- Reaction score
- 5,943
- Points
- 1,260
Here is a pessimistic appraisal of Stephen Harper’s first year from Lawrence Martin in today’s (21 Dec 06) Globe and Mail. I, personally, find Marin:
• Consistently anti-Harper, or when he cannot be all-out anti at least very sceptical; and
• Ill informed, to be charitable, about foreign policy and defence issues like Afghanistan.
That being said, I think he is an astute political commentator.
Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061221.wxcomartin21/BNStory/National/home
My take:
• Harper was elected, primarily, because -
1. Canadians were sick and tired of the Liberals – not just corruption, but that was a big deal, but, also, the Chrétien/Martin feud soured Canadians on the Liberal brand; and
2. Harper ran an excellent, tightly focused campaign.
• Harper started off like gangbusters – with some, but certainly not much, good-will. He kept promises and look moderate and decisive.
• The Afghanistan debate was a cynical political ploy by Harper to embarrass the Liberals. It worked to his very short term advantage but neither he nor his ministers have been willing or, perhaps able to enunciate the ’Why?’ of the mission to the satisfaction of most Canadians. perhaps they don’t know why; perhaps embarrassing the Liberals was and remains the full extent of the Conservative’s commitment to Afghanistan. The PM’s year end interviews give some hope to think otherwise but his resounding silence on where and how Afghanistan fits within a broader Canadian foreign policy vision is worrisome.
• The Conservative’s handling of China has been inept and, I think motivated solely by a desire to keep the Lou Dobbs style social conservatives/economic illiterates (who make up a substantial minority of the old Reform/Alliance base) on side. It also indicates, to me –
1. Peter McKay and the foreign affairs bureaucrats are powerless and nearly voiceless, too, in Ottawa; and
2. There is no overarching foreign policy vision.
(That being said, I would not mind silencing the foreign affairs bureaucracy, for a while, since I believe it has declined, precipitously, in quality over the past 15 - 20 years, starting under Mulroney and accelerating under Chrétien. In time, however, starting soon, I hope Foreign Affairs should be rebuilt – with the same sort of top drawer people who are in PCO and Finance. Entry into the DFAIT bureaucracy should be based, primarily, on merit, measured against strict, defined standards, as it is in PCO and Finance – that is not, now, the case.)
• Martin, like many others, is right: if he wants to stay in office, even with another minority, Harper must recognize that the environment is a huge issue for Canadians. It doesn’t matter if the science (of global warming, itself) is suspect; it doesn’t matter that Kyoto was an EU attempt to scam the Americans and is a colossal waste of time and money; it doesn’t matter if Canada’s contributions to climate change (causes and cures) are trivial to non-existent. What matters is; Canadians think (in their own muddled, ill informed way) that climate change is a big deal so, for politicians, it must be a big deal.
• Martin is, yet again, out to lunch on Afghanistan and his ignorance tarnishes an otherwise useful analysis. We were in the present ‘fix’ the instant Paul Martin sent Canada to Kandahar – nothing the Tories did, or failed to do, has altered the ‘fix.’
• I think, and I am waaaaay out of my lane, that Harper might have been headed on the right track re: aboriginals – on some path to force aboriginals to decide for themselves how they plan to exist in the 21st century. But, as others have pointed out, here in Army.ca and in the media and academe, aboriginal politics in Canada is, in the main and under successive Conservative, Liberal, NDP and PQ provincial and federal governments and under successive first nations regimes all about inter-regime blame and buck-passing. Canadians, by and large are content to send good money after bad so long as the festering problems are kept out of the public eye. I thought Jim Prentice might come forward with a useful set of initiative which, while annoying first nations’ entrenched, traditional leaders might actually do something for first nations’ peoples. Now it appears he is going to shuffled into lightweight Rona Ambrose’s portfolio.
I agree with Martin that all is not lost for Harper. The Liberals are/may be out front in polls largely because the mainstream media (since Labour day) gave fawning, gavel to gavel coverage of the Liberal leadership race, convention and aftermath. Even the Globe and Mail will give some attention to Dion’s warts and the Liberal Party’s continued vacuous policies. Harper can, however, seize a handful of issues and regain Canadians’ confidence.
