Stephen Harper just isn’t a very likeable guy.
It’s true. Much as he would rework his image into that of a personable and in-charge statesman, Stephen Harper comes across to the general population as a conniving, shake-your-hand-with-his-right-hand-while-stabbing-you-with-his-left kind of politician. The guy has a charisma deficit, and in that he seems to have inherited some sort of Reform curse. The closest the party has ever come to having a charismatic leader was when Preston Manning was leader, and even then it was said that his voice was much too shrill — and his much-publicized attempts at “remaking his image” (which apparently consisted mostly of wearing all denim all the time) was the object of much derision. To be honest, Preston Manning’s tenure as head of the Reform Party was also marked by the humiliating 1993 elections which resulted in the Block Québécois becoming “Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.”
That being said, Harper is somewhat symptomatic of the ongoing efforts by the Conservative Party to “de-Reformify” its image. The previous attempt to do this, known to this day as the “Stockwell Day disaster”, worked no better. In both cases those efforts culminated in a party leader who just wasn’t a good fit for the party. In Day’s case — he became the first leader of the Canadian Alliance shortly after the party changed names — the man ended up being dogged by very silly rumors about his sexuality (he was often derisively referred to as “Doris Day”) which were based, as far as I can tell, on the man’s slight build, close-cropped hair, and on a few uproariously badly-planned PR appearances (in one of those he was wearing a wetsuit, and that provided Canadian political satirists with material which remained in use long past Day’s party leadership was over and done with).
In Stephen Harper the part has again erred, but in a markedly different direction. It now has a leader who is a strong neo-conservative and is quite aggressive about it. The problem is that the Conservatives have failed to do what the American Republicans have had the good sense to do, which is to keep the doctrinaire intellectuals — like Harper — behind the scenes, and offer up a benign, intellectually-nebulous but sincere-seeming figurehead from the outside to put up as someone that “soft” conservative voters can get behind.
It’s a bit of a “Prince Myshkin” theory of neoconservative politics. Just as Dostoievsky’s protagonist was necessary because everyone knew him as an idiot, George W. Bush is needed to the GOP precisely *because* he can’t pronounce — or, sometimes, even understand — many of the words he is called upon to say frequently (“disassemble” is not a synonym of “dissemble”, Mr. President). He is desperately needed as the guy who never apologizes for anything because it’s actually quite conceivable that he has little or no understanding of the things he should be sorry for. He’s needed as the example of the simple person, the “straight shooter”, largely on the basis that he could, in the public’s eye, conceivably be unable to be so imaginative as to think up a lie or fudge the truth.
Basically the GOP has been fantastically successful in putting up the all-image, no-substance candidate everyone could at least feel equal (if not superior) to. Taking someone who is, intellectually, an “empty vessel” and making him the front man for intellectuals and industrialists who really run the show behind the scenes — Wolfowitz, Perle, and the energy industry — was the perfect strategy. None of the people running the show (e.g. Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.) were even remotely electable, so in order for them to hold sway in Washington they had to dredge up a guy who couldn’t be attacked on any issue of substance (having nothing of substance) but seemed like a forced-into-honesty, straightforward kind of guy.
The success of the strategy makes one wonder why the Conservatives made Harper their leader in the first place. He’s a rather cold intellectual with just enough charisma to play to his party’s base, but not enough to bring in new blood. He’s also reportedly quite autocratic and quick to dismiss criticism — something quoted by MP Belinda Stronach as the main reason she crossed the floor to become a Liberal MP. Harper has also been known to sacrifice known assets for reasons of pure doctrine, a tendency which has led to his downfall in the May vote as scorned ex-Reformer Independent MP Chuck Cadman (who passed away on Saturday July 9th) cast the deciding vote in favor of the Liberals and against the Conservatives. Cadman was hung out to dry by Harper when the Conservative association in his riding stripped him of the candidacy (although he was a sitting MP) in favor of a more right-wing candidate. Harper’s refusal to intervene was a callous, short-sighted move which cost him dearly.
It’s all about chickens coming home to roost for the politically-tone-deaf Harper, who should actually be glad to have lost the vote — for all the revelations of “Adscam” Harper and the Conseratives made zero gains outside the West in opinion polls, which is remarkable. It’s also a proof that for all the resentment about Liberals and their sponsorship shenanigans, the four scariest words in the Canadian vocabulary remain “Prime Minister Stephen Harper”.
Of course it’s not only Harper that scares Québec. While the party has tried of late to present a multicultural image — largely by thrusting into the national spotlight their MPs which come from non-WASP background — it continues to be the party most directly associated with two of its most famous and long-standing members: Art Hanger and Myron Thompson.
The unfortunately-named Hanger, whose Commons seat dates back to the beginnings of Reform, is most famous for what must be Reform’s most damaging public gaffe. In 1994 an American teenager named Michael Fay made the news for all the wrong reasons. As a result of a conviction for vandalism Fay was sentenced to be punished by caning with a bamboo cane. This is a savage, brutal practice which breaks the skin and leaves lacerations and scars on the convict’s buttocks, arguably so the pain can keep reminding the person of the consequences of his actions. This was the subject of much condemnation at the time. But, apparently, not to Reform Party Art Hanger, who organized a “fact-finding expedition” to Singapore in order to study that particular form of punishment and see how it could be applied to Canada.
