The Conservatives have been caught up in many shady activities since coming to power. The revelation that they may have been behind a robocall operation to suppress voting for opposition parties would rank, if proven, among the more serious offences.

Stephen Harper has denied involvement in the scam in which operatives acted under the guise of Elections Canada officials. Coincidentally, another controversy, the in-and-out affair, involved Elections Canada. Some of Harper’s most senior officials took part in that operation.

In giving or not giving the benefit of the doubt on matters like these, the question of the track record figures prominently. To the misfortune of Team Harper, its record on duplicitous activities is hardly one to inspire confidence that its hand are clean.

There follows a list — is Harperland becoming Nixonland? — of dirty tricks, black ops and hardball tactics from the Conservatives’ years in power.

1. Cooking the Books

The duplicity began in the election that brought the Conservatives to power — the 2006 campaign in which they were promising a new era of transparency and accountability. Via some peculiar accounting practices, the Tories exceeded spending limits in the campaign, providing themselves with an advertising advantage in key ridings. They were later caught, had their offices raided by police and ultimately pled guilty last year to reduced charges of violating financing provisions of the Elections Act.

2. The Hidden Slush Fund

More than $40-million slated for border-infrastructure improvements instead went into enhancement projects in Tony Clement’s riding in preparation for the G-8 summit. To conceal the intent of the spending from legislators, John Baird used the border fund as a “delivery mechanism” for the money.

3. Falsifying Documents

The document-altering scam involving Bev Oda’s office and the aid group Kairos is only one of several instances in which the Tories have been caught document-tampering. They went so far as to alter a report by Auditor General Sheila Fraser to make it look like she was crediting them with prudent financial management when, in fact, it was the Liberals to whom she was referring.

4. Shutting Down Detainees’ Probes

The Conservatives employed a number of authoritarian tactics to avoid culpability on the Afghan detainees’ file. They included an attack on the reputation of diplomat Richard Colvin, the shutting down of Parliament and the disabling of Peter Tinsley’s Military Police Complaints Commission. The Tories denied Tinsley’s commission documents for reasons of national security — even though commission members had national security clearance.

5. The Cotler Misinformation Campaign

In an act described by the Speaker of the Commons, himself a Tory, as reprehensible, Conservatives systematically spread rumours in Irwin Cotler’s Montreal riding that he was stepping down.

6. The Suppression of Damaging Reports

A report of the Commissioner of Firearms that showed the gun registry in a good light was kept hidden by Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan beyond its statutory release deadline. As a consequence, the report escaped the eyes of opposition members before a vote on the registry was taken. It is one of many instances in which the government has suppressed research that runs counter to its ideology.

7. Attempt to Frame the Opposition Leader

Late in the 2011 election camapign, a senior Conservative operative leaked bogus photos to Sun Media in an attempt to frame Michael Ignatieff as an Iraqi war planner.

8. Communications Lockdown

The government went to unprecedented lengths to vet, censor and withhold information. After denying legislators information on costs of programs, Harper became the first prime minister in history to be found in contempt of Parliament. The public service has muzzled like never before. Last week, several groups wrote Harper urging him to stop gagging the science community on the question of climate change and other issues. The Tories denied an opposition member accreditation to attend the Durban summit on climate change, then lambasted the member for not being there. Journalists have faced myriad restrictions. At one point in the in-and-out affair, PMO officials fled down a hotel fire-escape stairwell, Keystone-Kops style, to avoid the media. On another, the governing party had the police clear a Charlottetown hotel lobby of scribes wishing to cover a Tory caucus meeting.

9. Intimidation and Bullying of Adversaries

The list of smear campaigns against opponents is long. Some that come to mind are Harper’s trying to link Liberal Navdeep Bains to terrorism; Vic Toews’ labelling of distinguished jurist Louise Arbour a “disgrace to Canada” for her views on the Middle East; seeking reprisals against University of Ottawa academic Michael Behiels for being critical of the government; and the dismissal of Nuclear Safety Commission boss Linda Keen who the PM decried as having a Liberal background.

