Liberal opponents underestimated the man who took their power away
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Liberal opponents, in their arrogance, greatly underestimate the man who toppled them from their sanctimonious hold on power.
So does New Democrat Leader Jack Layton, but then the ego-ridden Layton underestimates everyone except himself, which is laughable considering this pompous individual is going nowhere in political life—except for a fall.
Yet one non-elected Liberal who has recognized Harper’s style and substance is David Asper, chairman of the National Post and head honcho of the CanWest communications group, which includes Global Television.
In two quite remarkable columns last month, published within days of each other, Asper warned the Liberals that to try and topple Harper’s government within weeks—or even months—of it being elected would backfire and result in the Conservatives surging to majority status come the election.
Asper, whose brilliant father Izzy was once leader of the provincial Liberals in Manitoba, also noted the hypocrisy of the Liberals criticizing Harper’s team for not acting on issues they themselves had sat on for 13 long years while the Conservatives had been in power for just some 50 days.
Asper’s warnings—and tacit support of Harper—could represent a sea change in the editorial drift of Canwest’s newspapers.
If so, the Grits have lost many of their major allies in a stack of cities.
They should reflect on that.
Harper’s coup in flying to Afghanistan to visit our troops on the battlefield should also have signalled to the Liberals, New Democrats and Gilles Duceppe’s Bloc Quebecois that they are dealing with a no-nonsense type who knows exactly what he is doing and where he wants to go.
That trip was, incidentally, the first time a Canadian prime minister has visited his troops in “the trenches” since Sir Robert Borden went to France in 1917!
Indicative of Harper’s strategy of bringing people into the fold was his major speech to senior federal public servants in which he assured them of his trust in their professionalism and absolved them from overall blame in the AdScam affair and other Liberal government boondoggles.
Remember Human Resources Minister Jane Stewart’s $1-billion phoney job-creation scheme, the $2 billion bogus gun registry?
In their deceitful, duplicitous and dishonest ways, the Jean Chretien/ Paul Martin regimes sidestepped blame for any of these shenanigans, or, as in AdScam, blame the public servants given the unsavoury job of administering them.
Martin had thrown the blame for the sponsorship scandal on a “rogue operation” within the public service.
Harper declared it hadn’t been the civil servants who had crossed the line, but their political masters.
Harper made it clear he did not fault the public servants for such incidents and condemned Martin’s hierarchy for shifting the responsibility for these abuses on the shoulders of the public service, and announcing a string of new regulations to “control” federal employees in future.
Those regulations, would be repealed.
They were insulting to federal employees and would also hamstring their professional discretion.
By giving these assurances, Harper in one single blow let the federal public service know he and his government trust it.
Considering there are almost 400,000 federal government employees in Canada, Harper has just brought many on them either on side or to see him in a new light.
This is reminiscent of what Perrin Beatty did as minister of national revenue when he told department employees to work on the basis 99% of taxpayers were honest and not to nitpick their returns, but rather just go after those who truly did raise suspicion of cheating the system.
Beatty, a friend of mine going back 30 years, told me Revenue Canada employees were overjoyed at his edict.
They felt they could act with a new professionalism and hold their heads high in the community because they no longer had to nickle-and-dime taxpayers to death.
Revenue Canada became “user-friendly,” which is why their letters to you are so conciliatory with notes that if you disagree with their assessments, go right ahead and ask for a review.
The dark days were over.
Harper has moved in much the same way.
Again, he’s shown he’s a man of principle—and fairness.
You can bet there were a lot of sighs of relief after Harper’s speech, with commitments the public service hierarchy will work with the new government, not against it.
Harper is going to be around for a long time.
The Liberals better get used to it.
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