Not Your Father's Conservative Party

Tom Walkom writes that the Harper government is not  what we used to call a Conservative government. It does not stand for what Conservatives have traditionally stood for:

The old Conservative brand, associated with prime ministers like John Diefenbaker and Joe Clark, emphasized practicality melded with compassion. The new one focuses on pride, patriotism and toughness.

Compassionate conservatism disappeared soon after George W. Bush -- who claimed that's what he stood for -- became president. Taking its cue from George W, the three hallmarks of the new conservatism are on display twenty-four hours a day:

Martial valour is an integral part of this new image. From that stems Harper’s emphasis on the military, as well as the alacrity with which he sends Canadian troops to wage war in unlikely countries like Libya.

Toughness is expressed by the government’s emphasis on jails and mandatory sentencing, as well as its take-no-prisoners approach to political foes.

But above all, the Conservatives want to brand themselves as the party of patriots. Hence the reinvention of old symbols —such as putting the word “royal” back in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

What it all adds up to, writes Dan Gardiner, is "the politics of ruthlessness." It is the product of a man who has spent all his life in politics, and who spends all his time on politics:

When politics is everything, when opponents are enemies, when there’s hatred in your belly, certain things follow. Ruthlessness, for one. Personal attacks. A refusal to accept the legitimacy of different views and to work with those who hold them.

Stephen Harper is only one man, of course, but unlike every Liberal prime minister his dominance of his party is total. He effectively built it from the ground up. It is his party. And its personality mirrors that of its creator and master.

As others have pointed out, the government is controlled by the Harper Party -- whose raison d'etre is control. It is, quite simply, opposed to democracy.

The Harper Government

Much has been written over the last few days about the "Harperization" of Canada's government. As much as the term "Harper Government" is an affront to to all Canadians, it is an absolutely accurate characterization of what has happened under this prime minister.

Jeffrey Simpson argues that the present government is not -- nor was it ever -- a conservative government. He makes the point, not by comparing the Harper government to previous Liberal regimes, but by harkening back to the record of the Progressive Conservatives under Brian Mulroney. Since returning to Parliament, the Harperites have moved to quickly end debate and pass legislation which would abolish the long gun registry and the Canadian Wheat Board. And, of course, there is the omnibus crime bill:

Mr. Mulroney’s party, enjoying two huge majorities, never moved on these fronts. The PCs had a minister of state for the Wheat Board who was committed to the institution’s proper functioning. They tweaked the criminal justice system but they never dreamed of an all-fronts “tough on crime” approach in the face of overwhelming evidence that such an approach wouldn’t work. And, if anything, they wanted to toughen gun-control legislation, not weaken it, although, in fairness, the long-gun registry came after Mr. Mulroney left office.

All of these initiatives sprang from the government's Reform Party roots. And, as Simpson makes clear, anyone who thinks the Reform Party is dead is whistling into the wind. Traditionally Conservatives have stood for conservation. But we have it on the authority of Environment Minister Peter Kent that conservation is nowhere on this government's agenda. They are a 166 member wrecking crew, focused on overturning Canadian institutions -- not the least of which is Parliament itself. As Andrew Coyne notes:

Parliament, in this version, is not a body of legislators charged with scrutinizing bills and holding government to account. It is simply an electoral college. Its sole function is to convert a minority of the popular vote, through the alchemy of the first past the post electoral system, into a majority of the seats. Should it fail in that responsibility, delivering what the British call a “hung Parliament,” the government is entitled to carry on without it, as governments have in recent years: ignoring confidence votes, or proroguing Parliament to avoid them.

The simple truth is that the government of Canada has become government of one man, by one man and -- in the final analysis -- for one man.

Black Is White

Janice Kennedy has accurately described what has happened to Canada during the Harper years. She writes that "a good country is being turned into a sad joke." Reviewing Stephen Harper's immigration policy, his military swagger and his "tough on crime" agenda, she concludes:

There are so many things wrong with our national picture these days, from empty swagger to lost compassion to a tragically eroded sense of international diplomacy, that it is no longer even recognizable. It is a picture that now looks not only mean, but stupid.

