[R-G] Powergrab in Ottawa: Harper's Desperate Gambit

[Anthony Fenton]

Weekend Edition
December 5 / 7, 2008
Harper's Desperate Gambit
Powergrab in Ottawa

By MIKE WHITNEY

On Thursday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper suspended Canada's  
parliament to avoid a challenge from opposition parties that were  
planning to oust him from power. The 3-party coalition -- the  
Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois -- decided to remove Harper  
because of his strong opposition to a stimulus package that was  
designed to minimize the effects of the financial crisis. They also  
opposed his "proposed elimination of subsidies for political parties,  
a three-year ban on the right of civil servants to strike, and limits  
on the ability of women to sue for pay equity."  Governor General  
Michaelle Jean helped Harper to hang on by using her constitutional  
authority to close the legislature for seven weeks. Now the country is  
in a furor.

Harper is a far right conservative ideologue who served as president  
of the National Citizens Coalition (NCC), a conservative think-tank  
and advocacy group. The organization opposes national healthcare,  
favoring supports privatization and tax cuts. It has 40,000 members  
but the names are kept confidential. Its motto is "more freedom with  
less government."

The Prime Minister has been a supporter of George Bush and the US wars  
in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is alleged to be a proponent of plans for  
a North American Union, which is an elitist scheme to end separate  
sovereignties by merging the three countries-- Canada, the US, and  
Mexico--into one superstate. The plan coincides with Harper's pro- 
corporate support for free trade.

Harper's connection to extremist organizations may sound far fetched,  
until one one sees a video of him giving a speech that was also given  
by Australian PM John Howard prior to the war in Iraq. The speeches  
are identical -- word for word -- indicating that they must have been  
written by a third party somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon or a  
nearby think tank. The video dispels any illusion that Karzai, Abbas,  
and Siniora are the only sock-puppets working for Washington.

According to Linda McQuaig of the Toronto Star:

     "Harper has already laid out an agenda that would fundamentally  
change this country - in ways most Canadians would oppose. While this  
agenda is not ‘secret,’ my guess is few Canadians know about it...  
Sometime in the dark of night last June 20, the Harper government  
posted a plan on the Department of National Defense's website - called  
Canada First Defence Strategy - to spend an eye-popping $490 billion  
over the next 20 years on the military.”

     It's hard to imagine an agenda with more profound consequences  
for Canadians, beginning with a dramatic reordering of national  
priorities. Public health care? Child poverty?

     While the election campaign has focused on economic issues, the  
military and its combat role in Afghanistan have actually been the  
centrepieces of the Harper administration. Harper has tried to reshape  
the way Canadians think about Canada, weaning us off our fondness for  
peacekeeping (and medicare, for that matter), and getting us excited  
about being a war-making nation, able to swagger on the world stage in  
the footsteps of the Americans." (Linda McQuaig, "Stephen Harper:  
Bulking up Pentagon North", the Toronto Star)

Harper's nationally televised speech on Monday night was an eerily  
faithful reprise  duplication of George Bush's many ponderous  
addresses from the Oval office. Wrapping himself in the Maple Leaf,   
Harper rattled off  the familiar patriotic buzzwords and catchphrases :

"We will use all legal means to resist this undemocratic seizure of  
power,"  Harper thundered, peering straight into the camera.

Fortunately, Harper doesn't have a legal leg to stand on.

Constitutional scholars unanimously agree that the parties have the  
right to deliver a "no confidence" vote and strip him of his power.  
Harper is just trying to brazen it out to buy some time.

"The Canadian government has always been chosen by the people," said  
the Prime Minister.

Not true, and Harper knows it.

"He's appealing to people who learned their civics from American  
television," said Henry Jacek, a political scientist at McMaster  
University. Other scholars... say Harper's populist theory of  
democracy is more suited to a U.S.-style presidential system, than it  
is to Canadian parliamentary democracy. In Canada, there's no national  
vote for prime minister. People elect MPs in 308 ridings, and a  
government holds power only as long as it has the support of a  
majority of those MPs.

"We have a rule that the licence to govern is having the confidence of  
the House of Commons," said Peter Russell, a former University of  
Toronto professor and adviser to past governors general. "I'm sorry,  
that's the rule. If they want to change it to having a public opinion  
poll, we'd have to reform and rewrite our Constitution." ("Harper  
Wrong on Democracy Experts Claim" CTV)

Harper is just blowing smoke, but his challenge should be taken  
seriously just the same. Neocons do not go gently into that good  
night. Americans know that better than anyone.

Mike Whitney lives in Washingon state. He can be reached at fergiewhitney at msn.com