[R-G] Harper's Plan to Make You Fear Minority Governments

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/

Harper's Plan to Make You Fear Minority Governments
Scripting the carnival.
He gummed up Parliament for a reason.
By David Sachs
Published: September 26, 2008
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2008/09/26/MinorityFear/

In the last election, the Paul Martin liberals used the tried and true  
"hidden agenda" attack on the Stephen Harper Conservatives and were  
gobsmacked to find the smear didn't stick. How could it?

Harper had been in the public eye too long. After years in Parliament,  
how hidden could anyone's agenda be? If Harper really had kept an  
agenda under wraps all those years, he probably would have forgotten  
it. Most of us can't even remember where we keep our car keys if we  
don't drive every day.

The media tarred Martin for running on yesterday's game plan, just as  
sports columnists blamed Leafs coach Pat Quinn for failing to adjust  
to the New NHL. But that hindsight insight hasn't stopped our  
favourite pundits from recycling slightly used storylines from the  
last two elections this time around.

So it is that the newspapers' collected wisdom once again is that  
winning polls are Harper's enemy, and that Harper himself will do all  
he can to downplay the Conservatives chances of forming a majority.

Which is strange, because if we look at another favourite media  
narrative, we might understand why this first one no longer holds true.

Minority mayhem?

Pundits have long parroted the idea that Harper plays politics as a  
chess match, several moves ahead, yet they seem almost impotent in  
applying that wisdom to actual events. In fact, while the opposition  
parties and media seem anxious to replay history, Harper has learned  
from it. In the previous two elections, when polls showed Harper  
flirting with majority territory, his support vanished. So, Harper  
understood he must make minority government itself unpalatable.

While the Harper communications cabal has shown itself tone-deaf in  
many instances, they have demonstrated one impressive ability: the  
understanding of how much the Canadian voters will retain from non- 
election political news. They have taken advantage of this by  
stonewalling accusations from the in-and-out affair, Cadman, Julie  
Couillard, and other instances, knowing headlines will read:  
"Opposition attacks, Government denies." And they know that, without  
bending or admitting anything, that is all that Canadians will remember.

The example that is relevant here is the Harper efforts to turn  
minority Parliament into the dysfunctional House of Ill Repute. With  
much of Harper's famous priorities carried through Parliament early in  
their tenure, Canadians could easily have been convinced that minority  
parliaments can work. We have the history to back that up, with much  
of the beloved Pearson's headline accomplishments coming from a  
minority government: universal health care, the maple leaf flag, and  
the Canada Pension Plan.

Taking Parliament apart

Harper was getting things done in his minority, and, many Canadians  
thought, was forced to hold his party's more radical influences in  
check. Many Canadians liked the idea of forced restraint. Minority  
government, Canadians might believe, was safe and efficient.

And so, Harper went about changing those psychological associations.  
After covering the more straightforward side of his legislative slate,  
Harper went to the task of taking Parliament apart. The Liberals were  
happy to play into his hands, and with the two sides equally up for  
the task, Parliament descended into the chaos and obnoxiousness of a  
schoolyard.

Committees devolved into circuses -- and Harper's central office  
provided the carnival program, newly written How-To guides for  
disrupting committees. All sides put their worst faces forward; venom,  
mud and spit flew.

But voters, the Conservatives reasoned, would blame no party more or  
less than any other for the mess. What they would remember was the mess.

Cynical, but effective

That is the association most Canadians have with minority government  
now. Outside Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, Canadians are no longer  
scared of a Harper majority. Many are desperate for it to rescue  
Parliament from its embarrassing descent into the gutter.

It's cynical, to be sure, but if we don't see the near 40 per cent  
support for the Conservatives drop any time soon, it will indicate  
that the prime minister has been successful in destroying the bogeyman  
of Conservative majority by displacing it with instinctive repulsion  
for minority rule.