The Report of the Liberals Death Was Greatly Exaggerated

"The report of my death was an exaggeration" - Mark Twain

Everyone loves that Mark Twain quote in all of its variations.  It was prompted by the visit of a reporter, sent by his paper to investigate whether or not Twain (Samuel Clemens) had died after news of a lengthy illness.

Twain was very much alive and not even sick.  It was his cousin who was failing.

Chantal Hebert wrote a column this week predicting the death of the Liberal Party.  Her reasoning was that they are losing ground provincially.

What a silly assumption.

Provincially, the Liberal Party has never had a stronghold.  They haven't governed in Alberta since 1921, Manitoba since 1958, and Saskatchewan since 1971.  They now hold power in Ontario, Quebec, B.C. and PEI.  And her comment that they almost lost opposition status in Newfoundland?  We are talking the difference between 6 seats and 5, and she fails to mention that the Liberals actually gained two seats.

Since she's moved to the right, she's really lost perspective.

In the words of Mark Twain:  "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please".
 
A few facts.  In 1984, the now defunct federal PC Party won a majority with a staggering 211 seats.  The Liberals were reduced to 40 with the NDP gaining and not far behind them with 30.

Everyone was predicting then that the Liberals were on their way out and that the NDP would take their place.  Yet the NDP at the time were losing ground provincially.  They were beat out in Saskatchewan in 1982 and would not rule again in B.C. until 1991, and Manitoba until 1999.

Ed Broadbent's popularity had no affect provincially.

In 1988, the NDP did even better with 43 seats, though the Liberals also gained with 83.  No provincial surge for either party,  though the NDP did take Ontario, based more on the popularity of Bob Rae, than his federal counterpart.   By 1993, the federal NDP was reduced to 9 seats, and everyone was writing their eulogy.

Recently, in Ontario, the Liberal incumbent Dalton McGuinty had been written off, but he campaigned well and beat the odds, finishing just one seat short of a majority.  NDP's Andrea Horwath had a good showing because she is smart and endearing.  She rode no one's coattails.

The federal Liberals were reduced to 40 seats in 1984 and less than a decade later won a majority.  The NDP were down to 9 in 1993 yet are the official opposition in 2011.
 
The Liberal Party is now the oldest and most experienced, and they will find their way back.  The NDP, the second oldest, will continue to be successful if they can move beyond the personal success of Jack Layton, who brought them to where they are, and define who they want to be.
 
I think if the Tories had held on after being reduced to two seats, they could have eventually beat out the Reform-Alliance.  In 1993, that fateful year, they still garnered 2,186,422 votes, a million more than the Bloc's 1,846,024, who netted 54 seats, and pretty close to the Reform Party's 2,559,245, who took 52 seats. 
 
In 1997 their vote count was 2,446,705 for 20 seats, to Reform's 2,513,080 (60 seats) and the Bloc's 1,385,821 (44 seats).
 
But Peter Mackay owed $500,000 and Stephen Harper found someone willing to pay it off ( MacKay's financial secret safe with Harper: No conflict, party leader says, by Stephen Maher, The Halifax Herald Limited, May 13, 2004),  and as the old saying goes, the rest is ... well you can finish that sentence.
 
The Liberals are not dead.  It's only a rumour.

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." - Mark Twain 

What's in a Preposition?

"Look. I've got to suck up to Quebec, so just shut up and let me get on with it." Stephen Harper (Harperland, Lawrence Martin, 2010 P. 82)

James Laxer recently wrote a piece Stephen Harper: Now He’s The Champion of National Unity, in which he questions Harper's new found love of a united Canada. He invoked memories of Harper's Reform Party under Preston Manning, who had an Abraham Lincoln complex, hoping to invoke "A House Divided" in his handling of Quebec.

With a recent surge of NDP popularity in Quebec, Laxer believes that anything is possible. I still feel that Gilles Duceppe is pretty popular in this province and doubt that the NDP will capture many more seats, but stranger things have happened. It would be wonderful if a federalist party made inroads into the province. And I believe that this election will not be decided by the polls but at the polls.

However, let's look at Stephen Harper himself. His campaign is being run under the banner 'Here for Canada' (while hiding from Canadians). A stark contrast to his former plans for decentralization.

"Whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or 10 governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country may be." - Stephen Harper in a 1994 National Citizens Coalition speech.

However, there was a more direct attempt by Stephen Harper in 2004, to divide Canada, based on the 'Belgian Model'.