So enthusiastic was Hanger for whipping men’s behinds that he hardly needed to actually go over and conduct his investigations; he was quite firmly on the record as approving of the savage practice: “I suspect flogging straightens up behaviour by jolting a criminal into reality … Compare it to our system, which provides no deterrence and is little more than a revolving door … Is corporal punishment extreme? … I don’t think so” (Art Hanger, in Alberta Report, April 1996). After the outrage that followed the disclosure of the Reform Caucus’s plans to send a delegation of six, not to mention many a whispered rumor that — for all the righteous posturing — Reform had become a haven for twisted BSDM freaks looking to get their kicks on the Canadian taxpayer’s tab, Preston Manning put his foot down and shelved the plan.
As an aside, as many Canadians know, when Preston Manning is the reasonable one in your party, you’re in trouble.
Hanger’s rather unsual taste for blood (or is it taste for unusual prurient practices?) doesn’t appear to have cost him any support in his constituency (almost 10 years later, he is still a sitting MP)… nor, apparently, have the outrageously intolerant off-the-cuff comments he has made in the past (like asking a Toronto shop owner “Do you notice that in Toronto there has been increased crime from certain groups, like Jamaicans?”, for instance). Apparently Reform’s strongholds in WASPy neighborhoods are more “thou shalt not”‘s than “love thy neighbor” indeed.
Myron Thompson is a different beast altogether. The man is the embodiment of the term “country bumpkin”, intellectually and physically (quite possibly a case of nature exercising some truth in advertizing).
The man is from a small country seat and has so far been quoted as saying exactly the sort of thing you’d expect someone of his standing to say. He denies being anti-gay, but his speech is infected with all the stereotypes that the loony right has been belching forward for years, for instance: “I’m not opposed to gays, but if you bring one of those suckers into my school and they try to push their crap on my students, I have a problem with that.” (1994). He also can’t keep going on about how it is “wrong”, “unnatural”, “immoral”, and how homosexuality is something he will object to forever. One of his most famous quotes on record is a bizarre Santorum-like rant about how homosexuality is the same as a host of sex crimes: “We have said all along, and I have said all along, that this (topic of same-sex marriage) is a door to slippery slope. What’s next? Polygamist? What about child rights? Where is this going to end?” (2005). Oddly enough on the subject of child rights, he proposes lowering the age at which a minor may be tried as an adult to ten. It wasn’t even a one-shot thing: less than a month previously Myron blessed us with this “gem”: “I’m saying with this a door opening to a slippery slope. What’s next? Shall we say it’s okay to have six or seven wives, even if some of them are 13-years-old? Where does it end?”.
Perhaps all this pettiness and paranoia does not stem from inner meanness. It may in fact be better to understand that Myron’s small-mindedness and stunted intellect isn’t something he’s capable of doing much about.
Now lest you should think that it’s only the older members of the party that seem somewhat unsavory, it should also be noted that the more recent arrivals to the Conservative lineup also raise interesting questions. I’m thinking in particular of Surrey, BC MP Gurmant Grewal, who announced just before the May’s confidence vote that he had taped evidence of the Liberals attempting to buy his parliamentary vote. Now, that story was extremely fishy from the start. Things aren’t getting much better with time either. An expert is already on record as having determined that the tape had been altered, and since the official investigation began Mr. Grewal has been dogged with rumors of strange behaviour. He has been “put on stress leave” in June. It’s already clear that Grewal initiated the whole thing as a so-called “sting operation”, and given the questionable aspects of it one may well guess that Grewall feels his gig is up. Since the affair is still under investigation one can only speculate, but right now the idea that Grewal is “damaged goods” is the understatement of the millenium. His wife, also an MP, has so far not broken her complete silence about the controversy, which isn’t helping his increasing image problem.
Adding to his problems are Grewal’s own boasts of being an advisor to Liberian dictator Samuel Doe, and of having been “Honorary vice-consul of Liberia in Canada”, which he is now very quiet about for some reason.
With all this, one gets the feeling that Mr. Grewal will not be a part of the Canadian political landscape for much longer. With the Parliamentary system being what it is, it’s hard to imagine that all that many people would vote for someone whose trustworthiness is, at best, shaky.
So, who best represents the Conservatives? Is it the cold intellectual neo-conservative who’ll drop proven assets to achieve a red-state, evangelical vision of Canada like Mr. Harper? Is it a closet sadist who thought that bamboo-caning people for minor offenses was a nifty idea, like Mr. Hanger? Is it the political neanderthal who is incapable of seeing that sexual relations between consenting adults is different from pedophilia, bigamy and bestiality, like Mr. Thompson? Or is it an overly ambitious but muddle-headed MP with big ideas but little notion of how quickly creative audio editing can be spotted, like Mr. Grewal?
On this question Québec chooses E — “none of the above”.