Bondage, dominance, submission, and masochism. Or BDSM, for short. Not exactly a term that most of us would easily associate with Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.

Yet it’s a lifestyle to which we have all become accustomed, if not comfortable with, after nearly a decade of subjugation under Harper’s iron fist. Especially those of us who are at least partially responsible for his successive governments.

Call us suckers for punishment.

Personally, I reached my Tory pain threshold some time ago, after watching the Harper government pile one insult on another, to finally make me say “Enough!”

For me, the final straw was the way it neutered public input, due process, and sound science on the National Energy Board’s review of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion project. Brutal. Just brutal.

But it is all too typical of a government that has no time for anyone who dares to stand in the way of its idea of “progress”.

Not for the public. Not for Canada’s premiers. Not for scientists, academics, environmentalists, or anyone concerned about climate change and sustainable development.

Yet according to the latest polls, some 29.2 percent of the electorate is still “into” the Tories’ unique penchant for BDSM.

If you happen to be among that shrinking minority, it may be time to use your party’s safeword.

That safeword is “panic”.

Counterintuitive, I know. Maybe even a little perverse. But it tends to work when the going gets rough and all you have left is an appeal to fear.

Today, that word is everywhere. As in “World markets 'panic' on fears of an economic slowdown in China.” Or as in “China share collapse drives panic selling in Asian markets.”

“At last, some good news,” Harper’s senior strategists are likely now quietly reassuring themselves. “A timely relief from the Duffy trial and all of the pain that we inflicted on ourselves.”

“Panic grips Bay Street.” “Panic sends investors running for cover.” “Panic sell-off shreds seniors’ savings.”

All are happy enough headlines for a party that was beginning to panic at its own sad state of affairs.

Three weeks into the campaign, it finds itself shackled near the bottom in the opinion polls, exposed for its sins, ball-gagged by its own hand and humiliated, if not humbled, by its unscrupulous behaviour.

For the Conservatives, the very word “panic” promises to be a game-changer, to the extent that it elevates Canadians’ economic concerns and their fears about jobs and personal finances, and thereby, their fear of the available political alternatives.

Our “Black Monday” is the key to the Tories’ hoped for “Blue Monday” on October 19.

Why? Because it is all about heightening the very fear that is foremost to the Harper government’s re-election strategy.

Indeed, the only thing it fears is a lack of fear itself.

And that trend has been growing, until now, as so many traditional Conservative supporters are now looking at Tom Mulcair’s NDP with benign indifference.

Which is to say, they no longer fear the NDP the way they used to, for good reason.

Mulcair is as much a small-L liberal as any Trudeau ever was.

He has hardly offered most voters any cause for alarm, even before Rachel Notley’s astounding victory in Alberta, which has furthered dampened the public’s age-old concerns about the NDP.

Try as Harper’s team has to cast Mulcair’s NDP as a scary alternative, it is an attack that hasn’t worked, that doesn’t wash, and that is itself looking more alarmist each day.

The Tories have had a bit more success at branding Justin Trudeau as a risky alternative through the “just not ready” attacks. But the Liberal brand is a resilient and proven product that worked well enough to earn its unofficial tag as “Canada’s natural governing party” for most of our nation’s history.

In both cases, without any imminent threat on the horizon—the threat of ISIL and terrorism notwithstanding—the Conservatives have been hard-pressed to wage their campaign of fear.

At the core of this election, like every election, is a referendum on change. One that the Conservatives have been badly losing.

With about seven in every 10 voters now indicating they plan to cast their ballots for other parties, Harper’s best hope is to make fear of change his winning ballot question.

Inciting fear of unwanted changes that might befall Canadians from a change in government is always any incumbent’s strongest default strategy, whether or not that fear has even the slightest basis in fact.

In British Columbia, fear of the CCF/NDP has worked wonders for eons in keeping the “socialist hordes” from crashing the gates of power, as it has also served to “unite the Right”.

For the One Big Union that has governed B.C. under the “free enterprise” flag for all but 13 years since World War II, solidarity starts and ends with fear of entrusting the NDP with the keys to our economy and our provincial treasury.