The Conservative leader first floated the idea during a speech in Quebec last Friday. He said there are some areas where Ottawa could hand over some of its powers to linguistic groups, such as francophones or anglophones. "By devolving authority, not solely to a province, but to have an arrangement based on linguistic groups that cross the country," he said

Then Prime Minister Paul Martin said: "I think the role of the prime minister of Canada is not to build a better Belgium, it's to build a stronger Canada.

His party immediately went into damage control, because he didn't explain how this would work for Anglophones in Quebec or Francophones in other parts of the country.

Of course anyone following Stephen Harper's career, knows that few of his ideas are his own. As chief policy wonk for the Reform Party, he "cribbed" about 2/3 of their platform from the National Citizens Coalition handbook. (1)

And he also stole the idea of the Belgian model to handle Quebec, from Peter Brimelow's 'The Patriot Game'. In his book Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, William Johnson said that after reading the book, Stephen Harper was so excited that he went out and bought ten copies to give to friends. (1)

Brimelow lays out the Belgian model on Page 83 of his book. (2)

And after suggesting this model for Canada, André Lecours, from the Department of Political Science at Concordia University, wrote a paper on why Harper's (Brimelow's) idea wouldn't work. In fact it's not even working in Belgium.

So is Stephen Harper really here FOR Canada, or for what he plans to do TO Canada. Sometimes it's all in the preposition.

Sources:

1. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, McClelland & Stewart, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3

2. The Patriot Game: National Dreams and Political Realities, By Peter Brimelow, Key Porter Books, 1986, ISBN: 1-55013-001-3

A Vast Number of Conservatives Don't Support Harper's Agenda

Could it be because Stephen Harper is not a Conservative? At least not in the Canadian tradition of conservatism.

In the above clipping (you can read larger version here), Stephen Harper then head of the National Citizens Coalition, was pondering running for the merged Reform-Alliance Party. And he was pretty clear that he wanted to use the full name: The Canadian Reform Alliance Conservative Party, to be differentiated from the PCs whom he loathed.

However, after buying out the rights to the PC party, it seemed more expedient to pretend to be them, so as not to frighten the electorate. The media immediately began calling them Tories, which Harper detested.

"It's actually not a label I love… I am more comfortable with a more populist tradition of conservatism. Toryism has the historical context of hierarchy and elitism and is a different kind of political philosophy. It's not my favourite term, but we're probably stuck with it." (Stephen Harper, Hamilton Spectator, January 24, 2004)

Environics Research conducted a survey for Avaaz, based on Harper's election campaign.

Poll numbers show that 56% of all Canadians (and 42% of Conservative party supporters) oppose reducing corporate taxes - a key part of Harper's former budget proposal. 74% of Canadians - including 64% of Conservatives - support Canada's gun regulations (including the current long gun registry), which Harper has vowed to scrap. And a majority of Canadians who expressed an opinion on the question,say we should keep the current system of public financing for political parties, including 42% Conservative supporters.

"These poll results point to a major democratic deficit in Canada," noted Ricken Patel, Avaaz Executive Director. "Stephen Harper isn't attempting to deliver on the will of Canadians -- even Conservative Canadians -- he's marching to the beat of a different drum.

His own drum. His own one man band.

And his constant fear mongering about a coalition, only suggests that he is unable to get along with others. It's him or the rest of Canada's choice of party.

As Douglas Bell says: Harper’s coalition dog won’t hunt In other words, there will only be another election soon after, if Harper or the Conservatives try to force one. And if they are in the minority, good luck with that.

The other parties will hammer out a deal, if given the chance, that will keep the government alive for as long as needed to get things done.

And like before, only confidence motions will be protected.

Good Gawd, doesn't the media know anything about Canadian politics?

As Susan Delacourt says, it's time to have an adult conversation about this. Media welcome if you can act like an adult.

If Not Our Parent's Conservative Party Then Whose?

Several months ago, two young people wrote an op-ed piece for the Globe and Mail: Not their parents’ conservatism. One of the authors was Robert Joustra, a member of Cardus, a group I've written of in the past, and Redeemer University College, the private religious school that was awarded $3 million of our tax dollars.

The cost of going to bat for Stephen Harper's brand of conservatism, I guess.

