls have the Conservatives in a dead heat with the Liberals - below the 36 per cent level of support they won on election night a year ago.
With a full year of Conservative rule behind them, Canadians now want to see the Tories start taking responsibility for their government's actions, says Heather MacIvor of the University of Windsor.
People are growing weary of hearing the prime minister blame previous Liberal governments for everything that goes wrong in Ottawa, said MacIvor.
"They're going to have to stop calling themselves Canada's new government," she said.
"It's just getting dumb."
Reversals
While pollsters do give the government marks for delivering on much of what they promised, the Conservatives have proved themselves capable of reversing themselves.
Harper said he was forced to break his promise not to tax income trusts because of the threat to the treasury as larger corporations moved to avoid taxes. He opted to recognize Quebec as a nation after refusing to utter the words "nation" and "Quebec" in the same sentence.
After criticizing many of the Liberals' environmental policies, the Conservatives opted to ape many of them in an abrupt pivot on environmental policy aimed at convincing skeptical voters that they are capable of going green.
The surprise selection of former environment minister Stephane Dion as Liberal leader undoubtedly was partially responsible for the change of tack.
There will be new hurdles to jump over in the coming months, including a potential resurgence of violence against Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and climate change.
But the Conservatives could face another challenge they never expected as they gird for an election that could come at any time - Western alienation.
How they deal with the environment and how they seek to gain votes in Quebec in the quest for a majority might cause Harper some concern in the Tory heartland of Alberta, says Ellis.
"If they bring in something that puts severe restrictions on (development of) the oilsands, combined with buying off Quebec through equalization, Westerners and particularly Albertans won't be too happy," he said.
"That combination, added to the breaking of campaign promises . . . then you're getting to the stage where there'd be an erosion of support."
Dion expects that voters will go to the polls this year, he said Monday in Quebec City, although Dion added that doesn't want a snap federal election.
Some observers have suggested that Harper can hold off an election, particularly if he reaches a compromise agreement with the New Democrats on the environment. An arrangement with the Bloc on the budget would also ensure the survival of the government for months.
However, NDP Leader Jack Layton may be pushed away from making such a deal by his own party if there's a perception that he's getting too chummy with Harper, said MacIvor.
"Mr. Layton is well aware of the risk that he's taking cozying up to the Conservatives," she said.
"(Some New Democrats) regard Stephen Harper more or less as the devil," she said.
"This is not a long-term sustainable strategy for the NDP."
