Does it get any more obvious than this? Photo: Greg Kolz

It would be ridiculous to suggest that the prorogation of parliament has been a good move, though I would be hesitant to go as far as Jim Travers and the rest of the columnist circuit as saying that this has awoken a slumbering electorate. It has piqued our curiosity, however temporarily, but the idea that this gives the opposition party’s the moral high ground is to ignore their opportunistic charade currently on display in an empty Parliament.

If ever there was a more blatant display of pandering to public opinion polls, Michael Ignatieff has yet to point it out. Today the Liberals used the prorogue meme in order to appeal to the only two user groups who, until recently, were even close to supporting the Liberal Party. Prorogation has brought those two demographics back into the fold of the big red machine, and unless you haven’t yet guessed it, those would be young people and women, though one need not use the word “respectively”.

In fact, the words young and women can be used interchangeably here, as they are the new target for the Liberal Party. And using them in a speech identifying the people who need the most focus by the Liberals is a transparent recognition of that.

Leader Michael Ignatieff used the third-straight day of Liberal forums and announcements on Parliament Hill to attack the government’s funding cuts to special interest groups and feminist lobbies as a clear sign they need to draw support from the fairer gender.

Surrounding himself by female Liberal MPs, Mr.Ignatieff asserted that women have “suffered” under the Harper government, and promises to restore funding to women’s group and feminist lobbies.

“We have still got an enormous road to go, and we feel the Harper government … has set us back,” Mr. Ignatieff said.

How utterly depressing to see yet another opportunistic political hack play one demographic against another, all in the contradictory goal of “uniting Canadians”.

Is it any wonder Canadians are cynical? The fact is that the last thing we need to do is “restore” funding of special interest groups and lobbies, whether they be feminist, pro-union, or pro-Israeli. There is no way that our government can continue to function with the death by a thousand paper cuts we face in funding thousands of groups during one of the worst fiscal deficits in Canadian history. We are facing a structural deficit of 1% of GDP by 2013-14, unless moves are made to drastically curtail spending.

That the Liberals know this, yet continue to make spending promises to woo voters, puts the party out of touch with the fiscal realities facing this nation. The Liberals also proposed a $270-million “youth employment” package to spur on hiring of young people.

“We’ve identified unemployment as the key problem in 2010,” Mr. Ignatieff said. “We think it’s appropriate for a government to help hard-pressed employers … so they can hire Canadians, especially young Canadians.”

Yes, actually, unemployment is a key problem facing all Canadians in 2010, and not just the ones the Liberals would like to retain as voters. Stats Canada today revised their previously optimistic job numbers from November, showing that Non-farm payroll employment fell by 33,800 jobs that month.

Peter Donolo is a Liberal strategist who is familiar with using polling data to direct the party in ways that will strengthen its appeal to specific voters. It’s important to keep that in mind when the Liberals are lecturing the nation on how opportunistic the Conservative government is.