Was it his appearance at the United Nations, where his speech was delivered with all the sincerity of a Walmart greeter to a near empty house?
Was it Paul Calandra’s risible performance in the House of Commons, a silly, remorseless apology that only laid bare the bottomless narcissism of this disgraceful MP? It also showed another important thing — Stephen Harper’s preference for choosing sycophantic boors as his parliamentary secretaries.
Maybe it was published rumblings on Bourque Newswatch of Harper’s imminent exit from politics, a story based on anonymous sources in the Conservative Party of Canada from across Canada. While some might want to dismiss Bourque, it was an earlier series of stories on the same site correctly reported the looming corruption scandal at SNC-Lavalin.
And then there was that Global News story about Iraq Redux. Harper told a group of American businessmen that the U.S. had asked Canada for more help. Former iPolitics standout Laura Stone reported that it was the other way around, citing State Department sources. Oops. Not only was Harper caught in a bald-faced fib, but also called out for his utter contempt of Parliament for telling Goldman Sachs investors more than he’ll tell his fellow MPs.
For me, Harper’s worst moment of the week came at the UN, an organization as high on his list of favourites as the Sierra Club and the Suzuki Foundation. He loathes the place. Not only did he get Canada voted off the Security Council island, he sends John Baird there on a regular basis to exhibit the fine art of poisoning rational debate – Canada’s new contribution to diplomacy.
Harper has got to realize that you can’t score points talking up peace and maternal health. Everyone in the world knows he is itching to get deeper into the war in Iraq to bolster his international tough guy cred.
You can’t win applause at the UN when you have consistently made clear that the will of the majority of member states means nothing to you. The world’s top diplomats are beyond being taken in by blue sweaters, Beatle songs, and phoney speeches. Day in the Life of videos, cat photographs, and patriotic selfies now work only with dear friends and relatives … and if you believe Bourque, not even them.
The prime minister long ago used up any “benefit of the doubt” account he might once have had on foreign affairs. His analysis a decade ago would have had Canada front and centre in the last Iraq debacle — which anyone who takes a second to think about it knows set the stage for this latest ISIS fiasco.
The old thesis is back. One can bomb one’s way to peace in the Middle East without telling the folks back home what’s going on. You know, like Viet Nam. Only undemocratic war mongers believe that. And for that matter, only war mongers celebrate the beginning of the First World War, the way Harper did.
And then there is Libya. Harper joined that mission without even knowing who Canada was helping as a member of the coalition. The million dollar “fly over” to celebrate victory in Libya was a tad premature; a few months after victory was declared, the U.S. Ambassador was murdered. Chaos has raged in that country ever since. When Harper did have a chance to stand up for democracy against a military junta in Egypt, he backed the junta with his silence.
Harper’s UN speech was a sham. But Paul Calandra’s humiliating performance in the House of Commons actually told us something true about Stephen Harper.
Unlike British PM David Cameron, who called the House of Commons back to an emergency session to debate the latest Iraq War, Canada’s PM doesn’t even intend to answer questions about these weighty matters of international life and death. Instead, he sends in the clowns. The megalomania is getting embarrassing.
Any prime minister with a scintilla of respect for parliament would have dumped Calandra as his parliamentary secretary, crocodile tears and all. But remember, this is the same guy who kept Dean del Mastro around when he was under investigation by Elections Canada for cheating, and who has stubbornly stood behind Peter Van Loan as House Leader, although he has demonstrated he knows more about rumbling in the parking lot than parliamentary procedure. Why? Because Harper is always looking for ways to show his utter contempt for parliament.
There is nothing more pathetic than a worn out politician trying to hang on to power when they should be contemplating their memoirs. Like beauty queens, movie stars, and aging athletes, they never seem to know when to leave. I for one was not surprised when Bourque wrote this week about Harper’s imminent departure from politics.
According to Bourque, the old order is about to change in the Conservative Party of Canada sometime in late winter. It could go like this: the government brings in a balanced budget in March 2015, (not by growing the economy but by slashing more than $13 billion from program spending) and Harper takes a bow as he leaves centre stage. That would set the table for a leadership campaign featuring the usual suspects — Jason Kenney, Peter MacKay, (zzzzz) James Moore, and perhaps Lisa Raitt to show that the Conservatives are not just the party of underwhelming white men. Maybe even Lazarus-like Rob Ford could surprise.
There would be many advantages to the CPC by showing Harper the door. For one thing, they could actually start talking again in public without fear of a trip to a re-education gulag with Jenni Byrne waiting in Room 101.
How bad has it gotten? When I contacted Nigel Wright for an interview for Party of One, my soon-to-be-released examination of the Harper years, Wright told me he doesn’t talk about his government work (can you blame him?), especially not to anyone who was going to publish it. Could the Harper communications strategy be put more eloquently? Talk to the press? You kidding?
With Harper gone, the party could also clear out the headquarters, which has become little more than a bunker for Harper kool-aid guzzlers who support the prime minister no matter what. You might have noticed they are never punished. When Byrne hired Matt Meier of Rack-Nine to conduct a misleading robocall campaign in Saskatchewan, long after the debacle of Guelph 2011, she got promoted.
Harper has done this much for the country. He has shown us that even in an age as shallow as this one, marketing has it limits. Harper’s UN speech was in the same category as the contest to name his new cat. If he thinks that talking peace and motherhood will allow him to send Canadians to fight and die in Iraq without debate, if he thinks he can foist weeping losers on the public in important positions, if he thinks he can replace inconvenient facts with made-up versions, he has forgotten it is no longer 2006.
Back then, Harper was still skulking in the wings. Now, he has been on stage so long that even his own people are squirming in their seats and looking for the nearest exit.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: Michael Harris
No comments:
Post a Comment