A Sledgehammer To Swat A Fly

In this morning's Globe and Mail, four former environment ministers --Tom Siddon, David Anderson, John Fraser and Herb Dahliwal --  published a letter which they have sent to Stephen Harper. The four men -- two Conservatives and two Liberals -- question the wisdom of the Harper government's new environmental legislation, and the process -- the omnibus budget bill -- which is being used to pass it:

We are especially alarmed about any possible diminution of the statutory protection of fish habitat, which we feel could result if the provisions of Bill C-38 are brought into force. Migratory salmon and steelhead are icons of our home province. Our experience convinces us that their continued survival would be endangered without adequate federal regulation and enforcement, particularly in the area of habitat protection.

And they are angry that these changes have been hidden in the budget bill :

With respect to process, we find it troubling that the government is proposing to amend the Fisheries Act via omnibus budget legislation in a manner that we believe will inevitably reduce and weaken the habitat-protection provisions. Regrettably, despite the significance of the legislation, to date the responsible ministers have provided no plausible, let alone convincing, rationale for proceeding with the unusual process that has been adopted. Quite frankly, Canadians are entitled to know whether these changes were written, or insisted upon, by the Minister of Fisheries or by interest groups outside the government. If the latter is true, who are they?

Tom Siddon is particularly incensed at Harper's government:

The people are asking, ‘what is this government up to?’ We’re not stupid, we the people. We don’t understand why you have to roll this all into one bill and ramrod it through Parliament.

“This is unbecoming of the Conservative party to which I belonged.’’

It's  truly sad that John A. Macdonald's Conservative Party has been hijacked by a small but determined group of tinpot dictators, whose philosophy of government the former ministers accurately describe as, "using a sledge hammer to swat a fly."

This entry is cross posted at Eradicating Ecocide.

Surveying the Wreckage

Surveying the wreckage of the Conservative campaigns in both Manitoba and Ontario, Andrew Coyne offers this analysis:

In short, conservatives in this country, at least of the partisan, capital-C variety, have lost their nerve. They do not believe in themselves, yet somehow hope the public will. They reek of flop-sweat, calculation and guile, yet ask the public to trust in their leadership. They offer no alternative, yet campaign on “change.” It is a formula guaranteed to fail, as it has done, over and over again. Yet it is the one they return to, over and over again.

Instead, he suggests, Conservatives have adopted a nudge and wink campaign, essentially saying, "You know what we mean, but we're not going to say it." Coyne writes that the public is not fooled:

They can smell fear, and they can tell when people aren’t being straight with them. Don’t want to be accused of hidden agendas? Have an agenda. Don’t think you can sell that vision? Find another line of work. You’re in the persuasion business.

His advice to conservatives is to develop courage for their convictions. But it's not quite that simple. The public not only smells fear. It sees wreckage. Ontarians remember what the Harris Conservatives left in their wake. They see Doug Ford hellbent on the same path. And all Canadians see the unadulterated folly of the so called "compassionate conservatism" of the second Bush administration.

Until modern Conservatives have the courage to confront the wreckage they have left behind, there will be no Conservative Renaissance.