So I Guess Stephen Harper Won’t Be Resigning After All
By Aaron Goldstein (01/29/06)
And Neither Rosie O’Donnell Nor Paul Weyrich Need Fret About Canada - One of my ten predictions for this year was that Stephen Harper would resign as leader of Canada’s Conservative Party after yet another Liberal victory at the polls.
On January 23rd, the Conservative Party returned to power for the first time since 1993 winning 124 seats in the House of Commons while the Liberals won 103. It was Paul Martin, not Stephen Harper, who would leave the helm of his party that night.
The Canadian Embassy held election parties in cities throughout the United States including Boston. I watched the results come in at the Elephant & Castle on Devonshire Street. C-SPAN was broadcasting the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) coverage of the election. Boy, it was weird watching Peter Mansbridge, Ian Hanomansing, Don Newman and Mansbridge’s ex Wendy Mesley cover the proceedings south of the 49th. A trip down amnesia lane. All that was missing was the Friendly Giant and Mr. Dressup. May Robert Homme and Ernie Coombs rest in peace.
Conversation was scarce but as the evening wore on I allowed myself to engage in some banter. I was at my finest when I saw Marc Garneau, the first Canadian to fly in space, being interviewed. Garneau resigned as President of the Canadian Space Agency to run as a Liberal candidate in Vaudreil-Solanges, a constituency west of Montreal. He was defeated by Meili Faille of the Bloc Quebecois by more than 9000 votes. Garneau suggested that running for elected office was more difficult than being in space. Whereupon I remarked, “I suppose he didn’t appreciate the gravity of the situation.” Uproarious laughter ensued.
All levity aside, I do believe that observers of Canadian politics have not yet fully appreciated the gravity of this election. On the left hand you have Rosie O’Donnell lamenting, “It’s a very sad day for Canada when the Liberal government has been ousted by the Republican Right.” On the right hand you have Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation who states, “The people of Canada have become so liberal and hedonistic that the public ethic in the Country immediately could not be reversed. It will take time. But with leadership it well may be possible to change the public ethic.” Weyrich’s full article can be read at www.freecongress.org/commentaries/2006/060125.asp.
Well both O’Donnell and Weyrich are wrong. O’Donnell is wrong to claim that Canadians have embraced the “Republican Right” and Weyrich is wrong to brandish Canadians as “liberal and hedonistic”. If Canadians have yet to fully appreciate the gravity of the elections it certainly cannot be said for non Canadians such as O’Donnell and Weyrich.
First and foremost, Canadians elected a Conservative minority government. Yes, the Conservatives won more seats in the House of Commons than any other political party but they did not win a plurality of the seats. Simply put the opposition parties have enough seats to oust the Conservatives from office. Having just defeated the Liberals, the Conservatives will have to rely on the goodwill of not one, but two left wing parties. The Conservatives will have to alternately and simultaneously rely on the NDP which won 29 seats and the separatist Bloc Quebecois which won 51 seats. This fact will affect every decision the Conservative government makes in the life of this new Parliament.
Granted, the opposition parties are not about to put Canadians through another election anytime soon given there have been two in the past 18 months. So the Conservatives have some leverage although not much.
For instance, the Conservatives have pledged to give lower and middle income families an annual $1200 child care benefit which can be used at the child care facility of their choice. This is opposed by the NDP who have long advocated universal access to child care.
To the surprise of many the Conservatives won 10 seats in the province of Quebec. La Belle Province has been barren wasteland for the Conservatives since 1993. But make no mistake about it the Conservatives bread and butter is in Western Canada. However, under this minority government, the Conservatives will have cater to the needs of the Quebecois to both place Quebec separatists and expand the Conservative political base. The Tory government of Brian Mulroney was also an alliance between social conservatives in Western Canada and nationalists in Quebec. Yet it was the perceived favoritism of Quebec by Mulroney that in great part led to the formation of the Reform Party in 1987 (where a young Stephen Harper gave a key note speech at their founding convention in Winnipeg). This schism amongst the Right in Canada would eventually keep the Conservatives out of government for more than a decade. It would not take much for Harper to alienate his Western base.
