On October 16th, the horse-drawn carriage of the Governor General will once again descend upon Parliament Hill for the throne speech. Just more than 18 months after the last throne speech, Members of Parliament will again follow the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod to the Senate chambers to hear the Conservative Party's agenda for what will likely be the remainder of its term.

It's a speech many analysts say is long overdue. The last one, delivered by Michaelle Jean in April 2006, was not meant to carry the government agenda for much more than a year because minority governments in Canada historically have had short lives.

Because of that, political analysts say that first speech was tightly focused. The government, expecting an election in the coming months, made relatively few promises.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Tories concentrated on what they called their five priorities: government accountability, cutting the GST, a patient wait times guarantee, a child care allowance, and a promise to tackle crime .

Despite the limited focus of last year's throne speech, analysts say the Tories have achieved mixed results in many of their top priorities.

"Some parts were successful," says Richard Johnston, a political science professor on leave from UBC. "But as a throne speech, it wasn't much."

The University of Western Ontario's Cristine de Clercy agrees that the speech made few promises. But she says its limited scope is what will allow the Tories to claim they've successfully achieved their goals.

For example, they said they would reduce the GST by one per cent and they did. It went down from seven to six per cent in July 2006.

The GST reduction is a fairly straightforward example of a promise that the Tories can claim they delivered. But analysts say determining whether they successfully implemented their other priorities isn't so simple.

Wait times and accountability

The Tories also promised to engage provinces to guarantee that there would be acceptable wait times for medically necessary services.

Earlier this year, the Tories signed wait times guarantee agreements with provincial and territorial governments. They also provide $1 billion in funding, part of which will be used to digitize records. The aim was to provide health services to Canadians in a time-efficient manner.

But reductions in wait times are notoriously difficult to assess, says Johnston. That's why, he notes, it's relatively easy for politicians to promise to do something about them.

"I doubt that the average patient is spending less time waiting for procedures because of the Harper government," says de Clercy. "But Harper will get high marks from interested voters for doing what (the Conservatives) said they would."

It's a similar situation when it comes to issues of government accountability, according to Johnston. In December 2006, the government passed the Federal Accountability Act.

It prevents top-level bureaucrats and politicians from becoming lobbyists within five years of leaving government positions. It also bans union and corporate donations in federal politics. And it provides whistle-blower protection to those who report wrong-doing in government.

"It's striking that it's a secretive government," says Johnston. "It's a little hard to square that with the general posture of accountability. This is not a very transparent government."

But de Clercy notes that any government that came in following the Jean Chretien Liberals would have had to take action to bolster government control and access to money. She says the average person may not know exactly what measures the Harper government has enacted, but the public wanted something done in light of the sponsorship scandal.

The crime sheet

What the public is keenly interested in is community safety, says Simon Fraser criminologist Bryan Kinney. He says that in the current political environment, most politicians will say they want to get tough on crime. That's why he's not surprised that crime-fighting was listed as one of Harper's five priorities.

In the 2006 throne speech the Tories promised to change Canada's Criminal Code to give tougher sentences for violent and repeat offenders, "particularly those involved in weapons offenses." They also promised to put more police on the street.

But much of the legislation has stalled, and because the Prime Minister prorogued or discontinued the last session of Parliament (therefore creating the need for a new session and throne speech), bills that were not passed will have to be re-introduced.

That has already upset Ontario's Attorney General, who lashed out at the government because it, in effect, killed a series of crime bills.

Michael Bryant has said that ending the session basically makes a "mockery" of the Conservative government's commitment to crime-fighting.

Kinney says it's true that the bills were floundering and much of what the Tories promised has yet to pass in Parliament.

"But even with the criticism that the Tories are pulling the plug on certain legislation, they have a victory because (they) can claim they didn't do what they said they would do because of a lack of cooperation from the Liberals and NDP," Kinney says.

He adds that regardless of whether or not the legislation had passed it's nearly impossible to see quick results when it comes to reducing crime (which has already been declining for more than a decade).

"It's very hard for governments to have anything but bumper sticker promises," he says.

He notes that despite the Tory promise to increase the number of police officers throughout the country, one thing is clear: the ratio of officers to residents is decreasing. That means there are fewer police on the street in relation to Canada's growing population.

But in terms of political points, the government and opposition parties alike won't go wrong if they portray themselves as tough on crime.

Care for kids

While the Harper government's rhetoric on crime may play well to public opinion, the same can't categorically be said about its child care policies.

The Harper government outraged some child care advocates when it made an abrupt policy change to a Liberal plan that would have worked with provinces to create a national day care program.

Instead, the Tories promised in their throne speech that they would give individual families a choice when it comes to providing day care services for their children. Last summer, they delivered on a campaign promise to give families $1,200-a-year payments for every child under six.

"Did (Harper) do what he said he was going to do? Yes, he cancelled the national child care plan," says Elizabeth Ablett, the Executive Director of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care. "Did this help? $1,200 hasn't created a single child care space."

Ablett welcomes the additional money to help families, but she says it's a far cry from what's needed, which is a national child care program.

But de Clercy says when it comes to following through on their day care priority, the Harper government can claim victory. She says the Tories, along with bureaucrats, did a good job of getting their new program up and running in an effective manner.

But she cautions, the strong criticism about the limits of the Harper day care strategy may mean that this is one issue that is almost guaranteed to be revisited in the next election campaign.

A potential election in the near future will no doubt drive what's in Stephen Harper's second throne speech. The successful implementation of promises in last year's speech may give the Tories some confidence. But analysts say they'll need to present a more substantial agenda this time.

The flip-side of a tightly-crafted throne speech, says de Clercy, is that critics can claim that the Tories "have run out of ideas" and start asking "now what?"