Justin Trudeau

Perhaps the most interesting part of
these challenges is that the better the
Liberals do at meeting the first, the
harder it will prove to meet the subsequent
two.
Mounting an intellectually coherent
and electorally resonant alternative vision
to the Harper Conservatives comes
first. Framing a resonant critique of
the government was a difficult challenge,
for the Liberals in particular, over
the past several years. (The author’s
thoughts on the subject were detailed
in Policy Options, February, 2012.). But,
after almost a decade of Conservative
rule, this has become a relatively manageable
task. It is worth revisiting the
history of the Harper Conservatives’ political
offering to see where the government
now stands, and what an alternative
might look like.
Prime Minister Harper’s show-don’ttell
style has several advantages. One
of them is blurring the government’s
complexion. This has enabled the government
to define itself by whatever
offering it may select to suit the political
moment. In the campaigns of
2004, 2006, 2008 and 2011, the Harper
Prime Minister Harper’s showdon’t-tell
style has several
advantages. One of them is
blurring the government’s
complexion. This has enabled
the government to define
itself by whatever offering it
may select to suit the political
moment.
Conservatives adjusted their image toward
ever-greater moderation, deflecting
debate over their basic approach to
governing with fuzzy blue pullovers,
transit-user tax breaks and fitness tax
credits. Pandas and Mrs. Harper may
well figure in 2015. Beyond the cosmetics,
substantive election-time offerings
have tended to be innocuous.
T
he longer one governs, however,
the harder this manoeuver
becomes. Inviting the electorate
to pay no attention to the rather
conservative man behind the curtain
is decreasingly sustainable as the years
in power accumulate. The governing record
has inevitably come to define Mr.
Harper’s party as no campaign narrative
can.
The outlines of the Harper government
are now clear enough. It favours a very
limited role for government in the life
of the country, and a shrunken role for
Ottawa in the federation. After seven
years of tax cuts, disengagement from
health care, retreat from environmental
obligations, reduction of old-age security
liability, de minimus involvement
in broadcast policy, and fending off a
countrywide dialogue on energy strategies,
the debate as to the nature of this
government is pretty much over. Movement
conservatives – many of them in
the press – may continue to gnash their
teeth over how “centrist” this government
has become. This debate obscures
the government’s identity amongst the
elite audience. Canadians, however,
are telling one surveyor after another
that regardless of the labels applied by
pundits, they understand well enough
where the Harper administration is
coming from.
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