Many followers of Canada's traditional conservative party, already know the story of how Peter MacKay betrayed us by reneging on a written contract (go to Opposition to the PC-CA Merger on left), not to sell out PC's interests to the Reform-Alliance movement, headed up by Stephen Harper. In exchange for a $500,000 debt of Mackay's being paid (*Stephen Harper still refuses to tell us who the benefactor was), the historic Tory Party was annihilated.

Harper's current Chief of Staff, corporate lobbyist Nigel Wright (think F-35s), had once said of the Reform movement: **“Our aim now is to drive a stake through the heart of the Tory party”, and they did on that day. December 7, 2003. With MacKay holding the stake, it was fitting that it was the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbour.

So Who is the New Conservative Party?

If this is not yours or your parents conservative party, whose is it? Maybe Stephen Harper himself can best answer that.

In 1995 as a member of Parliament in **a piece for the Globe and Mail, he likens his party to the Conservatives in Great Britain (Margaret Thatcher), the Republicans in the U.S. and the Christian Democrats in Germany (theocracy).

A decade and a half later, I would say that they are more like the American Tea Party, long on nonsense, and short on common sense, or common decency.

But in 1995, we were calling Harper's party, neoconservatives, because, well, that's what they were. A new brand of conservatism in the tradition of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and George Bush, where the corporate sector rules the roost.

The Social Welfare State destroyed, in favour of the Corporate Welfare State.

In November of 2010, naturalist/artist, Robert Bateman, stepped outside his comfort zone and wrote an article for the Wildlife Art Journal: Why I Am A 21st Century Conservative. In it he discusses what is wrong with neoconservatism.

I am a conservative. This is why I deeply resent the neo-conservatives who are not conservatives at all. They are the opposite: radicals who are destroying cherished institutions and wreaking havoc on our human heritage as well as our natural heritage. I do not consider destroyers to be conservative. So many cherished institutions have been built with great care and dedication through the decades by well-trained people with good hearts. These are being smashed and weakened in great haste by politicians and ideologues who do not even understand what they destroy. Creation is long and difficult; destruction is quick.

I purchased the entire article, because some things are worth paying for, and I'm glad I did. It was a heartfelt plea, reminding us of everything that is wrong with a government run by and for the corporate sector. And that while their rallying cry is "lower taxes", they never speak of their "waste of tax dollars".

As Bateman says: "The cost of corporate welfare amounts to many times that of social welfare. It is not a question of fiscal responsibility, it is a question of ideology."

Naturally, the Harper government could never sell a party, by and for corporations, so instead they have to hide who they are, suggesting that corporate tax cuts are good for us.

They improve your skin tone, aid in weight reduction, extend your life and heighten your libido. Except for the weight reduction, as hunger in Canada is on the rise, those other things make as much sense as 'job creation'. Voodoo economics.

However, if most Canadians would not agree that we are better served by corporations, why are traditional conservatives voting for this party? It's because they don't know. As Susan Riley once said:

Harper's Conservatives are edging up, but this appears to rest on the prime minister's hiding his true colours, pretending to be a moderate centrist and saving his bad-tempered rants against biased judges, socialist-separatist conspiracies, and "left-wing fringe groups" for closed-door meetings ... his party cannot be credibly described as a successor to the PC party of old -- the party of Sir John A. Macdonald, John Diefenbaker, Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark. That is partly because Harper's recent policy zig-zags are clearly strategic and not heartfelt. He is on the record (and off) as a tax-hating, elite-baiting, crime-busting guy who believes there are no good taxes and, by corollary, very little that government can do right.

It is also a matter of tone. Neo-conservatives like Mike Harris, Harper and their acolytes bristle with hostility, inflame divisions, despise compromise and aim to intimidate, or scold, rather than persuade or inspire. (1)

In other words: "Not their parents’ conservatism".

We need to remind moderate conservatives, our friends, parents, grandparents, of this. They are not voting for the the party of Sir John A., Diefenbaker or Stanfield. They are voting for the party that deliberately drove a stake through the heart of that tradition.

And if the 'Harper government' can't be honest with them about that, then we need to be.

Footnotes:

*MacKay's financial secret safe with Harper, By: Stephen Maher, The Halifax Herald Limited , Thursday, May 13, 2004

** Nigel Wright, Vancouver Sun, May 9, 2000. He was then working with Stockwell Day. Before that he was with the Mike Harris government.

Sources:

1. Where does the Reform Party go from here?, By Stephen Harper, Globe and Mail, March 21, 1995

2. Conservative Longings, By Susan Riley, The Ottawa Citizen, October 16, 2009