10. The ‘Citizenship’ Dog and Pony Show

As well as being muzzled, civil servants have been put to use for the government’s political benefit. In one such case, the immigration department ordered bureaucrats to act as stand-ins at a fake citizenship reaffirmation ceremony broadcast by Sun TV.

11. Writing the Book on Disrupting Committees

The Tories quietly issued their committee chairpersons a 200-page handbook on how to obstruct the opposition. The handbook recommended barring witnesses who might have embarrassing information. It went so far as to instruct chairpersons to shut down the committees if the going got really tough. The Tories have also issued an order that frees cabinet staffers from ever having to testify before committees. They are resorting more frequently to in-camera committee sessions, away from the public and media eye.

12. Leaking Veterans’ Medical Files

Colonel Pat Stogran, who was dropped as veterans’ ombudsman after making waves, says he became the target of anonymous defamatory emails and other dirty tricks after criticizing the government. Other veterans, Sean Bruyea and Dennis Manuge, say their medical files have been leaked, going all the way back to 2002, in an attempt to embarrass them.

13. Unfixing the Fixed-Date Election Law

The prime minister brought in a fixed date election law which, he said, would remove the governing party’s timing advantage in dropping the writ. He promptly turned around and, earning Jack Layton’s lasting disdain, ignored his own law and issued a surprise election call in 2008.

14. Declaring Brian Mulroney Persona Non Grata

In the wake of the Karlheinz Schreiber cash hand-out controversy, Harper’s team, in its zest to disassociate itself, went so far as to put out the false rumour that Mulroney, who won two majorities for the party, was no longer a card-carrying member.

15. Unreleasing Released Documents

The Conservatives have resorted to the use of shady tactics to de-access the Access to Information system. In one notable instance cabinet staffer Sebastien Togneri ordered officials to unrelease documents that were on their way to the media. Freedom of information specialist Stanley Tromp has catalogued some 46 examples of the government’s shielding and stonewalling.

16. Ejecting Citizens from Rallies

Operatives hauled voters out of Harper rallies in last year’s campaign for the simple reason that they had marginal ties to other parties. The PM was compelled to apologize.

17. Hit Squad on Journalists

Operating under phony email IDs, Conservative staffers have attacked journalists in thousands of online posts in an attempt to discredit them and their work.

18. Dirty Work on Dion

The Conservatives have set records for the use of personal attack ads. In the 2008 campaign they ran an online ad which depicted a bird defecating on Stephane Dion’s head. Protests compelled them to withdraw it.

19. Tory Logos on Taxpayer Cheques

The economic recovery program was paid for by taxpayer dollars but the Tories tried to make political gains by putting their party logo — until they were called on it — on billboard-sized cheques. Surveys by journalists showed the money was distributed disproportionately to Conservative ridings and partisans.

20. The Rob Anders Nomination Crackdown

The prime minister has been accused of turning his own party into an echo chamber. When someone tried to exercise her democratic right to challenge Harper loyalist Rob Anders for the nomination in his Calgary riding, Harper’s men descended like a black ops commando unit, seized control of the office, seized control of the riding executive and crushed the bid.

21. The Rights and Democracy Takeover

Groups like Rights and Democracy supposedly operate at arm’s length from the government. But the Harperites, in what journalists described as boardroom terror, removed or suspended board members and stacked the board with pro-Israeli hardliners. As part of the ethical anarchy, a break-in occurred at headquarters.

22. Vote Suppression Tactics

Along with the accusation of pre-recorded robocalls sending voters astray in last election, reports of several other Tory vote suppression tactics have surfaced. They include a systematic live-caller operation in which Liberal supporters were peppered with bogus information.

The list does not include such controversies as the Cadman affair in which the Conservatives allegedly tried to bribe independent MP Chuck Cadman for his vote; the whitewashing by Integrity Commissioner Christiane Ouimet of 227 whistleblower complaints against the government; the allegation by eyewitness Elizabeth May that Harper cheated in the 2008 election’s televised debates by bringing in notes; and many others.