We are witnessing the ascension of stupidity dressed up as competence. If Canada entered the last recession in relatively good shape, it was because of nothing Mr. Harper had done. But he was not adverse to taking credit for others' good judgement.

Now he wants to bring Fear back into the national spotlight. That was the function of David Cameron's speech to Parliament last week. And, of course, the government is reintroducing expired terrorism legislation. The strategy is to "Keep 'em scared and keep 'em quiet." As the two prorogations of Parliament illustrate, Harper has a hard time dealing with any opposition -- even opposition in his own party.

In the end, Kennedy writes, the Prime Minister calls black white -- and he gets away with it.

With the Harper Conservatives back in the House in full majority finery, we have returned to the politics of naked emperors praised for their shining raiment. Everything is haywire as they trot out their daily distorted realities.

Those distorted realities have become the norm.

Foolishly Falling In Line

I'm sure key members of the Harper government read Lawrence Martin's stuff. I'm also sure they are not impressed. The trouble is that Martin sees through these folks -- and he has since the beginning. This morning he writes about who lost the War on Terror:

Ten years on, we are still presented with the insanity that sees a ragtag collection of terrorist twirps, pissants or whatever you want to call them holding hostage the world’s greatest military power. Washington got sucked right into their trap, colossally overspending on defence and driving the treasury into dire debt; starting a war with a non-guilty party on the basis of bogus information at an appalling cost of almost 5,000 American lives; building a surveillance state that erodes if not ravages once-cherished American freedoms. In the war on terror, is there any doubt who the loser has been?

But rather than taking the lesson to heart, the Harperites now intend to up the terror ante. Rather than dialing back the police state, they intend to expand it:

On the question of surveillance and reduced civil liberties, the latest Ottawa measure is what is termed “lawful access” legislation. This will compel Internet service providers to disclose customer information to authorities without a court order. In other words – blunter words – law enforcement agencies will have a freer hand in spying on the private lives of Canadians.

What Matrin knows is that the Harperites are not really focused on the economy. The Prime Minister's talents as an economist are underwhelming. They are not focused on military might. The government may wish to turn back the clock to when the term "Royal" was part of the naval and the air command. But Canadian military strength will not cause any country to reverse course.

The goal has always been power -- winning it and exercising it. It's about filling a vacuum at the core of a frustrated, mean spirited and paranoid group of MPs.

It has been a long, sad journey since the days of Robert Stanfield. Now Canadian Conservatives fall foolishly in line behind George W. Bush -- or perhaps behind his new Texas reincarnation, Rick Perry.

What's Behind A Name?

Late last year, word went forth from the PMO that the Government of Canada would henceforth be known -- in all official government communications -- as "The Harper Government." It was an act of extraordinary hubris. No government in Canada's history has claimed that privilege. But the government which now bears the Prime Minister's name -- like the man himself -- has never seen hubris as a political liability.

That decision was made before the "In and Out " scandal blew up in the government's face, before Bev Oda floundered trying to explain why she altered a document and claimed it came from her advisers, before Jason Kenny used his office for political fundraising, and before skyrocketing fuel and food prices started to threaten the economic recovery for which "The Harper Government" is taking credit.

If one were looking for the source of such hubris, the Prime Minister himself would be a good place to start. But there is another clue to what drives these folks. Murray Dobbin noted a short time ago that:

When Stockwell Day (the Christians’ man in cabinet) ran a Christian school in Alberta years ago, its curriculum included this assessment of democratic governments: “[they] represent the ultimate deification of man, which is the very essence of humanism and totally alien to God’s word.” Those believing that government is essentially the devil’s work don’t lose sleep over a little lying or fraud. It’s the will of God.

"The Harper Government" isn't on government's side. But they appear convinced that God is no their side. Wiser human beings have discovered that it's dangerous to claim inside knowledge of the Creator.

