The Globe and Mail

One week; two Tory strategies. One is a potential winner; the other could potentially backfire. What does Stephen Harper’s former top strategist think?

Tom Flanagan believes the Tory bill to abolish the long-gun registry is a “political success story.” The Liberals are all tied up in knots about it.

As for the character assassination of senior Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin by the Harper Tories: He’s not impressed, believing it is happening only because Mr. Harper, “the grand strategist,” has been away travelling in Asia and not focusing on the issue. Meanwhile, his ministers are freelancing as they try to deal with the fall-out on the Afghan mission.

Mr. Colvin is the man behind the explosive testimony about the torture of Afghan prisoners handed over by Canadian soldiers. He told all at a Commons committee this week, appearing as a credible witness who singled out senior government officials for their silence and control.

Rather than taking his allegations under advisement, Defence Minister Peter MacKay and other Tory MPs, including his parliamentary secretary, Laurie Hawn, savaged Mr. Colvin in the House of Commons and at the committee this week.

Mr. MacKay argued that the diplomat’s allegations were not credible. He said there was never a stitch of evidence that anyone was tortured, and that to believe the prisoners’ testimony is to accept evidence from “people who throw acid in the faces of schoolchildren and who blow up buses in their own country.”

Conservative ministers are being too aggressive, said Mr. Flanagan, a political science professor at the University of Calgary.

“When the top guy is the grand strategist and he’s not there, it really is difficult for people who are not the top guy to take command,” he said. “I have seen this happen before. ... It is a factor when something big happens when the Prime Minister is gone.

“Going immediately to attack credibility strikes me as perhaps swinging bit a too hard.” What happens, he wonders, if more witnesses come forward corroborating Mr. Colvin’s testimony and character? It could be dangerous for the ministers.

Then there is long-gun registry. For the Tories it is the political gift that keeps giving.

Even as a new calmness was about to descend on the Liberals this week – Peter Donolo took over as chief of staff this week – the registry popped up as an issue yet again.

In the Liberal caucus meeting on Wednesday, Whip Rodger Cuzner announced he had recommended to Leader Michael Ignatieff that MPs should not be allowed a free vote on certain private member’s bills. And Mr. Ignatieff told his caucus that he was taking this under advisement.

The issue arose because eight Liberals earlier this months supported a Tory private member’s bill to scrap the registry despite pleas by the whip and the leader to vote against it.

While the potential of a whipped vote on a private member’s bill was shocking to caucus members, so was what happened next: Toronto Centre Bob Rae’s intervention.

A fierce supporter of gun control and the registry, he urged his colleagues to be “politically realistic,” according to sources. The damage to party unity and to electoral fortunes may not be worth continuing the fight, even if this registry was a Liberal creation.

He may be right. Public opinion seems to be slowly shifting away from the registry. It is reflected in the Liberal caucus. Just look at these two veteran Liberal MPs: PEI MP Wayne Easter voted with the Tories and is now searching for some way to make the bill more palatable to all of his colleagues. And, there is Albina Guarnieri, who abstained because she doesn’t support the bill as it stands or the gun registry as it stands. She is an expert, having prepared a study of the problems with it in 2004. She is also from Mississauga, a very urban riding.

The Tories have basically won the registry battle, Mr. Flanagan said. On the Colvin front, however, he’s not so sure.