There will also be pressure for Harper not be seen as a tool of President Bush. Indeed, on January 27th, Harper said he would stand by a campaign promise to increase Canada’s presence in the Arctic by placing three military icebreakers in the Northwest Passage. David Wilkins, U.S. Ambassador to Canada, took Harper to task for the plan while speaking at the University of Western Ontario in London. “There’s no reason to create a problem that doesn’t exist. We don’t recognize Canada’s claims to those waters. Most other countries do not recognize their claim,” said Wilkins. The position of the United States and most other countries is that the Northwest Passage are international waters. Harper replied, “The United States defends its sovereignty; the Canadian government will defend our sovereignty. It is the Canadian people that we get our mandate from, not the ambassador of the United States.”
Harper is keen to give attention to a Canadian military that suffered dramatic spending cuts during the Liberals reign beginning with the cancellation of new search and rescue helicopters. The NDP and Bloc Quebecois are unlikely to support sending more troops to Afghanistan or make any commitment to Iraq. However, the opposition (especially the NDP and even amongst the Liberals) might support Harper’s policy in the Arctic if only as a dig towards the United States.
One also ought not expect Canada to withdraw from the Kyoto Treaty. Although Harper opposes Kyoto, the Bloc and the NDP are about as likely to go along with jettisoning Kyoto as the CBC canceling Hockey Night in Canada.
It was also be curious to see if Harper follows through on his pledge to have a free vote in the House of Commons on the issue of gay marriage. During the 2004 election, Harper pledged to invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to override any Supreme Court of Canada rulings in favor of gay marriage (which occurred in December of that year). This did not sit well with moderate and independent voters who thought Harper and the Conservatives extreme if not intolerant.
In 2005, Canada’s parliament passed same sex marriage into law.
It is clear that having the vote is not high on Harper’s priority list. The NDP and Bloc Quebecois who strongly support gay marriage might very well make not having the vote a condition of their continued support. With a minority parliament, it is not clear whether the Conservatives would be enthusiastic to set into motion a free vote that would likely reaffirm support for gay marriage. A combination of the NDP, Bloc Quebecois, a majority of the Liberal caucus and even a handful of Conservatives (such as newly elected MP John Baird from Ottawa West Nepean who helped formally legalize same sex marriage in Ontario as a Member of Provincial Parliament) could uphold same sex marriage in Canada. While such an outcome would rile social conservatives, it could be perceived as a victory for Harper in the sense that he gave Parliament the opportunity to fully discuss the matter and that it could now be put to bed so to speak. It must also be remembered that the Conservatives did not win a single seat in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver – Canada’s three largest cities. Harper cannot afford to be perceived as hostile to a third of all Canadians if he wants to turn a minority government into a majority one.
It will also be interesting to see if the Conservatives decide to retain Peter Milliken as Speaker of the House of Commons. Milliken, a Liberal MP from Kingston, Ontario, has been Speaker since 2001. Milliken has garnered immense respect from all political parties in this role. It must be remembered that the Speaker in the Canadian Parliament is modeled on the British House of Commons rather than the U.S. House of Representatives. The Speaker acts as a referee during debate and Question Period rather than advocating a political agenda à la Tip O’Neill or Newt Gingrich. Usually, Speakers are chosen from the governing party. However, in a minority government scenario, it is not unheard of for the Speaker to come from the ranks of the opposition. In 1977, Ontario Premier Bill Davis, a Progressive Conservative, nominated Jack Stokes, a New Democrat, to be Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, during a minority parliament that lasted until 1981. The Speaker only votes during a tie and by custom breaks the tie in favor of the government. So it may very well be advantageous for the Conservatives to keep Milliken as Speaker.
Of course, we must not forget about the Liberals. Paul Martin is not the first Liberal Party leader to resign after an electoral setback. Pierre Trudeau resigned following his loss to Joe Clark in the 1979 federal election. But an inability to keep count on part of Clark’s Tories during a budget vote and an absence of an obvious successor paved the way for Trudeau’s return the following year. But Paul Martin is not Pierre Trudeau. Trudeau was a divorced man raising three sons while Martin’s wife is eager for him not to return to political life.