Government by Logical Fallacy

Teachers of rhetoric are fond of enumerating and explaining several logical fallacies, which have become the stock and trade of those who practice mass communication. A favourite example is the loaded or trick question, best illustrated by the query, "Do you still beat your wife?" Anyone who attempts to answer the question puts himself in a double bind. If he answers yes, he admits to being a sadistic monster in the present; if he answers no, he admits that he was such a creature in a past life. Either way, he makes an unflattering comment on his character.

When Stephen Harper shuffled his cabinet last week, he once again put himself in a double bind -- something which he has done since he came to office. Ostensibly, the shuffle was necessitated by Gordon Connor's poor performance as the Minister of Defense. Mr. O'Connor has displayed an ongoing failure to master the facts surrounding the commitment and performance of Canadian forces in Afghanistan -- to the point where he has had to admit that in recent pronouncements he has "misled the house."

Clearly, Mr. Harper needed to make a change. But by placing Peter McKay -- his Minister of Foreign Affairs -- in the defense portfolio, he opened up the foreign affairs post for Maxime Bernier, a man with little political experience and no expertise in foreign affairs. Both men possess the virtue of being bilingual, which will make it easier to communicate with French Quebecers, who are historically adverse to foreign military entanglements -- something which the unilingual O'Connor could not do. But the move underlined what James Travers, in The Toronto Star, and Josee Legault, in The Montreal Gazette, have noted: the downgrading of the Ministry which, in Ottawa, is referred to as Fort Pearson, in memory of former Prime Minister Lester Pearson who, as Canada's Ambassador to the United Nations, helped defuse the Suez Crisis in 1956 -- and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

These two changes necessitated other changes. Jim Prentice, for instance, moved to Bernier's post as Minister of Industry; and by the time Mr. Harper had finished, there were eight cabinet changes. The official reason given for the changes was, of course, to" better communicate" with the people. However, Canadians are well aware by now that all policy announcements are made by Mr. Harper himself, with his ministers standing in the background. If the government does a poor job of communicating with its citizens, the fault lies with Mr. Harper, not his cabinet.

Indeed, that is the point. The problem is Mr. Harper. Canadians have come to understand that he is a logical contradiction. He espouses policies -- such as the recognition of Quebec as a "nation within a nation;" and he attempts to proscribe federal authority with regard to the provinces. But he also centralizes all authority in his office and in himself. He does not trust his ministers to handle their own affairs; yet he claims that the provinces should handle theirs.

He tries to smooth over this contradiction with the firm conviction that his vision is superior to those underneath him. Unfortunately, such faith based administration ignores facts on the ground and, ultimately, leads to broken promises and reversals in policy. Thus, the Tory Clean Air Act was replaced with recycled Liberal environment policy. Harper's promise to not tax income trusts led to his decision to reverse that policy; and his promise to stand four square with his NATO partners by extending the deployment of Canadian forces to Afghanistan for two more years has run smack up against public skepticism about a mission which was poorly executed from the beginning.

Simply put, Mr. Harper and Mr. O'Connor suffer from the same disease. The facts always get in their way. The difference is that Mr.O'Connor has paid for his mistakes. Mr. Harper has not. But Mr. Harper and his party are still mired in the low thirty percent range in the polls. Canadians are not ready to hand the estate over to them. They recognize a logical fallacy when they see and hear it.

Mr. Harper Moves Left -- Sort Of

The Harper government's budget surprised just about everyone -- not the least of whom were those who think of themselves as conservatives. Writing in The National Post, Andrew Coyne claims that he and his confreres have been conned. "In less than two years of this 'conservative' government, spending has climbed a historic $25 billion. Bear in mind: that's on top of the wild rise in spending during the Liberals' last term. The Tories have taken all of that fat, all of that waste and all of those hundreds of priorities -- and added to them."

Writing in The Globe and Mail, John Ibbitson declares that this is "a budget so Liberal, the Grits should sue." But, as usual, Jeffrey Simpson, also writing in The Globe, sees through the spin and knows to whom Harper is pitching. "The Harper Party [Simpson has not referred to them as conservatives for some time now] is not for everyone. It targets perhaps 40 percent of the electorate. It isn't interested in the regular CBC listeners and watchers, self defined urban elites, most media commentators, whining interest groups, Suzukians, big business, civil servants, or anyone keenly interested in foreign affairs." No, their target audience consists of farmers, retirees, "middle income families living in suburban or exurban areas" and Quebec nationalists "who don't want secession or who might want secession but not now." It is a narrow and inherently unstable coalition.

