In 1969 a mathematician by the name of Edward Lorenz, one of the originators of chaos theory, coined the term “butterfly effect”. It refers to the unpredictable impact the smallest actions — the beating of a butterfly’s wings, for example — can have on much larger processes, like the course of a hurricane.

If there’s a similar effect in politics, we might do worse than to name it after Larry Miller. The Honourable Member for Bruce Grey-Owen Sound recently offered the opinion that Muslim women who wish to wear the niqab at citizenship ceremonies should “stay the hell where they came from”. He was quick to apologize — for the tone, if not the content. The PM was even quicker to distance himself from Miller’s words — but not from Harper’s stated position that wearing the veil in a citizenship ceremony is “offensive”.

This is why they call them hot-button issues — they burn the unwary. Nearly a month ago, I wrote a piece for this page about the risks and rewards of identity politics. The problem is one of control: Messages intended for core and regional audiences can linger and spread, turning into liabilities in the heat of a campaign. They can mutate, multiply and take on a life of their own — unpredictably. Butterfly to hurricane.

So why do the Conservatives seem determined to continue down this high-risk path? Maybe it’s because they have no better options.

Let’s face it — this country hasn’t seen a national election fought on a ‘big’ issue in decades. Since the failures of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords and the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum, politicians have been understandably reluctant to campaign on sweeping national issues.

With few exceptions, voters have been confronted with election after election fought largely around the old political bromides of ‘stability’ and ‘fiscal management’, with an occasional flutter at ‘change’ and ‘betterment’ — all set against a backdrop of ‘values’. Lacking evidence of either sound fiscal management or a healthy economy — and certainly having nothing to offer on the ‘change’ front — Stephen Harper is confronted with the problem of campaigning on not much at all.

The PM’s answer to that problem so far has been to deliver more of the same — more fear, more legislation that ‘gets tough on crime’ – but these tired old tactics won’t, on their own, mobilize support beyond the party base.

It’s the problem inherent in wedge politics: There are always Larry Millers and no party leader can know for sure when they’ll pop up or what they’ll say.

Big elections are usually fought over big issues. Not this one; with no real unifying issues on the horizon and with the polls as close as they are, the upcoming election is shaping up to be nasty, brutish and very, very small. Expect a riding-by-riding street brawl in which the big picture will be subsumed by a narrow focus on mere survival — the kind of ranting, screaming and exploding campaign tactics designed to inflict as much damage as possible as quickly as possible.

Remember how narrow the margin is between winning and losing in federal elections now. In the northern Greater Toronto Area in the last federal election, seven seats were up for grabs. Five went to the Conservatives, who received 39.2 per cent of the votes cast. One seat went to the Liberals with 38.2 per cent of the vote; the NDP took one seat on 20 per cent of the vote. Less than 59 per cent of eligible voters actually cast a ballot — meaning that the difference between winning one seat and winning five came down to the choices made by less than one per cent of voters.

So even the smallest of actions matter. One tactic that has proved effective in galvanizing base support, regardless of political affiliation, is what psychologists call “out-group derogation”. In simple terms it means creating an Us vs. Them split in supporters minds, with the ‘Them’ group presented as threatening. The tactic works, and Conservatives have used it before. But it really only works well when the distinction between “us” and “them” is based on shared values — such as banning face coverings in citizen ceremonies.

Politicians like Harper who employ this tactic take a gamble, however. What if, in the process of identifying and shunning the ‘other’, that group expands beyond the boundaries set by shared values — by many Canadians’ discomfort with the niqab, for example — to a broader multicultural/multiracial society? What if, in the heat of an election campaign, some of the ‘Us’ camp get roped in with ‘Them’?

Which points to the problem inherent in wedge politics: There are always Larry Millers and no party leader can know for sure when they’ll pop up or what they’ll say. In the absence of any true national consensus on values — and whether Harper’s base likes it or not — Canadian values are expressed in our Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms. By employing in-group/out-group tactics, the PM is trying to force those values to align more closely with the Conservative “us”. Clearly, there are enough Canadians who share Harper’s perspective on the very narrow issue of uncovering one’s face during citizenship ceremonies. But what happens when the question is something less clear-cut?

Constituency weeks are usually a good time for MPs to gauge the mood of the electorate. In many ways they are also good test runs for campaigns, since the MPs are away from Ottawa, mixing with their constituents and relatively free from centralized message control. Left to their own devices in the comfort of their home communities, candidates can — and clearly do — say more of what they really think.

Larry Miller’s comments may only be the flapping wings of a rogue butterfly. But they could very well portend an electoral hurricane on the horizon.

Geoffrey Hall is a political consultant and writer. Over three decades he has worked with, advised or ghostwritten for some of Canada’s leading progressive voices, including Jack Layton, Bob Rae, Alexa McDonough and Audrey McLaughlin. In 2014 he left the Hill after nearly 15 years of writing for and advising several NDP Members of Parliament. [email protected]

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.