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When Stephen Harper spoke to the recent Conservative convention he asserted that conservative values are Canadian values. A majority government affords him and his followers a unique opportunity to establish those values in law and practice. While government decisions are made at the margins, if one party is in power long enough it can move the margins and bring about significant change.

But what does Harper mean by conservative values? In this post, I will try to outline those values, based on what I’ve observed of the actions of the Harper government in Ottawa, the Ford administration in Toronto, the platform of the Ontario conservatives, and the discourse of the conservative commentariat, for example Sun News, and Globe and Mail columnists Neil Reynolds and (occasionally) Preston Manning.

1.Privileging families with children. One can argue that a high birthrate will help offset the demographic challenge of the retirement of the baby boomers. The financial supports provided by the federal Conservatives (Universal Child Care Benefit, Canada Child Tax Benefit, Child fitness tax credit) are not sufficient to affect people’s decisions about whether or not to have children, but they are carefully crafted to win the support of families with children. These payments or tax expenditures prevent an overall reduction in tax rates for those who don’t choose to start families.

2.Ignoring Gays. While conservatives do not propose to reverse the gains that gays have achieved, they will not extend them. Mayor Ford’s snub of Pride Week is indicative of the conservative attitude towards gays: not benign neglect, simply neglect. Ironically, Conservatives are quite willing to embrace ethnic diversity, but sexual diversity is another matter.

3.Choosing Jobs over the Environment. Resource extraction is often polluting, and Conservatives always choose jobs in resource extraction (recent examples tar sands oil and asbestos) over environmental protection. Similarly, Mayor Ford’s edict that the war on the auto is over (see my post of June 3) chooses a life-style that increases urban pollution over alternatives favoring public transit (for example road pricing).

4.Glorifying the Military. Symbolically, the federal government takes every opportunity to glorify the military, for example providing a military presence at citizenship ceremonies. Going beyond symbolism, the government will opt for major hardware expenditures (the F-35) over less expensive alternatives.

5.Suppressing Strikes. Conservatives will declare all public sector workers essential services (for example transit workers in Toronto) and legislate a quick end to many private sector strikes (Air Canada). The irony regarding the latter is that Conservative governments have privatized some public services so as to increase competition.

6.Jettisoning high-brow culture. Conservative governments love mainstream culture that the market will support and will increasingly reduce public funding for alternative or high-brow culture, particularly if that culture is critical of the government or conservative values. The attack on Michael Ignatieff’s intellectualism and cosmopolitanism can be interpreted as an attack on high-brow culture.

7.Favouring “useful” research. In the area of research, conservatives prefer research in the sciences or business to research in the social sciences and humanities, particularly because the latter two tend to be critical of government policy (for example, criminologists showing that crime rates are not increasing and hence questioning the “get tough on crime” policy).

I’ve sketched what I see as some of the essential conservative values. I’m sure there are others I haven’t touched on. Parliamentary page Brigitte DePape’s protest “Stop Harper” was eloquent but missed the point. It’s not just Harper but an entire movement. Conservatives are working hard in their commentary, in decisions regarding societal symbols, and in budgetary decisions to enshrine a particular set of values. They’re fighting a culture war and, it appears, winning. The question is what those who embrace a different set of values will do to articulate and preserve theirs.

The Ontario Conservatives have now revealed their campaign strategy, and it’s a copy of their federal cousins’ approach. Demonize the opponent. In this case, it is the advertising campaign, now widely running, to portray Premier Dalton McGuinty as “the taxman,” a politician who frequently raises taxes to pay for waste (an example given in the television commercials is eHealth). The Conservatives hope that by spending massively and spending early, they will fix in many voters’ minds the image of McGuinty as taxman just as effectively as the federal Conservatives fixed in voters’ mind the image of Michael Ignatieff as ambitious and untrustworthy cosmopolitan intellectual.

How should the Liberals respond? Despite eight years as Premier, McGuinty’s image has never been so clear and unmistakable that he cannot be rebranded. If he doesn’t respond, he will suffer the same fate as Michael Ignatieff, who chose not to respond. Because the election has not been called, the Conservatives’ spending is not subject to legislated limits, and it is not clear to me that the Liberals can match them.

