Stephen Harper is acting like a child.
Harper’s dirty radio ad is Canada’s highest at his lowest – he has woven a thread of half-truths and misinformation into a sweater vest of lies that could look like patriotism, but isn’t. In fact, it erodes democracy in our country.
His bald accusation that a coalition of elected minority parties is somehow undemocratic displays an uncharacteristic ignorance of how democracy works in every country that has not institutionalized a one- or two-party system. Harper has never been lauded for his sense of fair play, his talent for building consensus from a range of voices, his tolerance for dissent, his ability to negotiate compromises that are acceptable to all parties. These are all things that define a strong democracy and a stable government, but none of these things define the man that for nearly two years governed as if he had the majority that he failed to win in 2006 and again in 2008. For two years Harper bullied a disorganized opposition into submission by naming minor bills as matters of confidence when in fact they weren’t. His schoolyard tactics worked for a time, but now that the other players are standing up for each other he is considering proroguing parliament.
That’s right, Stephen. Take your ball and go home.
Harper’s further and ongoing allegations that coalition talks represent some kind of conspiracy and coup are astoundingly myopic. The radio ad narrator says, “[Stephane Dion] even thinks he can take power without asking you, the voter.” As if Canadians weren’t just asked the $3 million dollar question, a mere seven weeks past, in which 62% of Canadian voters from every part of the country expressed the building national consensus that Harper is too ideological and divisive for the top job? Of course you’re not being picked to play on the team, Stephen. You don’t play well with others. The last time you helped build a unity in Canada it was to diminish the range of political expression by bringing together two parties with vast ideological differences that both happened to be popularly understood as ‘right wing’. That was five year and three elections ago.
I could go on for ages about everything that’s wrong-headed about Harper’s dying breath. So I will.
In his excellent piece on globeandmail.com, Andrew Steele quotes Harper as saying, “we will use every legal means to resist this undemocratic seizure of power,” and then goes on to list his ten best guesses at what’s in Harper’s book of dirty tricks. It’s a scary list, made scarier for the academic authorities he sources his material from. Top of the list is firing Canada’s first black Governor General, something with no historical precedent in Canada. But know what does have national precedent? Canada’s first coalition government dates to 1917, when Robert Borden’s Conservatives negotiated support from a number of Liberals at the height of the First World War. I’m personally curious as to why it’s taken us more than 90 years and another world crisis to get to the cusp of our second, federal, coalition, when they are pretty much par for the course in parliaments across the globe. But more importantly, this particular example, and a wash of provincial examples both before and after confederation, show us that the spirit of compromise that coalition governments inherently represent is Canadian. This is an exciting time for the True North! Harper would have us believe otherwise.
Items 2, 4, 5, and 7 are various forms of delay, including, speaking of things without precedent, proroguing parliament before the government has demonstrated confidence of the house by carrying out some, any kind of, business. But any delay would only buy Harper the time to carry out items 3, 6, 8, and 9, all of which are variations on the theme of bribing opposition MPs into supporting the government.
Short of buying MPs piecemeal at outrageous expense – every sinister success would take a small bite out of the kitchen-table-and-sweater image he worked so hard to cultivate in September and October, and additionally would undermine his own authority by limiting the political largess he can dole out to his supporters – his only other option is to, was to, prop up his own party with the Bloc Quebecois. But at this point the proposition is basically untenable. Neither Canadians nor Quebecois would allow Harper to vilify one coalition as “separatist” and “undemocratic” while cynically embracing an appreciably identical one. And Harper’s continued disrespectful hectoring of the Bloc Quebecois is harming him, rather than helping him. Courting the Bloc after ads like this would prove hypocritical, and thankfully, outrageously, impossible. If Harper ever had a chance to play ball with this diverse parliament, he is evidently squandering his opportunity to captain it.
Harper’s time to present a game plan that the parliamentary players could follow was immediately after the election. Instead, Canada’s most divisive Prime Minister chose to cheat and bully one to many times. Where there was discord, now there is unity and consensus, and Harper’s puerile protest that a national coalition built on compromise and shared values is somehow undemocratic, and worse, un-Canadian, is only so much crying over the milk he spilled himself. The truth is this: Harper’s tantrum of an attack ad threatens the integrity of parliamentary democracy in Canada.
It is time for Stephen Harper to show a little maturity and pass the ball. This is Canada. Power must be earned, not strangled.
Traveling Hat 