Simpson is not the only commentator to define Harper's people as roughly 40 percent of the population. Writing in The Toronto Star, Armine Yalnizyan (whose report was the centerpiece of my post of March 7th) puts that number in a different context. She reminds her readers that, "Most Canadian tax filers --59 percent -- report incomes of less than $30,000." That means that, "Most of them will not be eligible for this budget's billions in tax credits." For, besides the financial transfers to the provinces, there were no tax cuts in this budget. Instead, the Harper government offered Canadians tax credits. And, those 59 percent of Canadians pay no taxes. Thus, tax credits do nothing for them. The only people in this category who benefit at all from this budget are individuals who earn between $3000 and $9000 or families who earn up to $14,500 a year. For them the government offers a $500 benefit -- if they are working. In other words, the working poor will get an extra $1.37 a day.

Yalnizyan writes, "This budget may be celebrated as a masterful spin document, but in terms of substance, its biggest failure is that it refuses to address, head on, one of the most pressing issues of our era: growing inequities in an era of incredible affluence." The Harper government is spending liberally; but, despite the cries of betrayal on the right, they are no liberals. Their policies are aimed at a distinct minority of Canadians. But there may be just enough of them to vote for a Conservative majority -- and that is the purpose of the exercise.

However, Harper's rather transparent strategy could backfire. Jeffrey Simpson has a much better sense of history than the Harperites do. "Every time in Canadian political history that the Conservative Party tried to woo these voters, the effort eventually ended in heartbreak. Either it produced a backlash elsewhere in Canada and/or the nationalists were never very interested in Canada, except as the milch cow for money. And, of course, once the milch cow stopped giving at the expected rate, even for a while, resentment grew in Quebec."

This time the resentment is starting on native reserves. Canada's native people have watched as Mr Harper and his team have torn up the Kelowna Accord and then left them out of the money. It is striking how many Conservatives -- in many countries -- lack a sense of history. They believe in that old adage that God helps those who help themselves. But, while God in his mercy may smile upon the helpless, it is not the job of government to do so. Inevitably, those who have been left out -- a distinct majority -- will storm the fortress of the fortunate. Then we will all pay a price for such wilful ignorance.

Everything New is Old

It has been interesting to watch the Harper government's two pronged strategy as it tries desperately to clothe itself in green. But, like the St. Patrick's Day Parade, where everybody claims to be Irish, it's a momentary extravaganza. Wearing green doesn't make you Irish; and claiming to be the Green Party doesn't make it so.

Cynicism abounds in the nation's chattering class. On the right, perhaps the most interesting take on the Conservative make-over comes from columnist Andrew Coyne. He's buying none of it. Says Mr Coyne, "Having allowed the issue to fester for eight months while it tried to decide what if anything to put in place of the Liberal programs it had scrapped, the government has now put itself in the position where nothing it does will be seen to be sufficient, or even sincere."

On the left, James Travers writes that, while the Harper government knows something about politics, it knows very little about policy -- something that troubles the mandarins in the civil service. "The effectiveness of public policy is proportional to the depth of analysis," he writes. It is becoming more obvious with each passing day that what Jeffrey Simpson calls "the Harper Party" is long on conviction and short on analysis.

The evidence to support this conclusion rests on the fact that Harper's green platform is essentially the old Liberal platform. And, while the Conservatives trot out different elements of that platform each week, they run television ads showing clips from the Liberal leadership debates claiming the Liberal record on the environment amounted to nothing -- a charge that contains a lot of truth -- and that "Stephane Dion is not a leader." That's the strategy: Recycle old policies and attack the new leader.

The strategy isn't about the environment at all. Harper revealed that the other day when he said that you can't expect Canadians to radically change their lifestyles. Technology, he said, will save us from ourselves. The truth is that technology offers us hope, but only we will be able to save ourselves. And Mr. Harper cannot conceive of a government which shapes public policy to encourage people to act in favour of the planet. The guiding star in his firmament is the principle that, first and foremost, people act in favour of themselves.