Paradoxically, that fear tends to diminish when the governing parties on the Right have the most to crow about.

When the economy is doing well, or is at least seemingly on the mend, the economic “risks” of taking “a flier” on the NDP or the left-leaning Liberal alternatives become less salient. That tends to be true even when the economy is the voters’ top-of-mind issue, which it usually is.

When the budget is balanced and the government in power is bragging about its surpluses, it doesn’t much matter if they are real. The fear of red ink is less material.

Let’s remember, it is the Harper government that is trying to convince the electorate that it has a handle on our economy, that it has balanced the budget and that there are blue skies ahead.

Apart from the phony ring of that ridiculous boast, it is a self-defeating proposition in the current context that misses the point of most voters’ reasons for wanting change.

Even the opposition parties’ appeal to voter anger, at the abuses that many people perceive to have suffered under Harper’s slaphappy hand, somewhat misses that point.

This is not an election that is shaping up to be centered on anger, as such, in the absence of a clear and consuming catalyst, as happens from time to time, to cause voters to focus their wrath on the governing party.

It is not so much anger, as it is a general sense of weariness and disgust with the Harper government that is driving many traditional Tory voters to seek a safe change. “Safe” being the operative qualifier. 

Fatigue is always a factor in consensual relationships, particularly for those who can no longer stomach the person who is lying to their face and is asking to be indulged yet again at their expense.

With financial panic again in the air, the Harperites have new political cause to celebrate, however distressed they might be about its implications for the Canadian economy, for all working families and businesses, and for the government’s fiscal situation.

Somewhere inside the Mean Blue Machine, someone is likely buoying the troops with the following “morning message”:

“Monday’s stock market ‘bloodbath’ hurts us all, no doubt. But in a good way, that can only bring us closer to our ultimate reward: another Conservative government.”

Yes, this is the same crew that so easily justifies lying in the name of all that is righteous, beginning with assuring its own political survival.

Sure, the media and the other parties will try to link the increasingly dire state of the global economy to the Harper government’s impotence in dealing with its effect on Canada.

But the Tories won’t give a hoot.

Because they understand that most Canadians are smart enough to realize that when the stock markets implode, no government can be held directly accountable for the global panic.

By the same token, the fear that our problems could be made so much worse by a new bunch of “dangerously incompetent”, “fiscally irresponsible”, “job-killing” “socialists” is still deeply engrained in most swing voters’ psyche. Don’t kid yourself.

It is the other half to the long-running political narrative that also defines all conservatives as self-serving, service-slashing, job-cutting, heartless bastards.

Each to their own convictions and reinforcing rationales, however dubious such blanket condemnations prove to be when tested in practice.

In any campaign of fear versus anger, only hope loses out.

Which is where we mostly are today, as the federal election campaign begins its eight-week stretch to the finish line.

This week, the markets pressed the panic button that Harper hopes will send enough disenchanted Tory “traitors” to scurry away from the NDP and the Liberals, “back” to the party that they usually feel most comfortable getting in bed with.

As all good conservative political hacks know—including those of the B.C. Liberal variety—the best defense against losing disaffected supporters to the NDP is to evoke fear.

I say that as someone who co-managed Gordon Campbell’s three successful campaigns, as the B.C. Liberals’ public campaign director.

No fear is as powerful in its effect for the Right as the fear of what the parties on the Left might mean for our economy, for jobs, and for personal finances.

New Democrats, Liberals, Greens—take your pick—the Tories would have us all believe that none of them can manage a popcorn stand, let alone our ailing economy or taxpayers’ money.

“Panic” is their safeword, just as “punish,” “believe,” “enough!” or “do it” may each be our nation’s call for new hope and relief through determined action.

If the move in the markets starts to precipitate a rise in the Conservatives’ polling numbers, don’t panic. And don’t let their appeal to fear get the better of you or deny you the change you want.

Stand fast. Push back. Dig in your heels.

Show them just how kinky Canadians can really be in choosing their political partners.