< http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/02/29/Tories-Dirty-Tricks/?utm_source=mondayheadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=050312 >

Conservatism has contradictory impulses. The pursuit of freedom and the pursuit of order run at cross-purposes.

Moderates push neither button too strongly. But in both Canada and the United States, the conservative parties are now controlled by virulent wings that are prepared go to aggressive lengths to achieve their ambitions. The danger is that in the name of freedom, they bring forth the contrary.

In this country, the Conservative government has a nationalist bent, evident in its elevation of military values, populist anti-intellectualism, moral certitude on foreign policy, law-and-order fixation and message-control mania. This kind of nationalism requires state-driven conformity, not liberty.

And so, while Conservatives are supposed to cherish government that is off the backs of the people, what we have is something closer to the opposite. The government is also oversized in spending, another conservative no-no.

The Conservatives’ in-your-face proclivities from the minority years have been well documented. But a majority has brought no let-up. On the freedom front, the government likes to boast of encouraging provincial autonomy and of shutting down the gun registry, the long-form census, the Wheat Board. But, by way of contrast, it’s instructive to look at what has transpired in our land of liberty recently. It might make you wonder about the kind of Canada that’s emerging.

Last week, the Conservatives were planning to go ahead with a system of national online surveillance. But a national outcry against the plan (originally advocated by the Liberals) will likely force amendments. The government also reaffirmed its plan for mandatory minimum sentencing, although an Ontario Superior Court judge lambasted the policy and critics say it will reduce the right to a fair trial.

Earlier in the month, from a government that took no umbrage at Guantanamo-style justice, came the decision to accept information derived from torture from foreign governments, in some cases. The Conservatives, we recall, have also vowed to bring back long-expired post-9/11 antiterrorism powers that allow Canadians to be locked up without charges.

On the matter of political freedom, another debate – the one on the controversial copyright bill – has been moved behind closed doors. The Tories are increasingly resorting to this secretive in-camera approach. Despite having a majority, they have been cutting off democratic debate with near record-breaking usage of time limits and closure in Parliament.

Freedom of expression has also been in the news. Last week, disgusted representatives from the Canadian science community sent an open letter to the Prime Minister calling for him to stop muzzling federal researchers. Under the government’s extensive vetting system, civil servants and diplomats are less free to voice their views than they have ever been. Also recently, opponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline were pilloried as foreign-financed radicals and, according to one sworn affidavit, as enemies of the state. And during last fall’s Durban summit on climate change, the Conservatives denied opposition members their usual right to accreditation.

The Harperian high command takes a draconian stance against even soft drug use. It has taken a hard line against organized labour and a more exclusionary course on immigration. It will no longer allow Canadians imprisoned abroad to serve out their sentences at home.

The many victims of Tory smear campaigns have been well documented, a most recent target being Montreal MP Irwin Cotler.

On Thursday, the Ottawa Citizen reported that Elections Canada and the RCMP are investigating a fraudulent robo-call phone operation apparently designed to suppress the Liberal vote in Guelph, Ont., during last year’s election. Calls misdirecting voters in many other ridings have been reported. The NDP linked the operation to the Conservatives, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper denied any wrongdoing by his party.

The accumulation of dirty tricks is beginning to sound like something out of Nixonland. The last election, we recall, was the one where citizens were hauled out of Conservative campaign rallies for the sin of having marginal ties to other parties.

This is just a small sampling from the march of audacities in respect to our freedoms and liberties. It’s the new Canada. Enjoy.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lawrence-martin/the-freedom-show-on-the-rideau/article2348174/ >

In the country’s political history, there have been great years for conservatives. How about 1958, when John Diefenbaker, with his biblical incantations, captured 208 seats? Or 1984, when Brian Mulroney obliterated John Turner and won 211? But these were triumphs for old-style Tories, the Progressive Conservative school that Preston Manning and Stephen Harper rebelled against.

