He doesn’t tell ministers about new policy directions until after the press release is written. He doesn’t consult his caucus, unless forced to by negative public reaction to some leaked proposal. And he isn’t exactly a font of insider gossip, or musings on the meaning of life, with the national media. With Nigel Wright gone, he doesn’t even have an adult chief of staff with whom he can deliberate.
So speculating about what he will do this summer to rescue his wounded government is probably futile. He will consult his favourite expert, himself, and get back to us whenever.
But because it is our country he is playing with, and not only his own immediate career prospects, speculate we must.
The safest bet is that Harper will continue to be Harper, only more so. He is most compelling, most alive (and most successful) when is on the warpath—when he is warning of some looming calamity and blaming it on his political rivals.
He did it with crime. While rates of violent crime were falling, he capitalized on certain gruesome and atypical murders, abductions, and gangland shoot-outs, to introduce measures aimed at creating more severe sentences, fewer opportunities for rehabilitation and less humane prisons. (Pizza nights for inmates were cancelled, which will almost certainly discourage a new generation of break-and-enter artists.)
The measures were not always as draconian as advertised, but when they were disparaged by experts, and opposition leaders, these critics were immediately labelled soft-on-crime. In fact, that was kind of the point.
Harper has taken the same approach to foreign policy, the environment, taxes, and trade.
Anyone who questioned Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan—and there are still many questions about the usefulness of that venture—was dishonouring the troops, or defending the Taliban. Anyone who wants to protect Canada’s wilderness is bent on turning the country into a national park. Anyone who even hints at raising taxes is an enemy of the middle class. Anyone who disputes elements of any trade negotiation is anti-trade.
From effete urbanites bent on confiscating the shotguns of Alberta duck-hunters, to slacker seniors freeloading on the backs of younger workers, to “radical” environmentalists, to indolent public servants with their indexed pensions, to scientists insisting stubbornly on evidence, to independent watchdogs behaving independently, to fat-cat union bosses—well, let’s just say that Harper’s Canada is almost entirely populated by enemies.
His dominant ambition—his “vision,” if you will—has been to vanquish these foes and he has pretty much succeeded: bureaucrats are losing jobs, the gun registry is history, environmental safeguards have been gutted, watchdogs fired or otherwise disappeared, premiers ignored and notional opposition coalitions deplored.
What Harper urgently needs now is a new enemy, a new menace. Those who complain of policy drift in the PMO, who expect new ideas from this prime minister forget a crucial fact. Harper is all about removing, not adding—services, programs, jobs, expectations.
Fortunately for the prime minister, some slow beast is slouching towards Ottawa waiting to be born: the growing and vocal anti-pipeline coalition.
It will be an irresistible target for Harper: environmentalists, youthful leftists, Idle No More activists and, to varying degrees, both federal opposition parties. Justin Trudeau opposes the Northern Gateway; Thomas Mulcair that, and the Keystone as well. Anti-pipeline forces are now rallying against the west-east line that would, in theory, tie the country together.
You can imagine the script. The Liberals and NDP are intent on destroying Alberta. They are recklessly imperilling prosperity. They are consorting with Canada’s enemies, undermining our main export abroad, leaving a national treasure—our economic salvation!—buried in northern Alberta’s sticky sand. Without oil, we are ruined.
This is nonsense, of course, a pathetic substitute for a thoughtful, balanced policy on natural resources. But it will shore up the Conservative base, unsettled by recent Senate scandals, and could slow Trudeau’s impressive momentum in western Canada.
It may also frighten non-Conservative voters worried about their own jobs, their children’s prospects and tectonic shifts in the global economy that bode ill for western countries. If they are frightened enough, they may decide breathable air is worth less than promised jobs and re-elect Harper.
While flood waters lap around his ankles and forests burn, Harper may make small environmental concessions—driven not by conviction, but by Barack Obama, who will require some greenish gestures from Canada in return for approval of the Keystone pipeline.
But will Harper concede that climate change is more economically damaging than a moratorium on tarsands development? Will he acknowledge that carbon-capture-and-storage is too expensive and unproven a technology to significantly curtail emissions? Will he conclude a carbon tax is the most efficient and business-friendly way of changing behaviour? Will he recognize that greening Canada’s resource sector—thereby ensuring future exports—will require collaboration with other political parties and premiers?
He’ll have to consult himself and decide. But first, he has dragons to slay.
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: SUSAN RILEY
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