Tremors in a government’s hold on power start to show after six or seven years in office. That, however, doesn’t necessarily mean the government soon will be swept out. The Conservatives are likely to hang on to power in 2015, thanks to a resilient core of voters and the split Opposition.

Stephen Harper’s government may be down almost 10 percentage points in the polls from where it was in May 2011, when they were re-elected, but the Liberals are showing a resurgence that will wind up splitting the anti-Conservative vote.

There are cracks in this government’s hegemony of power that need immediate attention. Among them:

– The Senate. What a mess. Since taking office, Harper’s government has understood the power of the tangible over the abstract. So, instead of talking about the ins and outs of tax reform, the wise candidate promises unequivocally to lower the GST to 5% and then delivers soon after taking office.

In the Senate’s case, Harper was able to ride into office on a ready-made template of a “triple E” upper house, which had been demanded by voters out west for more than two decades. However, Harper soon began making 58 Senate appointments, most of whom are party loyalists. Old-fashioned patronage like that tends to muddy your image as a reformer.

No doubt, Harper was trying to regain his image of being a reformer when he referred the question of Senate reform to the Supreme Court of Canada for an opinion on what Ottawa can do about the Senate. Then, his government got caught up in a nasty scandal involving three of his high-profile Senate appointees regarding expenses.

To be clear, Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin are every bit as honourable as the majority of senators. Canadians should direct their anger at Senate rules that are deliberately vague, just as the Senate of ancient Rome was intentionally ambiguous about the difference between bribery and generosity between friends.

As for Senator Patrick Brazeau, let’s just call him a very bad hire who demonstrates that patronage requires good management, just like anything else.

@page_break@The solution: Harper should appoint someone from the Opposition parties, just as Paul Martin did when he appointed Tory Hugh Segal to the Senate. Nobody ever accused Martin of pork-barrel patronage. Harper also should push to change the culture of entitlement in the Senate while he waits for the Supreme Court’s ruling.

– Energy. Eighteen months ago, the government seemed in charge of the energy file while it waited for the U.S. to rubber-stamp the Keystone pipeline. Now, Harper is in the humiliating position of being lectured to by the U.S. ambassador about doing more about climate change as a quid pro quo for Keystone’s approval.Demonizing environmentalists while allowing the oilsands to be branded as a leading source of carbon are big mistakes for the Tories.

Ottawa eventually will get approval for Keystone, but that will come at the price of helping the Obama administration convince Americans that polluting Canadians have been told to smarten up.

The solution: come up with a national energy strategy that emphasizes carbon reduction and, most important, convinces Canadians that energy is being well managed again.

– Aboriginals. The Harper government started off very well on this file with two strong ministers, Jim Prentice and Chuck Strahl. Then, someone decided aboriginal affairs should be a junior portfolio warranting a rookie minister, John Duncan, who was in over his head from the start.

Ottawa forgot that $500 billion in resources-development projects sit on Native land. The feds needed to get a seasoned minister in there fast and start emphasizing economic empowerment for Canadian First Nations.

The solution was obvious: give a strong minister the portfolio – which Harper did with the appointment of Bernard Valcourt.

– Integrity. It is not your enemies who screw you in politics; it’s your friends. Some genius in the party office proved that by orchestrating those push poll calls about riding redistribution in Saskatchewan.

First, the Tories denied involvement. Then, they owned up. Up until then there was a chance of riding out the robocall scandal. Now, people won’t wait for the courts to pass judgment. Time to clean house at the Conservative Party’s headquarters.

© 2013 Investment Executive. All rights reserved.