No less an authority than Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe has spoken the truth of the Great Unfixed Election of 2008: Stephen Harper’s got it.

Candid and relaxed in the last of his many leaders’ debates, Duceppe pointed to his fellow challengers and told them they, like he, will not be Prime Minister.

“Some of you know it, but don’t say it,” he added, hinting that one or more still believe they’re going to win one day.

It won’t be Jack Layton or Elizabeth May. The NDP and Greens are at this moment proposing we scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement. Yeah, that’ll help stabilize the currency and banking system.

Layton wants to scrap the softwood lumber agreement too. Does he really think that will get the mills going again? Do B.C.’s union mill workers really believe poking that old hornet’s nest, as U.S. producers shut down their own mills, will get them back to work up here? These are the kinds of dangerous errors that render both left-wing parties unfit for duty at the federal level.

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion’s trajectory is illustrated by the fact that the big blue Conservative machine has swung its guns to Layton. In a made-for-B.C. attack ad, a Layton lookalike holds his fingers in his ears. The sins of the “Ottawa NDP” are opposing the GST cut, tougher jail sentences and road and bridge construction.

Of course the experts agree that it was a mistake to cut the GST to five per cent. First, this policy is a popular move that even the politically uninvolved don’t miss. To a political strategist, the experts griping about the GST cut are like hockey coaches complaining about a new call-up: all this kid does is score goals.

Second, the GST cut represents a long-term shrinkage of federal tax revenues. Sorry, conspiracy theorists, but Harper’s master plan isn’t to legislate church attendance and be thrown out in a blaze of glory. It’s to slowly steer the federal state back to tending the army and the Arctic, and let the provinces do their jobs.

Indeed, in the TV debate Harper boasted of spending as briskly as any Liberal. He’s subsidizing aerospace and auto plants. He has increased funding to, of all things, the CBC. He even saved the Great Bear Rainforest.

Harper’s big mistake of the pivotal debate was to invite people to look at his platform. His was the only party without a formal policy document at the time, just a sprinkling of new releases with little tax credits. The platform is supposed to be out this week, an afterthought with advance polls already past.

As for their first moves, Dion would have meetings to assess the international financial crisis, mostly meetings that happen anyway. Layton would reverse $50 billion in corporate tax cuts. May would put in a carbon tax four times as big as B.C.’s and enact proportional representation for federal elections.

Harper would “manage in turmoil” with a tax credit for first-time home buyers, and tax cuts for diesel and small business income.

Harper wins by being calm and cautious and buying friends.

Oh, the liberal media

English TV debate moderator Steve Paikin works for TVOntario. He lost some of his reputation for fairness when he blurted out his follow-up question on arts funding: “Are the Conservatives barbarians?”

Try to imagine that question being asked about any other party.

Harper’s recent cuts to selected arts subsidies are routinely billed as a scandal: Artsy-looking guys put duct tape on their mouths and stand in silent vigil in Moncton. Author Margaret Atwood says if she were in Quebec she’d vote for the Bloc; better a separatist threat than a barbarian majority. It’s the same ritual service the U.S. media and Hollywood perform for the Democrats.

Only the notoriously pro-barbarian National Post broke form, highlighting one outraged and formerly subsidized “artist” whose obscene “performance” involves a vial of his own blood and won’t be described further here.

Harper, the Blue Dad, countered by offering tax credits for kids’ dancing and music classes, similar to those given for sports programs. When he got back into federal politics, Harper was convinced the city media would always be against him. He still is, and they still are.

Tom Fletcher is legislative reporter and columnist for Black Press newspapers.

tfletcher@blackpress.ca