For core conservatives, those of the doctrinaire variety, nothing can compare to the successes of the year now passing. In 2011, Canada took its sharpest turn right in its history. It will go down as the year of transformation in Canadian politics, the year when the political right gained unprecedented control, when the traditionally dominant centre was hollowed out and when the party of the left, for the first time, became the country’s official opposition.

It was a year in which a country built by moderate Liberals and moderate Tories saw the forces of moderation shrink. Core conservatives won a majority, they decimated the Liberals, they put in place many of their doctrinaire policies and they deepened their potential for continued dominance with the elimination of the public subsidy for political parties, with seat redistribution and other measures.

The political tremors didn’t reverberate with the shock they may have. The Conservatives’ prudent policy-making in some big-ticket policy areas has served to alleviate fears of their being excessively redneck. Their work on the economy, as seen most recently in the fiscal update, was an example of pragmatic decision-making. The recent bilateral border accord won them applause, as perhaps it should – so long as it doesn’t contribute to our becoming an extension of the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Harper’s playing up of traditional symbols like the monarchy allays concerns of the old Canada fading away.

But at the same, it was a big year for ideological advances. They came in such areas as crime and punishment, in foreign policy – where Canada has become one of the hawks of the Western world – on the gun registry, on citizenship and immigration, on the military, on the Wheat Board and on the environment. On the latter, we recall Mr. Mulroney, a progressive Tory, winning an award as Canada’s greenest prime minister. As a show of how the party has changed, the Harper government will likely be a candidate for the brownest.

This Prime Minister’s rightward trajectory no doubt has Pierre Trudeau rolling over in his grave, which is exactly what Mr. Harper wishes. Old Tories like Robert Stanfield are probably doing the same. And Jean Chrétien came forward this month to issue over-the-top warnings about the course we’re on.

In his day, Mr. Chrétien was often condemned, by yours truly in particular, for running a dictatorial-styled government. With his authoritarian, l’état c’est moiapproach, Mr. Harper is starting to make Mr. Chrétien look like Twinkletoes. In Irwin Cotler’s riding, Conservative dirty tricks, labelled reprehensible by the Speaker of the Commons, got much publicity. But this was only one of 20 or so instances of abuse of power in 2011 for which the PM was dismissively unrepentant.

Although journalists of all stripes are now on to him for this, Mr. Harper was most fortunate it didn’t cost him politically. Luck is a major component in his arsenal. His extraordinary degree of serendipity was on display again this year, particularly in the election campaign. It was not Mr. Harper but Jack Layton who was most responsible for the thrashing of the Bloc Québécois. It was Mr. Layton, as the Prime Minister appreciatively looked on, who took down Michael Ignatieff in the English-language debate and contributed significantly to the Grits’ fall.

With his election success and enhanced credibility, Mr. Layton was the left’s great hope to check Mr. Harper and the rightward tide. But his death helped clear the way for the continued ascendancy of a faction of the old Tory party that not so long ago was viewed as a fringe element, far adrift of the Canadian mainstream. Now, it’s the band that is in command.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/a-banner-year-for-the-new-conservative-agenda/article2281515/ >

What does the Grey Cup football game have to do with the Canadian military? Not much, you say. True enough. But chalk up another public-relations triumph for the governing Conservatives. They turned the opening ceremonies of our annual sports classic into a military glorification exercise.

For our part in the NATO Libya campaign, the Defence Minister took bows on the field. A Canadian flag was spread over 40 yards. Cannons boomed.

The blending of sport and the military, with the government as the marching band, is part of the new nationalism the Conservatives are trying to instill. It is another example of how the state, under Stephen Harper’s governance, is becoming all-intrusive.

Conservatism, as defined by Ronald Reagan, was about getting government off the backs of the people. Conservatism, as practised by team Harper, is more akin to an Orwellian opposite. State controls are now at a highpoint in our modern history. There is every indication they will extend further.

