Stephen Harper's Cabinet of Folly - Feb.2006

By Gary Morton at http://CitizensontheWeb.ca

    Stephen Harper’s honeymoon halo has brought about self intoxication and head expansion that all but insures his government’s fall in mighty thunder and a trampling of hooves. He will probably lose the bid for re-election and he may have proved the pundits wrong as most of them predict his government will last eighteen months.

    In an early-days-as-PM spectacle of the strange, Mr. Harper raised the eyebrows of his strongest opponents and closest friends. Holding a minority position he needs to work with three large opposition parties … and the way he’s decided to do this is to push for his plan for child care payments while killing an agreed upon national child care plan … a move that puts him at odds with the Provinces, the Bloc, the Liberals and the NDP.

    The Harper Cabinet appointments have arrived with such an odd stink that the opposition may be forced to the conclusion that he will be coming forward with new initiatives and budget proposals that are unpalatable. And that will hurt the leaderless Liberals the most if they are forced to prop up shockingly bad Tory programs and budget initiatives. Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe will also find themselves able to wear only so much Harper egg on their faces before striking back. 

   If there is a reason I say shocking in reference to the budget, it is because of the appointment of three former Mike Harris men to key positions. Jim Flaherty will be Finance Minister, Tony Clement Health Minister and John Baird Treasury Board President. They are not from Toronto but are viewed as Toronto’s representatives. In reality they are more like Toronto’s punishment for not supporting Harper. All three men are disliked in this city, which has been impoverished by their downloading, and anyone with a memory clear enough to remember the bullying nature of the bills of the Harris Government will know that the Harper government will need a miracle to get a budget passed in a minority parliament.

   The appointment of social conservative and provincial election lawbreaker Vic Toews as Justice Minister is another great wonder and it demonstrates that Mr. Harper has learned to imitate the mistakes of George W. Bush. Who knows, maybe Bush will even come up to Canada to attend a new Harper headache round of discussions on gay marriage and Supreme Court judges.

    Lack of women in Cabinet is another wrong turn, especially when the Conservative Party desperately needs female voters. Not to mention the fact that women in Canada need representation. Here it appears that women are being punished for not voting for Harper. He must reward the rich white men who elected him.

    Bringing David Emerson across the floor from the Liberals to become International Trade Minister is one of two moves that are sure to anger hard-line Tory supporters. After all the long radio show hours and talk of the traitorous Belinda, Harper’s first move is to hypocritically match Paul Martin’s style. Doing this at a time when many Tories still remember their support of an NDP bill to end party jumping by forcing by-elections. Those from the old Reform Party end up stuck facing the wrath of supporters that favour recall of even those that are elected, should they disobey voters.

    In doing this Stephen Harper has actually brought about conditions that favour Belinda Stronach winning the Liberal leadership and an election. The Liberals will feel they can take the women’s entire vote with her, and now that Harper has proved that anybody can win seats in Quebec, others will believe that Belinda can win Quebec. Whipping up the media on Liberal corruption will be impossible now as all the talk will be of the new government’s own rot. Think about it, Emerson walked across the floor before he even got into the House. 300 campaign workers had barely taken off their shoes and Liberal donors are short 100,000 dollars they donated to his campaign. He jumped from the stage of the Liberal victory party and landed in Harper's lap. In a Conference Call to the Press Emerson said, "If you want to call it arrogance, go ahead, fill the newspaper with it. I don't really care." It wasn’t a heartfelt choice; it was direct opportunism and a complete betrayal of the voters. Harper’s shady decisions have served to clear Belinda and set the stage for her to win and defeat him in an election.

    The other off-side if not plain crazy move is bringing in unelected Tory insider Michael Fortier as Minister of Public Works. Before and during the election Conservative supporters hollered about Liberal patronage and corruption. Now they have Harper to scream about, and by the time they stop shouting there will probably be plenty more scandalous news on Harper’s government.

    Further dirt sticking to Fortier arrives with Harper’s people saying that questions about him being unanswerable to parliament will be quelled once he’s moved into the senate. We all know how popular the senate is with the public. Cynics can only be appalled and those of us with a sense of humor bursting at the seams with laughter. In Quebec, where corruption was the key issue and there are newly elected Tory MPs, this will not play out well. Putting an unelected cabinet minister in charge of the Public Works Department’s billions is a betrayal of Harper’s pledge to clean up government. The man being a personal friend of Harper’s who ran his 2003 leadership campaign makes it insane as does making him an unelected senator. This is a new rotten core of corruption, enacted on a Prime Minister’s first day in office. It can’t be portrayed any other way. You don’t set up conditions favorable to corruption unless you want lots of it.

    Rotten cores eventually turn fouler, and that is happening as the new Defense Minister is Gordon O’Connor, a former defense lobbyist who counts Airbus among his past clients. Stephen Harper pledged to crack down on lobbying and now he’s put the king of it in the defense area where corruption and fraud have been a problem. You simply have to scratch your head and ask why Harper would make such a choice.

     We haven’t even got a Throne Speech yet and it is clear that this is a Cabinet of Fear and Folly. Harper is starting to come across to the provinces, cities and social activists as a Big Scary social conservative monster. Imagine if he had won a majority. It would have been unstoppable Mike Harris style government at a national level where it can’t possibly work. And he doesn’t have a majority he has a minority of Jack Layton’s sympathy. If he doesn’t wise up his government will be put to the sword instantly when a new Liberal leader walks in … and it’s possible that he won’t even last that long. The opposition will have to use endless stall and delay tactics on legislation if they want to avoid being partisan to the uglier side of Conservative ideas.

    All of this has put the corporate media types out of their honeymoon dream world and into one of bizarre nightmares. They are reporting the facts as they should, from a state of editorial stupor and shock. They haven’t yet been able to suspend the disbelief needed to again worship their hero Stephen Harper. Soon the smarter reporters are going to awake and realize that this is a government that will be full of news, scandal, drama and lunacy. In fact, it already is full of it.

--------