If an historian a hundred years from now writes a book about Canada’s 22nd Prime Minister, it is more likely to be on the man’s ego than any accomplishment while in office. That is too bad. Stephen Harper had it in him to do much while in office but it is his ego that denies him any credit or respect that he might have earned.
From a liberal perspective, you can only say “Thank God.” The problem for Harper has always been that Canada is a liberal-minded country. As a nation, we have always put more reliance on each other and we do not respect the harsh “screw you” attitude of the true blue conservative.
As a young man, Harper discovered his political home among the extreme right in Canada’s most Americanized city: Calgary. Believing they are part of the wild and woolly West of some Zane Grey novel, Calgarians tend to ape their counterparts from Texas while ridiculing the liberal milksops in Canada’s East. Harper not only bought into this but came to see himself as the lone law man, strapping on his gun to meet the bad guys on the noon train.
Stephen Harper’s mentor and role model was Preston Manning, founder of the Reform Party. His academic idol and guru was his friend Tom Flanagan, a political science professor at the University of Calgary. Between Manning and Flanagan, Harper’s conservative bona fides were assured. The only problem was he knew he was smarter than both his teachers. His ego told him he did not need them.
It was Harper and Flanagan who took over the Reform/Alliance and then Conservative parties. It took a couple minority governments in the process but Harper learned his lessons and finally got a majority government in 2011. And, at that time, Harper was in control of an acquiescent Conservative Party that had no commitment other than to be fiscally conservative. Social conservatism in the party was suppressed by a powerful Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) that was also doing its best to control the news media. Harper had flooded the Senate with a majority of Conservative appointees. You would think that he would have been able to sit back, relax and give all those liberal easterners the figurative prime ministerial finger.
But Harper had bigger fish to fry. The world economic problems of 2009 made him look good. Other countries envied Canada its stable ultra-conservative banking system. Now we had Stephen Harper: law man to the world! The ego had become the monster.
Harper, his hair and his hairdresser have their own Airbus A310 to take them anywhere in the world they wish to go. He can escape the nagging opposition in parliament. He can leave behind the lame information search of the R.C.M. Police. He is leaving for Israel in a few days for his own crusade—mining for votes in Montreal and Toronto.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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