The propaganda machine has become mammoth and unrelenting. The parliamentary newspaper The Hill Times recently found there are now no fewer than 1,500 communications staffers on the governing payroll. In the days of the King and St. Laurent governments, there were hardly any. In recent decades, the numbers shot up, but Mr. Harper is outdoing all others, a primary example being his institution and maintenance of a master control system wherein virtually every government communication is filtered through central command.

In his minority governments, the rationale was that tight controls were necessary for survival. With a majority, it was thought that the controls that brought on parliamentary shutdowns and contempt of Parliament rulings would ease up. Those who thought that way didn’t know Stephen Harper.

In recent weeks, the government has invoked closure or time limits on debate at a record-breaking clip. The limits have come on key legislation, driving the combustible New Democrat Pat Martin to proclaim, “There’s not a democracy in the world that would tolerate this jackboot [expletive].”

On the propaganda ledger, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney put on a show in committee last week. In what may have been a first, his spinners set up a billboard behind him replete with bright Conservative blue colours and flags. Everything except a marching band.

In the message-massaging department, news has arrived that the government is imposing new communications controls on the RCMP. The same is being done with the Defence Department. Secrecy surrounds the government’s plans to spend a whopping $477-million on a U.S. military satellite.

State surveillance, the rationale being security, is being taken to new levels. The Conservatives are bringing in legislation that will compel Internet service-providers to disclose customer information. A Canada-U.S. agreement is on the way that will contain an entry-exit system that will track everyone.

In Parliament, more and more ministers are showing up for Question Period with prewritten answers. If the scripted stuff is far afield of the questions posed, it doesn’t matter. In our shining democracy, they use it anyway.

Research that contradicts the government line is discarded. Civil liberties fade, new jails proliferate. Those who speak out better watch out. When the NDP’s Megan Leslie stated an opposing view on the Keystone XL Pipeline, she was accused by the government of treachery.

In that conservatives cherish freedom, it’s rather strange. For a book on the government, Harperland, I chose the subtitle The Politics of Control. I now plead guilty to understatement. With their populist nationalism and drive for domination, these guys are everywhere, even on our football fields.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lawrence-martin/under-this-pm-the-state-is-everywhere/article2252492/ >

So, one time in 1935, Mackenzie King was driving home along Daly Avenue in Ottawa when he came across a house that was being torn down. A bay window was still standing. King had his driver stop the car, then got out and examined the sheet of glass. He became so transfixed by the window pane that he purchased it and had it transported to his country estate. After communing with his dead mother on where to situate it, he settled on an appropriate spot on a nearby hill.

The story, one from a multitude of King’s eccentricities, is from a new biography by Allan Levine. It’s one of four biographies of prime ministers appearing this fall in what is a great season for political books, although you wouldn’t know it from the lack of publicity.

If anyone doubted that King spent a lot of time in la-la land, they need only read Mr. Levine’s intriguing account, one that fleshes out new material from his voluminous diaries. It’s a safe bet, though, that not many will read it. Such is the way of the Twitter era, the ever-declining space devoted to books in our media, and the country’s lack of passion for its history that these books won’t get the attention or sales they deserve. Most Canadian youths have barely even heard of Mackenzie King, prime minister for a mere 22 years, much less have an interest in reading about him.

King had an achingly dull public image. Few knew that seances, table-rapping sessions and communing with the likes of William Gladstone, Wilfrid Laurier and other stiffs occupied big stretches of King’s time. In contemplating affairs of state, he ascribed great significance to the formations of his shaving cream. At breakfast, it was the configuration of tea leaves that arrested him. Before heading off to work, he would shoot the breeze with his dog, Pat.

But the paradox is that the weirdo PM governed in a most pragmatic, sane and effective manner. His decision-making wasn’t off the wall at all. Benefiting from a background as a labour negotiator – his mother called him the Official Harmonizer – King was the ultimate compromiser. He defined the centrist politics that shaped the Liberal Party for decades to follow.

We sometimes forget how fascinating and rich in character the leaders who charted our allegedly dull history were. King was by no means the only one.

Also out this fall is Nation Maker, Richard Gwyn’s splendid second half of a two-volume biography of John A. Macdonald. Like King, Macdonald spent much of his time in communication with the spirits. But they were of a terrestrial kind.

