The media and the natinal
commentariat has now chewed over Prime Minister Harper's address to the CPC Convention,
some coverage was balanced, but
some was despairing and
some was even helpful to those trying to understand what went on for a full 45 minutes.
It was, as John Ibbitson suggests, a speech which was carefully aimed at one smallish audience: the CPC base. Prime Minister Harper tsakes no interest in what the national media, especially the parliamentary press gallery, thinks or even says about him and his ideas. Jeffrey Simpson doesn't even exist in Stephen Harper's mind and he, Harper, is indifferent to the few thousand Canadians who hang on Simpson's every word.
I have said before that the CPC
base is not monolithic ~ it is, like the Liberal Party of Canada, a fairly big tent. The speech
needed 45 minutes because Prime Minister Harper had to speak, however briefly, to each component of his base ~ there was even something for "small government" Conservatives like me, a segment that is usually overlooked.
I was dismayed, but not overly surprised, to hear the CBC's James Cudmore, usually a better reporter than many, misunderstand Prime Minister Harper's remarks about the courts trying to prevent Senate reform: he was talking about the recent Quebec Court decision, not the reference to the Supreme Court of Canada.