The initial Liberal ad is an “Ontarians are working together” ad, narrated by the premier. It is the political high road. The question is whether the high road will work when your main opponent is building his campaign around negative advertising aimed directly at your leader. In addition, with the recent victories of the federal Conservatives – with such a strong showing in Ontario – as well as the election of Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto, the Ontario Conservatives seem to have the zeitgeist in their favour.

In a blog about the federal election (“If he says you’re fat, you say he’s bald” – March 12, 2011), I argued that one approach to negative campaigning is to find a different topic than the one your opponent is raising, and attack him on that. It seems Tim Hudak is open to at least two principal lines of attack: lack of experience and right-wing ideologue. The Liberals contemplated the latter approach in 2007, but didn’t need to use it because John Tory was open to attack for his championing of public support for religious schools. They could bring it back this time, and more credibly than last time, because Tim Hudak is a CSR (common sense revolutionary) Conservative, rather than a centrist like John Tory. Emphasize Hudak’s links to Harris. Dig up Hudak’s record. Run ads showing Hudak’s face morphing into Harris’s.

Even though it is not what the “you say he’s bald” maxim would dictate, McGuinty could defend his record. He could argue that the Government of Ontario has spent money on important public purposes, such as improving health care and education and protecting the province from the effects of the recession, and that Ontario’s levels of taxation are similar to other comparable jurisdictions. He could remind Ontarians that, as Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, taxes are the price we pay for civilization. And he could make the point that Hudak is unwilling to pay that price and would therefore wreck civility, if not civilization in the province. Portray him as Ontario’s own Tea Party boy.

I’m old enough to remember the Beatles’ song “Taxman,” which came out in 1966 on their album Revolver. The song referred to Britain’s then confiscatory (95 %) marginal rates of taxation for high income earners and taunted both Labour and Conservative party leaders, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Heath, respectively. Mr. McGuinty is a far less aggressive taxman than either Mr. Wilson or Mr. Heath, and he must make that point. The Liberals will undoubtedly do some polling to assess the effect of the taxman onslaught, but my gut tells me that it is having an impact. If McGuinty wants a third term, a prompt and vigorous response is a necessity.

My research on political narrative has focused on works set in the US and UK, two countries with rich and deep traditions of political writing and film. As for political narrative about Canada, my home and native land, Gertrude Stein’s remark about Oakland seems appropriate: “there’s nothing there, there.” In the last forty years, Canada has seen a flowering of literature and, to a lesser extent, film, but very little of it has been about politics, government, or organizations. If politics has been involved, it’s been about family, not electoral, politics.

With anticipation and willingness to revise the sweeping conclusion of the previous paragraph, I came to Terry Fallis’s 2008 first novel “The Best Laid Plans.” Fallis, a former political insider for the Ontario and federal Liberals, and now a public relations practitioner, initially self-published the novel, which indicates publishers didn’t see much of a market in political narrative. Winning the Leacock Medal for Humor in 2008 led McClelland and Stewart to change its mind and publish it.

I begin with a brief plot summary. Protagonist and narrator Daniel Addison, a speechwriter in the office of the Liberal leader of the Opposition decides to leave politics for academe after he discovers his politically-connected girlfriend servicing the Liberal House leader after hours in his ornate Centre Block office. With an election just called, Addison agrees – as a last service to the party leader – to find a Liberal candidate for the rural eastern Ontario riding of Cumberland-Prescott. Such a candidacy will be hopeless, as the riding was traditionally Conservative and represented by the popular Conservative Minister of Finance Eric Cameron. Ultimately Addison found a candidate in Angus McLintock, a University of Ottawa engineering professor nearing retirement, on the promise that he need do no campaigning (reminiscent of the US comedian Pat Paulsen’s credo: if nominating, I will not run, if elected I will not serve). Cameron’s campaign collapses when – how life imitates art ! – he is discovered in full bondage gear engaged in an intense S-and-M session with his frighteningly-efficient middle-aged EA.