In the stores as well is Elusive Destiny, Paul Litt’s biography of John Turner. It’s overly sympathetic but expertly crafted and revealing in its portrayal of Mr. Turner as being too tightly wound for the television age. Then there’s Trudeau Transformed, by Max and Monique Nemni, authors of the groundbreaking study Young Trudeau. Also of note is David A. Wilson’s second volume on Thomas D’Arcy McGee, another captivating character from our history. And soon out is another big work from the eternal Peter C. Newman; it’s called When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada. How timely is that?

As the title implies, King’s Liberal edifice couldn’t last forever. His exemplary displays of centrist brokerage politics, his placing of national unity at the forefront and his securing of Quebec were pillars that endured for decades. But the fracturing began under Mr. Trudeau and was accelerated by Mr. Turner, who clashed with both Mr. Trudeau and Jean Chrétien. The party took sides, dividing into long-lasting Trudeau/Chrétien and Turner/Paul Martin blocs.

Among the lessons King could have given the others was not to allow themselves to be challenged from within. That and much more. King, of course, had a special way of divining the threats. Too bad that, like him, the others couldn’t speak to the dead.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lawrence-martin/the-weirdo-pm-who-showed-the-way/article2228482/ >

One of the big successes of the Conservatives has been their demonization of taxation.

Old-time Progressive Conservatives weren’t so inclined, but the Stephen Harper breed learned the art from Republicans south of the border. The neo-cons’ anti-tax campaign spooked the opposition parties. When Michael Ignatieff once hinted he might raise the GST, they practically billy-clubbed him to death.

The GST? If team Harper had kept it at Brian Mulroney’s seven per cent level, the big deficit the country faces today would not exist. It would only be a small fraction of what it now is.

Enter Brian Topp, the NDP leadership contender. At the risk of being deported for treason, he came forward last week to advocate for higher taxes. More on wealthy individuals, more on corporations, perhaps even a hike in the GST – something Jack Layton wouldn’t even touch – down the line.

Predictably, Jim Flaherty blew a gasket. The Finance Minister can be surprising at times, an example being his recent Kennedy era-like call for students to pursue careers in the public service. But the moment the NDPer’s words hit the airwaves, Gentleman Jim’s knees started jerking. He scoffed at the notion of more taxes on the rich, saying it wouldn’t bring in significant new revenues. He sounded like their courtier.

Mr. Topp wasn’t trying to suggest a levy on the well-to-do would cure the deficit. He was speaking about social justice. He was speaking about ludicrous levels of executive compensation, about the craziness, as Warren Buffett put it, of zillionaires paying lower tax rates than their secretaries, about loopholes and havens wherein the rich hide their fair share, about corporations whose tax rates get lower and lower and who do not invest the proceeds.

Social justice is not a phrase to which modern-day Conservatives are winsomely attracted. But they might do well to pay heed. Both here and abroad, the climate is changing.

Mr. Topp spoke out after U.S. President Barack Obama brought forward a tax-the-rich scheme in the United States. The tax breaks of the affluent class are becoming an issue everywhere. Debts and deficits, which were accrued in good part because of ideologically inspired tax-cutting, have reached threatening levels. As the global downtown drags on, the ever-growing income gap between haves and have-nots is being showcased. Economic nostrums such as deregulation are increasingly being called into question.

The Milton Friedman foundation, from which the past three decades of economics have taken their cue, is on shaky ground. It took a long run of economic anguish through the 1970s to trigger the last great change in the economic belief system. It is far from certain, but the long run of wreckage being witnessed now may result in another great turn, one that would favour a party like the New Democrats.

As the official Opposition party, the NDP for the first time has a megaphone. When the party speaks of social justice, it no longer speaks from the margins. Interim leader Nycole Turmel is not a strong performer, but in Mr. Topp, in Thomas Mulcair, in Peggy Nash and others they have an impressive set of leadership candidates who are unflinching. Throughout the recent downturn, the Conservatives have had the great cover-all rationale working for them, it being that Canada isn’t doing as badly as other countries. They trumpet the splendid economic fundamentals, many of which – an example being the regulation of the financial sector – were put in place by previous governments.

