Whatever the reason, the Conservatives are making a classic late-term majority government mistake — three years too early. In their insistence on imposing the omnibus Bill C-38 on a very unhappy Parliament, including restive backbench members of their own caucus, the Tory leadership is fuelling a fire that, if left unchecked, can't help but eventually burn it. That the Prime Minister's Office appears not to perceive this threat, six months into a series of blunders and failures, is bizarre.
Clearly, the thinking now is to ram the 430-page bill through, in all its ungainly, kitchen-sink shabbiness, then refurbish the government's image in July with a cabinet shuffle. Perhaps the summer months also will bring a return of Soft Harper, the avuncular, reasonable and persuasive father to the nation. In three years, who will remember Bill C-38? It's late June. Canadians are eyeballing their BBQs, not the Parliamentary channel.
One can appreciate the logic as pure political chess play. But the underlying assumptions are flawed.
For starters the Conservatives are again underestimating the degree to which their tactics are pushing potential allies, based solely on the content of their core economic reforms, from their tent. Their primary justification for the omnibus bill — that all its measures together form an integrated, coherent vision and plan of economic transformation — is demonstrably nonsense.
Anyone who doubts this has only to read the text of the bill. Though it certainly encompasses economic files such as employment insurance and old age security reform, it is also chock-a-block full of measures that are unrelated. How can reforms to the Parks Canada Agencies Act, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the elimination of the office of the inspector general for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service possibly be interpreted as economic?
By that standard everything any federal government does, ever, is economic. If you have a majority, your ability to pass laws is not in question. Why bother wasting time with the bothersome business of committee review and public debate? Indeed, why pay MPs $157,000 a year (not including expenses) to sit in the Commons at all? It would be far more efficient, certainly cheaper, for the prime minister to rule by decree.
Second, the assumption that "everyone will forget" is predicated on the notion that no further bad news, from a Tory standpoint, is in the offing. There will be no more Bev Oda $16 orange juices, once she's turfed from cabinet; no more Peter MacKay helicopter rides, once he's in a portfolio without toys; no more robocall stories, Dean Del Mastro election spending investigation stories, exhortations to join the child pornographers, or other problems. Once the cabinet is shuffled it all goes away.
Except that, with three years to go in a majority mandate, there are bound to be more stumbles, big and small, because MPs are human. With three years to run, thumbing one's nose at Parliament and the electorate, when doing so is not necessary, is like tromping through cow plop rather than taking the grassy, tree-lined path. The government could have, when urged to split the bill into pieces, done so — with all of it guaranteed to eventually pass. Doing so would have shown flexibility and a willingness to listen.
The global economy? Hmm. Since when has a slumping economy bolstered the government in power? Short-term, as Canada continues to outperform its G-8 partners, sure. But if we truly are in for an extended period of sub-par growth, or another recession, both manufacturing and resource industries will suffer. Mulcair's entreaties to Ontarians, in particular, will find a more receptive audience. And the ruling party will take the blame, whether that is fair or not.
Which leads to the single greatest flaw in the government's strategy: It is predicated on a weak and divided opposition. Yet polls show that an overwhelming majority of both Liberal and New Democrat supporters would back a merger of their two parties.
Because voting is open to Grit supporters as well as party members, the Liberal leadership race is anybody's to win. Is it not obvious that merger supporters in both the Liberal and NDP camps could back a Liberal leadership candidate who openly favours a merger? And doesn't a deeply symbolic action, such as forcing passage of this bill, give merger proponents just the argument they need to bring their reluctant colleagues onside? A Grit-NDP merger, of course, would ruin Stephen Harper's whole day.
As long as we have democracy, popularity remains a requirement of forging a political dynasty. Unless the Harper Conservatives demonstrate humility and flexibility, very soon, they will cement a narrative that will haunt them in 2015.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Michael Den Tandt
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