Macleans: Harper for president? It's not that bad - it's worse

For Harper, politics is about helping your friends and harming your enemies. It's tribal.

ANDREW POTTER

Stephen Harper just can't shake that hidden agenda. Back when he was a scary Reformer, the big worry was that he was a closet Alberta separatist pining for the return of back-alley abortions. Now that he's Prime Minister, the accusations are a touch more polite: apparently, Harper wants nothing more than to be President of Canada.

In the Toronto Star last month, York University historian Arthur Haberman explained that "Harper takes the U.S. presidency as his model, where the president is both head of government and head of state, and has a power and deference unknown and inappropriate to parliamentary governments." As evidence, Haberman entered exhibits such as Harper's rigid control over government communications, his habit of ending speeches with "God bless Canada," and the use of the Speech from the Throne as a media event, with soldiers and other special guests.

In fairness, the Speech from the Throne business was pretty crass as far as pandering to core constituencies goes. But when it comes to worries about the presidentializing of Canadian politics, this is mild stuff. It is worth remembering that Brian Mulroney was widely derided for his presidential bearing, while Jean Chrétien was such a notorious autocrat that columnists described him as the "imperial prime minister." Constitutionally, there is nothing more American in our politics than Pierre Trudeau's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, from its preamble affirming the supremacy of God to its radical attenuation of the supremacy of Parliament.

Yes, Harper is clearly a control freak when it comes to communications. But the expectation that the PM will have regular media events, press conferences and so forth is itself an Americanization of our politics. Under our system, the PM is not accountable directly to the people via the media; he is accountable to our elected representatives in Parliament. So far, Harper has not shown any great unwillingness to face Parliament, and until he does, there is no great constitutional worry. Recall, too, that this is the same Harper who during the election campaign parried Paul Martin's lunatic proposal to remove the notwithstanding clause from the Constitution by pointing out that the clause gave Canada a useful balance between British parliamentarism and American judicialism.

http://www.macleans.ca/switchboard/columnists/article.jsp?content=20060529_127517_127517

I mostly concur with Andrew Potter's assessment of Stephen Harper, but given your recent editorial direction, it's surprising and also refreshing that you would publish a column by an author whose head is not firmly wedged up the Prime Minister's colon. Perhaps there's hope for Macleans.

But I must disagree with Potter's last paragraph: "...the danger is not that we have elected someone who wants to be George W. Bush. It is that we have elected someone who has no problem with a benign dictatorship, as long as he's the dictator...." In fact, they're one and the same, for it was Dubya himself who said back in December 2000, "It would be a lot easier if this was a dictatorship, as long as I'm the dictator."

Indeed, whenever Harper ends his speeches with "God bless Canada", the only higher power he is invoking is the President of the United States. I suspect he couldn't give two hoots about any other higher power.

(signed) ###
Toronto

*****
It probably will never see the light of day, but I feel much better now anyway.

a voter's panel through which MacLeans used the statistical 'responses' in articles and talk about push polling, it was appalling. The slant toward Harper and the faux Cons was disgustingly obvious in more than a few of the questions and the panel was asked to respond at least once a week to a set of questions. I actually made copious notes and should go back and look at them but I'm not sure I want to be that outraged all over again, lol.

It was, for me, a fascinating look at how a mainstream media outlet like MacLeans can deliberately skew polls, questionnaires, etc.

I was pleasantly surprised to see this column was from MacLeans, shocked would be a better word.