For 10 years, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has dominated the right-hand section of the political arena. Over that period, challenges to his moral authority have been few and far between. That could change if the Wildrose Alliance party succeeds in toppling Alberta’s long-standing Tory dynasty in the April 23 election.
Having taken over the command centre of federal politics, Harper is a top conservative star in his own right. But over the past decade his beacon has also shined brighter because he happened to come to the fore at the very time when the stars of Alberta’s Ralph Klein and Ontario’s Mike Harris — two premiers who used to be the provincial bright lights of the political right — were fading.
If she seizes the Alberta throne from the Tories, Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith will be a force within the conservative movement that Harper will have to reckon with.
The territory she has staked out — to the right of her province’s ruling Progressive Conservatives — is the natural habitat of a sizeable section of Harper’s party base.
A Wildrose Alliance victory on those terms would come at a particularly sensitive time for the federal Conservatives; a moment when their longtime supporters are questioning whether the conquest of federal power has turned out to be a zero-sum game on the policy front.
Over much of Harper’s six-year tenure as prime minister, his minority status has acted as a buffer between his successive Conservative governments and an impatient activist base. That buffer was removed in last year’s federal election.
Since then, some of the harshest criticism of Harper’s agenda — including the first full-fledged majority budget his government brought down a few weeks ago — has come in the form of friendly fire.
At the very least, the fratricidal battle taking place on Harper’s home turf as part of the Alberta campaign is a stark reminder that the party that he leads remains a volatile coalition.
The Prime Minister has managed to make it look easy to walk the tightrope of a centrist electorate and a militant right-wing base but it is really a tough balancing act and one that may be harder to sustain in light of the expectations raised by a governing majority.
It is ultimately easier for this prime minister to take on the Liberal premiers of Quebec or Ontario who hail from a rival political clan than to face off against a fellow conservative traveller.
In the last mandate, a staring match between Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall and the federal government over the ownership of Potash Corp. had an unlikely denouement given Harper’s well-documented instinct to push back. The Prime Minister blinked under the threat of potentially irreparable political pain.
In her dealings with Harper, Smith — as the premier of the province finance minister Jim Flaherty just described this week as Canada’s economic heart — would yield an even bigger stick.
A decade ago, conventional wisdom had it that the Red Tories — the progressive group that led the political wing of the Conservative movement until mid-’90s — would inevitably be restored to their position of influence within the reunited party. But since then the tide has ebbed away from them.
Emboldened by the success of their former Reform brethren at the federal level, hard-right conservatives increasingly chafe under the leadership of middle-of-the-road leaders and not only in Alberta.
John Tory found that out the hard way over his time as Conservative leader in Ontario. In British Columbia these days, a reborn provincial Conservative party is draining Liberal premier Christy Clark’s government of support.
Meanwhile on Parliament Hill, Peter MacKay, the last leader of the defunct federal Tory party, is the main casualty of the F-35 imbroglio. In politics, self-inflicted wounds are usually the most lethal.
By all indications, Harper’s victories have unleashed a hard-edged genie that will not be pushed back in its bottle. Those who bank on a return to a progressive slant in national politics as a result of the mellowing of the federal Conservative party should not hold their breath.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Chantal Hébert
Having taken over the command centre of federal politics, Harper is a top conservative star in his own right. But over the past decade his beacon has also shined brighter because he happened to come to the fore at the very time when the stars of Alberta’s Ralph Klein and Ontario’s Mike Harris — two premiers who used to be the provincial bright lights of the political right — were fading.
If she seizes the Alberta throne from the Tories, Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith will be a force within the conservative movement that Harper will have to reckon with.
The territory she has staked out — to the right of her province’s ruling Progressive Conservatives — is the natural habitat of a sizeable section of Harper’s party base.
A Wildrose Alliance victory on those terms would come at a particularly sensitive time for the federal Conservatives; a moment when their longtime supporters are questioning whether the conquest of federal power has turned out to be a zero-sum game on the policy front.
Over much of Harper’s six-year tenure as prime minister, his minority status has acted as a buffer between his successive Conservative governments and an impatient activist base. That buffer was removed in last year’s federal election.
Since then, some of the harshest criticism of Harper’s agenda — including the first full-fledged majority budget his government brought down a few weeks ago — has come in the form of friendly fire.
At the very least, the fratricidal battle taking place on Harper’s home turf as part of the Alberta campaign is a stark reminder that the party that he leads remains a volatile coalition.
The Prime Minister has managed to make it look easy to walk the tightrope of a centrist electorate and a militant right-wing base but it is really a tough balancing act and one that may be harder to sustain in light of the expectations raised by a governing majority.
It is ultimately easier for this prime minister to take on the Liberal premiers of Quebec or Ontario who hail from a rival political clan than to face off against a fellow conservative traveller.
In the last mandate, a staring match between Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall and the federal government over the ownership of Potash Corp. had an unlikely denouement given Harper’s well-documented instinct to push back. The Prime Minister blinked under the threat of potentially irreparable political pain.
In her dealings with Harper, Smith — as the premier of the province finance minister Jim Flaherty just described this week as Canada’s economic heart — would yield an even bigger stick.
A decade ago, conventional wisdom had it that the Red Tories — the progressive group that led the political wing of the Conservative movement until mid-’90s — would inevitably be restored to their position of influence within the reunited party. But since then the tide has ebbed away from them.
Emboldened by the success of their former Reform brethren at the federal level, hard-right conservatives increasingly chafe under the leadership of middle-of-the-road leaders and not only in Alberta.
John Tory found that out the hard way over his time as Conservative leader in Ontario. In British Columbia these days, a reborn provincial Conservative party is draining Liberal premier Christy Clark’s government of support.
Meanwhile on Parliament Hill, Peter MacKay, the last leader of the defunct federal Tory party, is the main casualty of the F-35 imbroglio. In politics, self-inflicted wounds are usually the most lethal.
By all indications, Harper’s victories have unleashed a hard-edged genie that will not be pushed back in its bottle. Those who bank on a return to a progressive slant in national politics as a result of the mellowing of the federal Conservative party should not hold their breath.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Chantal Hébert
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