Narrowly elected in an election that returns a Conservative minority to power, McLintock quickly establishes himself as a political maverick who, in a thorough reversal of public choice thinking, puts the national interest ahead of the interest of his constituents, and their interest ahead of his self-interest. This creates consternation for both his own Liberals and the governing Conservatives. The tale culminates in a debate on the Conservatives’ budget which proposes deep tax cuts, but no spending increases, in the face of a deep recession. The Conservatives hold the budget vote in the aftermath of a fierce winter storm that has immobilized Ottawa, but through heroic efforts –piloting a home-made hovercraft up the Ottawa River – McLintock makes it back to the House to cast the decisive vote that defeats the budget and forces the government to face the electorate.

As a reader, I found the novel’s fast-moving plot and satire of the conceit and foible of Canadian politicians very entertaining, and I zipped through it quickly, a considerable portion during a short flight from Ottawa to Toronto. Bravo, Mr. Fallis. You certainly deserved the Leacock Medal.

Looking at it from the analytical perspective used and narratives discussed in Governing Fables, it could sit comfortably within the chapter on American political narratives. The political assistant as focalizing narrator is a well-known technique, used in Primary Colors and All the King’s Men. The rare honest politician who attempts to serve the national interest over party ideology, constituency interest or personal self-interest brings to mind both Senator Bulworth in Bulworth and, at his best, President Bartlet in The West Wing.

While The Best Laid Plans is a satire, it clearly fits the heroic fable I presented in Governing Fables. Addison returns to political life on much better terms than the ignominy with which he left at the outset of the novel. McLintock is elevated from a curmudgeonly professor awaiting retirement to a political figure of national significance. As I’ll discuss below, McLintock’s devotion to the national interest ends up benefiting his constituency, the nation is spared a misguided federal budget, and (from McLintock’s point of view and I assume Fallis’s) the novel ends with the hope of political renewal in the coming election.

What makes this novel gentle satire – indeed reminiscent of Leacock – is that it treats politics as a form of Liberal wish-fulfillment. Two examples suffice to make the point. McLintock opposes subsidies to an outdated shoe factory in his riding and pressures the Ontario Environment Ministry to shut down an American-owned aggregates plant that has been polluting the Ottawa River. Forcing both factories out of business will result in the loss of scarce manufacturing jobs. This excruciating political dilemma is, however, solved by a classic deus ex machina — a young engineering colleague at Ottawa U. with an idea for a high-tech business that will set up shop in Cumberland-Prescott and hire and retrain all the laid-off shoe and cement workers.

In the novel, the Conservative tax-cutting budget, while extremely popular with the voters, is unanimously opposed by economists throughout the country, including the C.D. Howe Institute, Conference Board, and Fraser Institute. We know from recent policy debates that in Canada, just as in the US, there is a strong constituency, with many economists as members, for smaller governments, and the use of tax cuts as a lever to achieve that goal, regardless of the macroeconomic context.

These plot choices make The Best Laid Plans a satire, rather than a confrontation with tough political reality, such as the movie The Candidate or many episodes of The West Wing. Nonetheless, the book was an enjoyable read and it has made an important contribution to developing a body of thoughtful Canadian political narratives.

I’m sure readers are familiar with IBM’s “Let’s Build a Smarter Planet” advertising campaign. It touts the virtues of IBM systems integration solutions that allow people to solve public problems in ways that reduce the use of financial, energy, and environmental resources. One well-known example of this is IBM’s software and integration work for road tolling systems in London and Stockholm (personal disclosure: on a business trip to Stockholm in 2005 I received a presentation about IBM’s road tolling work there).

Road tolling has three important virtues. By increasing the cost of road trips it drives out those on which travelers put a low value, with the consequence that higher-value trips move faster. Second, it raises funds that can be used to improve the public transit system. Third, it reduces total automobile emissions, thereby improving the urban environment.

