But not politicians.
Public figures inhabit a world of extremes. I was reminded of that this week when Danny Williams called me after Justin Trudeau’s crushing victory in the federal election over the Harper Conservatives.
It is no secret that Newfoundland and Labrador’s idolized former premier, not famous for backing down, neither trusted nor liked Stephen Harper. With good reason. Harper once called him and asked to speak at the annual convention of the provincial Progressive Conservatives. Williams agreed.
After the speech, the two leaders repaired to a room in the Gander Hotel, where the PM had agreed to discuss a list of matters of importance to the province. Ultimately, Harper would break his promise to Williams that no province would be adversely affected by changes to the federal equalization formula.
“I started out asking him about fallow fields adjacent to Hibernia. Things hadn’t been moving from the fed’s side of things. He looked at me and said ‘I’m not going to allow you to fuck up my country’. So I pulled my chair right up close to his and looked right into his eyes and said ‘I’m going to pursue you to the four corners of the country until I bring you down.’ The next day, I started the Anybody But Conservative movement.”
That was May 2007. This time around, the Cons lost all seven seats in Newfoundland and Labrador, and every riding in Atlantic Canada.
And that’s the way it is. One minute, you’re placed on the throne, the next you’re rolling ass over tea-kettle out the door with a boot-print on your pants. In the end, Stephen Harper got the double drop-kick goodbye and good riddance treatment from voters.
One minute everyone wants to be around you; a hummingbird’s heartbeat later no one wants you around. In fact, they begin to wonder how anyone tolerated you for so long in the first place – forgetting as sycophants always do how very rewarding it can be to serve rather than scrutinize power.
All of that is now rolling over Stephen Harper. The snapping turtle has lost its shell. The question is no longer what Harper wants, as it was for nearly a decade of his one-man mis-rule in Canada. The question is what his party needs to rebuild. Harper has blown the ideological hinges off what used to be the Conservative Party and now someone has to figure out how to re-attach the door.
There are three factions left in the rudderless ghost ship that is the CPC – the lineal descendants of the Reform Party, led by Jason Kenney; the angry and so far leaderless Ontario Conservatives who got shellacked by Team Trudeau in their former strongholds in Toronto; and the vestiges of the old progressive conservatives hanging around in the weeds. Despite his protestations to the contrary, Peter MacKay would like to be their leader. There is a greater chance of Rob Ford becoming an ecclesiastical diplomat.
The Kenney faction is the odds-on favourite to win in the event of a snap leadership call. He has the most caucus support, the most money, and probably, with some justification, believes he has a rightful claim to the top job. No one has carried more water for the party than he has. Too bad a lot of it was slop water for the PM.
It would be a mistake to discount the Ontario faction as a force to be reckoned with in whatever happens next. A lot of people see moderates of the Conservative caucus from there — of which there are a handful — as possible leadership candidates. Indeed, some are already out kicking the tires to gauge what support might exist.
And then there is Doug Ford. Remember, Ford is a parvenu who would like to create a party to the right of Jason Kenney using a direct appeal to social conservatives who got zilch under Harper and may be susceptible to a big hug. Ford is the one who said while Harper was still leader that he would create a “real” Conservative party if he ever had the post.
As for the former PCs, they must finally realize in full horror what they gave away all those years ago by throwing in their lot with Stephen Harper: Stripping citizens of their citizenship, snitch lines, the bull about barbaric practices and all those appointees who ended up in court or jail – including a privy councillor and the parliamentary secretary to the PM – definitely not the stuff of John A. MacDonald.
Don’t kid yourself, that list, which is actually much longer, is why one of the fiercest Tory partisans of them all, Brian Mulroney, gave his blessing to Trudeau the Younger.
While success buys submission, defeat brings out the swarms of angry bees. The battle for the leadership of the new Conservative Party will be bruising, bloodthirsty, and maybe just fatal depending on how things turn out – more of a civil war than a mere political contest. It is not altogether inconceivable that one of the three factions could leave the party if the wrong leader is chosen. Yes, parties not only unite, they crack under pressure and split.
Who is the wrong leader? From a strategic point of view, anyone who sat around Harper’s cabinet table and helped impose the PM’s ugly blueprint for a divided, discordant, and extremist Canada. That warped vision was flushed at the polls by record numbers of Canadians. It will not be quickly re-embraced by voters, especially when re-offered by the usual suspects. Bottom line? Jason Kenney, John Baird, Tony Clement et al are political has-beens with no hope of rebuilding the Conservative party.
When you sell your soul, pawn shop rules don’t apply. It’s just gone.
In fact, if the old Reformers, with the connivance of Stephen Harper, gain control of the leadership process, foisting a quick convention on an angry and divided party, the old progressive conservatives may just leave the party altogether – if they didn’t already on election night. Nor is it beyond possibility the Ford Nation might get the notion that Ontario conservatives don’t need Calgary doing their thinking for them and hive off a Con party of its own.
The smart money in these matters realizes the wisdom of the Three-T Rule; things take time. That is something the Liberal Party learned painfully in the wake of the Ad Sponsorship scandal. They tried the quick fixes but they didn’t work. They had to spend many years in the wilderness, and rightfully so, before the voters gave them this historic second chance. It is worth noting that the man they decided to trust, Justin Trudeau, was a new face who had never been touched by the scandal that cost Paul Martin his government. New to politics and from a new generation.
And so it is with the CPC. What is needed is a new face and a new generation. Integrity and no executive connection with the Harper years will be must-have qualifications in repairing the broken trust with Canadians.
One of the few remaining caucus members who has those credentials is Michael Chong. As everyone knows, Chong resigned from cabinet rather than agree to granting Quebec nation status by prime ministerial fiat. When it counted, this young man talked the talk and walked the walk. Others let a renegade prime minister do whatever he wanted in exchange for that almighty town car and chauffeur.
Whatever choice the CPC eventually makes, it would be wise to give itself time to re-evaluate the power of the golden conservative middle — spoken of so eloquently by former Senator Hugh Segal — the rule of law, fairness, fiscal prudence, and social justice. Segal, a sore loss to the Senate and to his party, has wisely counseled patience in the leadership issue, calling for a two-year timeout under an interim leader. That would allow the euphoria and astronomical expectations of Trudeau to come down to earth, as they surely will.
It would also allow a solid first step into a new Conservative generation in Canada — one without Stephen Harper pulling any of the strings.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: Michael Harris
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