Stephen Harper and George Bush: Soulmates Going Down Together?

In an interview reported in the New York Times last week, George Bush said “I came to Washington with a set of values, and I’m leaving with the same set of values.” Did anyone ever write his own political obituary more accurately? At the root of all Bush’s policy failures was his inflexibility and unwillingness to adopt his ideology to changing circumstances.

Stephen Harper, now on the verge of defeat in the House of Commons, often gives the appearance of pragmatism. His government’s economic statement last week, however, shows that, like George Bush, he is the captive of an inflexible ideology. In Harper’s case, there are two idées fixes. The first is his desire to use any tactic possible to destroy the Liberals as a political force. In this case it was the proposal to remove public support for political parties. (Conservative strategist Tom Flanagan has frequently written about the Liberals’ financial woes, and it’s clear that Harper wants to change the rules to drive them deeper into the hole.) Harper’s second idée fixe is the agenda of Mike Harris’s Common Sense Revolution: tax cuts, smaller government, and weaker public service unions. This has been espoused by such old Common Sense Revolutionaries as Chief of Staff Guy Giorno, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, and Transport Minister John Baird. The Harper Government’s economic statement combined the financial knee-capping of the Liberals with the CSR program under the assumption that the Liberals, in the throes of a leadership campaign, would meekly acquiesce rather than face an election.

Harper has miscalculated and a Liberal-NDP coalition, with Bloc Quebecois support, appears ready to defeat the government and take power. While the Government is furiously back-tracking on policy, the issue is no longer policy, but leadership, in particular whether Harper is Canada’s best leader during this economic crisis.

Assuming that the Harper Government is defeated in a non-confidence vote a week from now, there will be some important implications.

First, Canada’s non-partisan public service, in particular Cabinet Secretary Kevin Lynch, should now be working round the clock to formulate a bold economic recovery package, so that if Stephane Dion takes office as Prime Minister as early as next week, it is on his desk as his top priority.

Second, a Liberal-NDP coalition will be ideologically closer to the Obama Democrats than the Harper Government would have been. The challenge for thinkers at Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Industry Canada will be to co-ordinate Canada’s recovery package with that of the US, so that our two countries are not working at cross-purposes or adopting beggar-thy-neighbour policies.

The third implication is political. Whatever happens, the Liberals will retain public funding. It would be useful for them, however, to act as if they lost it. The Liberals’ efforts at broad-based fund-raising are pitiful. This is obvious to me when I contrast the solicitations I receive from the Obama campaign to those I receive from the Liberal Party. The Liberals could learn about fund-raising, particularly online, from both the Obama campaign and successful organizations like Jazz-FM. Here are two suggestions: level with members about the state of the party’s finances and what has to be done to recover. Set out deadlines, goals, and purposes, for example establishing a $2 million fund to pay for national advertising that will respond to the Conservatives’ anticipated attack ads on a new Liberal leader.

As Harold Wilson, a British Prime Minister four decades ago, famously said, “a week is a long time in politics.” Much can happen in the week before the non-confidence vote on December 8. But momentum matters mightily in politics, and the momentum is now on the side establishing a “newer than new” government for Canada.