But, consider also that so long as the BQ have something of a stranglehold on 35 of Québec’s 75 seats and until the next redistribution of seats further weakens Québec’s political voice a majority in the House of Commons (155 seats) must be found from the 273 seats which are ‘up for grabs.’ If you accept that, for the same time frame, the irreducible minimums are:
1. BQ: 35 seats in Québec;
2. Conservatives: 35 seats in the West;
3. Liberals: 35 seats in Ontario and Atlantic Canada; and
4. NDP: 15 seats in Ontario and BC:
Then either the Liberals or Conservatives must find 120 seats, for a majority, from a pool of 188; that means taking nearly ⅔ of the ’available’ seats in a general election. That’s about like saying that a bare majority, in Canada today, requires landslide like election results. We may be in for minority governments for quite some time.
Edit: typos in 'I think, and I am waaaaay out of my lane, that Harper' and '4. NDP: 15 seats in Ontario and BC:'
• Consistently anti-Harper, or when he cannot be all-out anti at least very sceptical; and
• Ill informed, to be charitable, about foreign policy and defence issues like Afghanistan.
That being said, I think he is an astute political commentator.
Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061221.wxcomartin21/BNStory/National/home
Are we better off today than a year ago? Just ask the people
LAWRENCE MARTIN
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
For Christmas, how about a big tablet under the PM's tree, spelled h-u-m-b-l-e? If he swallows it, he'll likely have a much better year in '07.
The way he's been comporting himself lately, with his cocksure air, you'd think Stephen Harper, our newsmaker of the year, our one-man government, was coming off a long triumphant season.
The opposite might be a little closer to cinéma-vérité. He need not take the word from the dreaded pundits on this. There's a better standard of measure out there called the people.
According to a host of recent surveys, his government finishes 2006 with one of the lowest approval ratings on record for a first-year performance. The Conservatives are in the low 30s in percentage support, having fallen several points since the start of the year when they were pushing the 40 barrier.
Not many Canadian governments have fared worse. One that can be recalled was Joe Clark's plunging minority of 1979. It ended that year in the high 20s.
Mr. Harper had a splendid opportunity. The honeymoon tradition of the first year in office. His five priorities. The rudderless state of his chief opposition party. A hopeful public. But he didn't capitalize.
When you look at the big barometer question -- is this country better off today than it was a year ago? -- the answer hardly pops up positive.
Start with the high-priority domestic issue, which is the environment and global warming. On this one, it's been a year of dawdling. We unhooked ourselves from an international plan, Kyoto, without replacing it with anything credible. That someone as sharp as Mr. Harper could have stumbled so badly on this file, with so many neon warnings, is mystifying.
The biggest foreign issue is Afghanistan. We started the year in low-scale combat with no long-term commitment. Without sufficient debate, without sufficient knowledge of the possible consequences, the Conservatives rushed to embrace an extended war commitment. There is little progress. There is no end in sight to the conflict. We're in a fix we weren't in before.
Then there's China. As every eighth-grader knows, China is where the world is heading. Not this government. In 2006, Canada moved from good relations with China to a semi-chill.
On unity, Mr. Harper went from calling the contortions of vocabulary on Quebec's stature a semantic debate to handing it nation status. There is a chance that the gambit -- yet another bid to placate the province -- might prove beneficial. There's also a chance that Quebec will interpret the new wording as a meaningful measure, as opposed to a symbolic one, and demand concomitant powers.
The cat's among the pigeons. Things felt more comfortable before we entered this uncharted territory.
One troublesome development on the unity file centres on our native peoples. The Harper government trashed the Kelowna accord, Paul Martin's pride and joy, and replaced it with nothing. Its demise, for the flimsiest of reasons, is a slap in the face to our native peoples and a likely harbinger of new stresses. To the list of trashed accords, Kyoto and Kelowna, add kids. The national child-care agreement was scrapped in favour of a handout for parents to use as they please.
The year hasn't been without its advances. The Accountability Act -- even though Mr. Harper has been an embarrassment in terms of transparency and democratization -- has many good features. At the risk of setting a dubious precedent, a softwood lumber accord was reached. There was the wise decision, even if it contradicted a campaign promise, to shut down income trusts and sound economic management by the best man on the Harper team, Jim Flaherty.
The old Grit warrior Jack Pickersgill once cracked that Conservative governments are like having the mumps -- something you endure once but never want to go near again. This government doesn't yet qualify for such status. It could turn the corner and find success.
On the big measuring sticks, however, its performance in 2006 was a disappointment. A Prime Minister took office thinking he could do everything himself. He governed not like he had a minority but a landslide.
