Harper after 5 years in power

What’s interesting about all the coverage of the fifth anniversary of Conservative rule is how little attention has been focused on the party.

Instead the stories have been about Stephen Harper, the man who became Prime Minister after leading the merger of the old Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties.

Mention of the party Harper happens to lead is only incidental.

When you compare what the Conservatives under Harper in five years of minority government have achieved in tangible accomplishments with the minority under Liberal Lester Pearson of 1963-1968, resemblance is very slight.

Pearson’s government gave the country a new flag, a national health care system, the Canada Pension Plan, the foundation of a bilingual civil service, social insurance numbers and so on.

Harper’s government has given us the Federal Accountability Act, which tightened up legislation governing lobbyists (with loopholes) but also rolled back provisions of the Access to Information Act. His government also cut the GST by two percentage points and introduced a ton of law and order legislation despite Canada’s declining crime rate.

Harper’s government also introduced fixed election terms in 2007 – a law it disregarded a little over a year later.

And yes he made the dubious decision of eliminating the mandatory long form census while failing – at least so far – to get rid of the long gun registry.

The Harper government’s legislative record looks pretty slim compared to most governments.

But that is not why we are so fixated with our Leader.

There is no question; politics in Canada has changed under Harper. Historians will probably look at Canadian politics in terms of before and after Stephen Harper.

The authority of Parliament, which the textbooks tell us is supreme to the executive, has been diminished under Harper. Parliamentary committees have been openly undermined under Harper. Public servants who dare to be watchdogs instead of lapdogs are very publicly disposed of by Harper’s government.

Yet Canadian media seem to devote most of their scrutiny to the weaknesses of the Leader of the Opposition as opposed to the tactics of the man who leads our government.

Time was when Canadian Conservatives fancied themselves as rugged individualists who weren’t afraid to speak their minds. Now dissent, at least publicly, is unheard of in the Conservative caucus.

Recently, Toronto Star writer Linda Diebel wrote about the climate of fear that is consuming Ottawa under Harper. That story was no exaggeration.

When Harper campaigned in the 2006 election, he promised a new era of accountability and transparency. That message clearly resonated with most voters.

Once elected Harper began rolling back the very things he promised to increase. Secrecy became the new normal. Yet the public for the most part has accepted that.

There must be something in human nature that submits to a forceful, alpha-dog of a leader much like Quebec allowed Maurice Duplessis to be ``Le Chef’’ for so long.

Harper may not be able to win a majority in the next election. But he will be able to rule like he had one as long as he continues to have a strong hold on the national psyche.

As we know from history, once Duplessis was gone, the party he founded, the Union Nationale, began a long spiral to oblivion. Will the same thing happen once Harper is gone?

Maclean’s disses carnival mascot, wounds Quebec pride

It has been a very long time since any magazine has caused much of a stir. So the Oct. 4 edition of Maclean’s really is a trip back to when magazines, or any other printed medium, mattered to most people.

The Quebec government is demanding a retraction. Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe says it is Quebec baiting. Quebec City says Maclean’s has horribly libeled Bonhomme, the carnival mascot because of the cover. (The cartoon icon is carrying a suitcase overflowing with cash.)

For the rest of the country to understand the reaction in Quebec, imagine a Maclean’s cover with Tim Horton’s donuts laced with heroin.

At Maclean’s offices, I’m sure there hasn’t been this much excitement since religious fundamentalists pressured the magazine’s management into firing Pierre Berton in 1963 for daring to write about sex education.

For someone who was born before the world had IPods and cable news, it was like a long-lost guilty pleasure to read a full-length article that dared to be controversial.

Was it good journalism? I would say yes for a number of reasons.

The lead story, by Martin Patriquin, cites a litany of scandal after scandal in Quebec since the days of Maurice Duplessis, the dictator-premier who ran the province for almost 20 years until 1959 like a personal fiefdom. The article reprises a quote from historian Samuel Huntington, who said in 1968 that Quebec was ``perhaps the most corrupt area in Australia, Great Britain, United States and Canada.’’

For the sake of fairness, Maclean’s pointed out Quebec doesn’t have a monopoly on bad behavior. Atlantic Canada is notorious for patronage. B.C. has punted three premiers out of office in recent years amid scandal. And there was quite a stench from Saskatchewan in the early 1990s when 12 members of Premier Grant Devine’s government faced criminal charges for expense account fraud.

The author might have mentioned that Quebec was the first jurisdiction in the country to outlaw political donations from corporations and unions. Because of this, the government of Rene Levesque was able to clean up provincial politics, at least briefly.

But for the most part it is solid journalism that asks what we all have been asking ourselves for years: What is it about Quebec and scandal?

Some answers are offered. Chief among them is that perhaps that Quebec has been so preoccupied over the years about referendums, good government hasn’t been much of an issue.

Perhaps Maclean’s has now done Quebec a favour.