The man most likely to succeed Martin has been out of electoral politics nearly a decade. The day after the election, Frank McKenna resigned as Canada’s Ambassador to the United States. Last September, McKenna made waves when he told a business audience in Toronto that he considered the U.S. government to be “dysfunctional”. From 1987 to 1997, McKenna served as Premier (equivalent to a U.S. state governor) of New Brunswick. When first elected in 1987, the Liberal Party won all 58 seats in the New Brunswick legislature. Prior to being appointed as Ambassador to the United States, McKenna held a number of private sector positions including a tenure as Chairman of Can West Global Communications which runs the third largest TV station in Canada after the government owned CBC and the privately owned CTV. McKenna’s possible return to electoral office is reminiscent of John Turner, the former Liberal Minister of Finance who left political life for a decade and returned to the Liberals to succeed Pierre Trudeau after his retirement in 1984. However, Turner got into the habit of being free with his hands on the posteriors of women and also signed off on last minute Trudeau patronage appointments. The Liberals would go on to their biggest defeat ever at the polls with Brian Mulroney’s Tories winning 212 seats compared to the Liberals’ 40. But then again Frank McKenna is not John Turner. If McKenna wins the Liberal Party leadership he’ll be Leader of the Official Opposition rather than Prime Minister saddled with the decisions of an unpopular outgoing Prime Minister.
Other possible successors include newly elected Liberal MP Michael Ignatieff. Up until last August, Ignatieff had been teaching across the Charles River at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and was Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. He became a visiting professor at the University of Toronto prior to being nominated as the Liberal candidate in Etobicoke-Lakeshore, just west of Toronto. Ignatieff is somewhat unusual in Liberal circles as someone who supported the U.S. liberation of Iraq and Ballistic Missile Defense. Others have mentioned Ignatieff’s close friend, former Ontario NDP Premier Bob Rae. Estranged from the NDP, Rae was rumored to be running as a Liberal in this past election but is currently involved in a public inquiry concerning the 1985 Air India crash which killed over 300 passengers and crew flying from Montreal to Bombay and is not likely to run.
Former Liberal Cabinet members are factors as well. Former Finance Minister John Manley and former Justice Minister Martin Cauchon have been mentioned although Cauchon is a long shot as the Liberals are unlikely to select their third consecutive Quebecois to be leader. Former Finance Minister Ralph Goodale would have certainly been amongst the contenders if not for the income trust fund scandal. During the election campaign, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police revealed that they were investigating the Department of Finance to determine if certain income trust holders were tipped inside information on taxation policy and then benefited from this information. Although Goodale was re-elected to the House of Commons this has all but ruined his chances to be a contender for the Liberal Party leadership.
Let’s also not forget Belinda Stronach. The former Minister of Human Resources Development clearly wants to be the leader of a political party. She did not succeed with the Conservatives but might have a chance with the Liberals though some might resent her Jill Come Lately status. But any resentment might ease over time. Stronach will turn 39 in May and so long as she continues her affiliation with the Liberals she will be a force with whom to be reckoned for many years to come.
Another former Tory turned Liberal, Scott Brison is also considered a possible leadership candidate as is former Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Brian Tobin, former Social Development Minister and NHL Hall of Fame goalie Ken Dryden. Allan Rock, a former Liberal Cabinet Minister who is now Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations, is also a contender but would be a favorite target of conservatives as he oversaw the implementation of Canada’s National Gun Registry a decade ago. Whatever the outcome so long as the Liberal leadership question is unsettled the Conservative government will not fall immediately.
So neither Rosie O’Donnell nor Paul Weyrich need fret about Canada. Rosie O’Donnell can rest assured that the Conservatives will be kept in check by a strong opposition. Paul Weyrich ought to know that Canadians support a public ethic of “peace, order and good government”. Remember! I said good government not big government. If Stephen Harper and the Conservatives can bring peace, order and good government they might earn a majority government next time around.
(Printer friendly version) Email: Aaron Goldstein
