Harper’s attacks on Trudeau will be vicious
For Stephen Harper, losing to a Trudeau would be the ultimate humiliation. It was his visceral hostility to Pierre Trudeau’s attitude to the West, exemplified by the national energy program, that propelled him into the Reform Party in the first place.
So you can imagine how Mr. Harper felt when a poll came out last week showing that the Liberals under the leadership of Justin Trudeau would defeat him handily. And you can imagine his relief when, right on the heels of that poll, the storm emerged over an interview Mr. Trudeau gave some time ago in which he spoke of how the country would suffer with Albertans at the helm. This was almost in a league with Mr. Harper once saying that Albertans, owing to their treatment from Central Canada, should build a firewall around the province.
The two men are polar opposites. Their deep differences mark a time of unusually deep divisions in our politics – a time of contrasting ideologies, regions and visions, making the stakes extraordinarily high. Mr. Harper wants to further his dismantling of the house Trudeau built and cement a conservative ethic. Progressives are of the hope that if George W. Bush could make a Barack Obama possible in the United States, Stephen Harper is making a new force for liberalism possible here.
Mr. Trudeau’s reckless remarks will link him more closely with his father. Given the lingering animosity toward Pierre Trudeau on the Prairies, his son had been trying to distance himself by disowning the despised NEP.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/harpers-attacks-on-trudeau-will-be-vicious/article5701699/
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Let the dinosaurs fight it out for the centre-right vote. The rest of Canada is clearly tired of the status quo and moving leftward.