What he can conceive of, with laser-like precision, is a majority government. That -- not the long term future of the planet -- is what he is focused on. Everything he has done in the last year has been in support of that objective. Policy for Harper is a path to power; the long term efficacy of that policy is irrelevant. Whether it be placing Michael Fortier in the cabinet as the unelected Minister for Montreal, or the Quebec is a nation within a nation resolution, or his green light on the road to Damascus environmental policy, it's all about power -- gaining it and maintaining it. If anyone doubts this, note that it is Harper who makes every substantive policy announcement, while his ministers stand in the background, nodding approvingly.

In that Mr. Harper is like most other Prime Ministers -- Conservative or Liberal. There is nothing new in any of this. Actually, he has a lot in common with Mordecai Richler's Duddy Karvitz. Duddy knew exactly what he wanted -- and he got it. But he only got it because his victims allowed him to manipulate them. All except his grandfather. One can only hope that Canadians, like Duddy's zeyda, can spot a con man when they see him.

It's Not Easy Being Green, But. . .

Stephen Harper's second attempt at cabinet making was an interesting exercise. Give the man marks for shrewdness. Perhaps cunning is the more appropriate word. Certainly, those who write him off as being politically dense do themselves and the country a disservice. But the distance between politics and policy can sometimes be a chasm.

Harper's removal of Rona Ambrose from the environment portfolio was no surprise. But, in fairness, the problem was not so much Ambrose as it was Harper's Clean Air Act, which was nothing more than a lot of hot (and dirty) air.

The appointment of John Baird was -- politically -- a masterstroke. If the old adage about the best defence being a good offence is true, then Harper put the right man in the job. First in Ontario and then in Ottawa, Baird has proved himself an able parliamentarian. And he has the political smarts to deal with his critics. The problem is that his critics are right. A government which, despite its brand, is really libertarian is philosophically ill equipped to deal with the problem of global warming.

Conservatism, as practised in North America in the later part of the last century and the beginning of the new one, takes its philosophical bearings from people like Friedrich Hayek and Leo Strauss, refugees from European Fascism and Communism. While they considered themselves classic liberals --Hayek applied the term to himself -- they were really libertarians, as Hayek's fellow faculty member at the University of Chicago, Milton Friedman, aptly described their guiding principles.

Believing that individual self interest and the operation of free markets are the best tools to solve political problems, they disparaged collective action as hopelessly confused and ultimately ineffective. In practise their influence has meant the dismantling of several instruments whose purpose has been to increase global security and stability, starting with the United Nations and its various agencies.

Harper has bought into this school of thought; and, besides Harper, its best salesmen have been Harper's Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, and his former Minister at Treasury Board -- John Baird. And therein lies the problem. A libertarian government finds it very hard to think in global terms. All solutions are ultimately a matter of individual choice. So, for instance, Mr. Harper has said that the Kyoto treaty is not the appropriate instrument for dealing with the problem of global warming; and to justify Canada's not meeting its Kyoto targets, he asserts that individual Canadians would not agree to heat their homes "one third less of the time."

What he fails to mention, however, is that only twenty-five percent of carbon dioxide emissions come from individuals. The other seventy-five percent comes from industry and government operated power plants.

And it is here that the powers that be need to be confronted. Instead of using government to encourage research, to mandate fuel and emission standards -- and the tax system to provide incentives for green policies -- Harper and his allies are focused on reducing government influence in the lives of Canadians. If these "conservatives" were in office during the Great Depression we would still be there.

What the Great Depression and the Second World War taught us is that some problems are so large that only government action -- and sometimes international cooperation -- can solve them. The environmental crisis is -- in its scope -- similar to the Great Depression. Canadians understand that. The Liberals, when they elected Stephane Dion to lead the party, signaled that they understand that.

Harper's appointment of Baird indicates that he understands where his weaknesses are. Whether or not he knows how to develop policies to deal with the most important challenge we face remains to be seen.