A few days ago, former North York councilor Gordon Chong, who was chosen by Mayor Ford to investigate how to pay for the expansion of the Sheppard subway line, raised the possibility of road tolls. That was immediately dismissed by Mayor Ford, who said, “It’s nonsense. I don’t support road tolls and there’s no road tolls going in.” (quoted in Elizabeth Church, “Rob Ford calls toll road idea ‘nonsense’, Globe and Mail, May 30, 2011). End of subject.

Undoubtedly, Ford sees road tolls as part of the “war on the car.” The first step in Ford’s counter-attack was abolishing the city’s $ 60 auto registration fee. Closing down the bike lanes on Jarvis appears likely. The Mayor killed the Transit City plan because it included ground-level LRT lines that would conflict with cars, and favours much more expensive underground subway lines that don’t conflict with cars. Of course, the greater cost per kilometer means that fewer kilometers of public transit can be built.

But if the Mayor wants to make Toronto a car-friendly city, there are several more ambitious things he could do. Why not finish the Spadina expressway, linking it up to the Gardiner Expressway as had originally been planned. Let’s make downtown more friendly to cars by creating more parking spaces. Let’s turn some of our parks into car-parks, starting with Queen’s Park. Let’s offer the University of Toronto, which owns Queen’s Park, royalties for converting the green portion into a vast parking lot. Allan Gardens is another possibility; after all, it’s used mainly by street people and winos. Parking fees are too high and parking enforcement officers too aggressive, so let’s lower fees and direct the officers to permit a grace period, liberally defined. Also, there are too few service stations downtown, so let’s legislate against the conversion of any existing ones and have the city assemble land for a few new ones. Finally, let’s look to places like Los Angeles, Dallas, and Atlanta, as models of car-friendly cities.

So the only question is how far the Mayor will take his war in favor of the car. The farther he takes it, the more we will see slower car travel in the downtown core, deterioration of public transit because funding goes to the road system, and more pollution of the urban environment due to increasing auto emissions.

There is an old political adage, “if your opponent says you’re fat, you say he’s bald.” There is no question that Rob Ford is fat. I’m not interested in what sits on top of his skull, but rather what is inside. The more I watch, the more I see a person who is dogmatically committed to his preferred solutions, and not even willing to think about alternatives. Successful politicians are both thoughtful and willing to jettison their own dogmas when the facts dictate moving in a different direction. Begin, Nixon, and Harper are all examples from the political right.

The University of Toronto a few years ago ran a billion dollar development campaign with the slogan “great minds for a great university.” Observing Mayor Ford’s discussion of road tolls, the phrase that comes to mind is “a stupid mayor for a stupid city.”

In my post last February 22, I complained about HP’s Greedy Color Laser Jet Printers that use the expensive color toner even if you are printing only in black. One reader suggested looking for a store that refills toner cartridges. I did that, and found GN Ink/Toner at 621A Mount Pleasant Avenue in Toronto, tel. 647-889-4648, email gninktoner@gmail.com. They provide fast courteous service and a toner refill is roughly half the price of a new cartridge from HP, that is, $62 including tax for a black cartridge, and $200 for the set of three color cartridges. They also rejig the chip on the cartridge so that the printer recognizes the toner as an HP product. This brings down the cost of a black and white page to about 7 cents, which is much more reasonable. I encourage Toronto readers with HP laser printers, or other companies’ laser printers, to visit GN Ink/Toner rather than being ripped off by HP or other manufacturers.

University libraries now provide free access to virtually any academic journal for anyone affiliated with the university. Like many academics I have shelves groaning under the weight of back issues of journals that I almost never revisit. In the past, more than a few academics donated their old journals to organizations that sent them to the developing world, and received tax refunds. Not any more, because the journals are also accessible online in the developing world. So who wants old journals? I checked around and the answer that came back is precisely no one. So I’m recycling them. In the future, I’ll treat academic journals like newspapers or magazines: have a look, maybe clip an article, and then recycle them. If I need a specific article, it will always be there online. Which raises the question of why bother publishing journals in hard copy anymore.