The result -- with only one of three Canadians supporting his government -- should give him pause. This country is too big for one man to run, even if you're Stephen Harper.
lmartin@globeandmail.com
My take:
• Harper was elected, primarily, because -
1. Canadians were sick and tired of the Liberals – not just corruption, but that was a big deal, but, also, the Chrétien/Martin feud soured Canadians on the Liberal brand; and
2. Harper ran an excellent, tightly focused campaign.
• Harper started off like gangbusters – with some, but certainly not much, good-will. He kept promises and look moderate and decisive.
• The Afghanistan debate was a cynical political ploy by Harper to embarrass the Liberals. It worked to his very short term advantage but neither he nor his ministers have been willing or, perhaps able to enunciate the ’Why?’ of the mission to the satisfaction of most Canadians. perhaps they don’t know why; perhaps embarrassing the Liberals was and remains the full extent of the Conservative’s commitment to Afghanistan. The PM’s year end interviews give some hope to think otherwise but his resounding silence on where and how Afghanistan fits within a broader Canadian foreign policy vision is worrisome.
• The Conservative’s handling of China has been inept and, I think motivated solely by a desire to keep the Lou Dobbs style social conservatives/economic illiterates (who make up a substantial minority of the old Reform/Alliance base) on side. It also indicates, to me –
1. Peter McKay and the foreign affairs bureaucrats are powerless and nearly voiceless, too, in Ottawa; and
2. There is no overarching foreign policy vision.
(That being said, I would not mind silencing the foreign affairs bureaucracy, for a while, since I believe it has declined, precipitously, in quality over the past 15 - 20 years, starting under Mulroney and accelerating under Chrétien. In time, however, starting soon, I hope Foreign Affairs should be rebuilt – with the same sort of top drawer people who are in PCO and Finance. Entry into the DFAIT bureaucracy should be based, primarily, on merit, measured against strict, defined standards, as it is in PCO and Finance – that is not, now, the case.)
• Martin, like many others, is right: if he wants to stay in office, even with another minority, Harper must recognize that the environment is a huge issue for Canadians. It doesn’t matter if the science (of global warming, itself) is suspect; it doesn’t matter that Kyoto was an EU attempt to scam the Americans and is a colossal waste of time and money; it doesn’t matter if Canada’s contributions to climate change (causes and cures) are trivial to non-existent. What matters is; Canadians think (in their own muddled, ill informed way) that climate change is a big deal so, for politicians, it must be a big deal.
• Martin is, yet again, out to lunch on Afghanistan and his ignorance tarnishes an otherwise useful analysis. We were in the present ‘fix’ the instant Paul Martin sent Canada to Kandahar – nothing the Tories did, or failed to do, has altered the ‘fix.’
• I think, and I am waaaaay out of my lane, that Harper might have been headed on the right track re: aboriginals – on some path to force aboriginals to decide for themselves how they plan to exist in the 21st century. But, as others have pointed out, here in Army.ca and in the media and academe, aboriginal politics in Canada is, in the main and under successive Conservative, Liberal, NDP and PQ provincial and federal governments and under successive first nations regimes all about inter-regime blame and buck-passing. Canadians, by and large are content to send good money after bad so long as the festering problems are kept out of the public eye. I thought Jim Prentice might come forward with a useful set of initiative which, while annoying first nations’ entrenched, traditional leaders might actually do something for first nations’ peoples. Now it appears he is going to shuffled into lightweight Rona Ambrose’s portfolio.
I agree with Martin that all is not lost for Harper. The Liberals are/may be out front in polls largely because the mainstream media (since Labour day) gave fawning, gavel to gavel coverage of the Liberal leadership race, convention and aftermath. Even the Globe and Mail will give some attention to Dion’s warts and the Liberal Party’s continued vacuous policies. Harper can, however, seize a handful of issues and regain Canadians’ confidence.
But, consider also that so long as the BQ have something of a stranglehold on 35 of Québec’s 75 seats and until the next redistribution of seats further weakens Québec’s political voice a majority in the House of Commons (155 seats) must be found from the 273 seats which are ‘up for grabs.’ If you accept that, for the same time frame, the irreducible minimums are:
1. BQ: 35 seats in Québec;
2. Conservatives: 35 seats in the West;
3. Liberals: 35 seats in Ontario and Atlantic Canada; and
4. NDP: 15 seats in Ontario and BC:
Then either the Liberals or Conservatives must find 120 seats, for a majority, from a pool of 188; that means taking nearly ⅔ of the ’available’ seats in a general election. That’s about like saying that a bare majority, in Canada today, requires landslide like election results. We may be in for minority governments for quite some time.
Edit: typos in 'I think, and I am waaaaay out of my lane, that Harper' and '4. NDP: 15 seats in Ontario and BC:'