He is the Vanilla Prime Minister, the man who looks suspiciously at microphones as if one might somehow leap up and knock him off his carefully calibrated message track.
When Angela Merkel and Stephen Harper stride to the podium, the room turns a whiter shade of bland.
Only the line of German and Canadian flags saved the historic Centre Block from fading to black-and-white Tuesday.
But there they were, the two longest-standing G8 leaders, living proof that bland, a lack of flash and some single-minded wonkery works.
European leaders who preened for the cameras or lurched from scandal-to-scandal have been discarded.
Barack Obama, who plays the King of Cool, is in a re-election battle with the robotic Mitt Romney, Vladimir Putin’s stance on Syria leaves him as an outlier in the club.
But Merkel and Harper, two hard-nosed conservatives, both often accused of lacking a big vision, were busy trading compliments, both having presided over economies that have emerged from crisis, two friends looking at common ground in an uncertain future.
As they tried to out-dour each other for the cameras Thursday, one can see why the pair would find common, if formal, cause.
Neither gives anything away.
Harper guards his personal stories and is not one for introspection.
In a recent personal profile with Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, Merkel revealed her major youthful indiscretion involved a ruined tracksuit and some tree resin.
The four hours of face-to-face time over two days, including a three-hour dinner of elk at Harrington Lake involving just the two of them, was a coup for Harper.
They spent an hour lounging and chatting before the lake, Merkel nursing a white wine, Harper, typically, nursing a Coke.
Diplomats and foreign affairs officials will tell you that a bevy of bureaucrats locked in a room for days can never make the type of bilateral progress that can be forged by leaders on their own.
Harper got everything he could have sought, but what he really got was a little elevation on the world stage, both for him and the country.
Merkel said she would “see to it” that Harper’s signature Canada-European Union trade agreement is wrapped up speedily and, even though she is not in charge of the negotiations and there were no details offered about the final, sticking points, when Merkel says she would “see” to something you believe her.
The two swatted down the false issue that Merkel’s push on the trade agreement was somehow tied to Canada making a contribution to an International Monetary Fund to help bailout European economies, and she heaped praise on the Canadian banking system, adding this country was an example for the world of a country that can emerge from a crisis in a robust manner.
She soft-pedalled — publicly — any German concern over the emissions from Alberta’s oilsands, although it is probably a safe bet she was significantly more blunt in private on her views of the Harper environmental record and his abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol.
Perhaps the signal achievement for Harper was the meeting itself.
When an invitation was proffered to the German chancellor, Canadian officials would have settled for a get-together in the margins at the Los Cabos G20, or a quick tête-à-tête at the G8 at Camp David.
What they got was a leader who left her holiday and flew directly to Ottawa before turning around and heading home following a quick stop in Halifax.
Harper beamed — as much as Harper ever beams — and twice referred to his good friend as “Angela.’’
Merkel’s stoic mask never wavered as she listened to Harper’s praise, referring to her buddy as “prime minister.”
The chancellor heads home still wildly popular, despite being in office since 2005.
Some 70 per cent of Germans believe she is the leader to save the Euro, according to a recent poll. She has the support of almost one-in-two Germans.
Harper does not have quite the same support, but, courtesy of Merkel, he has a hockey jersey from a team in Berlin known as the Polar Bears.
Merkel has a canoe paddle from Harper.
The gifts may seem cliché, but the real gift to Harper from Merkel is a louder voice in Europe.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Tim Harper
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