While the country is doing better than others, the New Democrats have no shortage of ammunition. A society in which the gap between the wealthy and the rest is continually widening is a retrogressive, not a progressive, society.

In contrast to their southern neighbours, Canadians have a history, until recently at least, of accepting higher taxation levels as the price for a more just and egalitarian society. Mr. Topp and his fellow travellers must remind them of that.

The Conservatives will whack them hard as they did the Grits, but it will be more difficult this time. The zeitgeist is no longer with them.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lawrence-martin/higher-taxation-is-back-on-the-table/article2212172/ >

Stephen Harper never used to talk about a majority. Now he’s practically begging for one. Can he win it?

Yes.

How? Smoke and mirrors. The creation of a fictional universe.

Truth, as we know, is a moving target. Facts need not matter. In politics, it’s about who brings the most megaphones to the table. Whatever gets repeated the most is the reality. With more ads, with more media support, with more resources, the Conservatives drown out their opponents. Their fictional universe overshadows those of the other parties.

In this campaign, their universe has three components: coalition, ethics and the economy. Out of the gate, the Tories stumbled a bit on the first one. Their fictional universe invokes the spectre of a coalition government-in-waiting, ready to destabilize Canada. Stephen Harper didn’t bank on the rush of publicity surrounding the 2004 letter that he had signed, the one showing he was prepared to join other parties to form an alternative – though he wasn’t calling it a coalition – to the Paul Martin government. As a result, he’s been hit with the label “Harper the hypocrite.”

That said, there’s been a substantial dividend to all the coalition talk. It’s helped mightily with regard to component No. 2 of the fictional universe. This one requires that the Prime Minister create the impression that evidence of contempt of Parliament, ethical abuse and autocratic governance is all terribly overblown. Small potatoes. Kicking off his campaign at Rideau Hall, Mr. Harper made the stunningly dismissive observation that the historic contempt-of-Parliament motion, prompted by the Speaker’s ruling, was just parliamentary manoeuvring that Canadians don’t care about.

Mr. Harper had displayed a similarly contemptuous attitude toward Parliament more than a year earlier when he shut it down. But Canadians did care. They took to the streets to protest against his autocratic arrogance. There being, at my count, more than 50 examples of abuse of power by this government, the PM is highly vulnerable on this issue. But, thus far, it’s been swept aside by coalition mania.

Component No. 3 of the fictional universe strategy requires turning a middling performance on the economy into one that’s perceived to be inspired. We hear ad nauseam that Canada is leading the global economic recovery. In fact, among OECD nations, Canada didn’t finish in the top five in the past two years. According to a report by the Conference Board of Canada, we’ll be lucky to stay in the top 10.

In this campaign, the government will fix the blame for the country’s large deficit entirely on the recession. It won’t mention that its exorbitant prerecession spending had Canada practically in deficit even before the recession came along. It won’t mention that the fundamentals that put Canada in good shape – including the avoidance of deregulation policies favoured by conservatives – were largely fashioned by predecessors.

In their economic universe, the Tories have Canadians believing that Liberals will raise their taxes. The only tax hikes pledged by Liberals are for big and wealthy corporations. The Conservatives are trying to make voters believe that staying with them will ensure economic stability. They forget their own track record. After the 2008 election campaign, in which they vowed there’d be no deficit, they delivered an economic update that created such instability, the government came within a hair of falling.

The budget statement had practically no stimulus funding. Ontario, we recall, had been declared by the Tories to be the last place to invest. After much prodding by the coalition parties, Mr. Harper did bring in a stimulus plan, albeit one marred by secrecy, pork-barrelling and the brazen use of taxpayer money to promote it.

In this election campaign, all these realities need not matter, not if you can create a parallel make-believe universe. The Conservatives are most proficient at this kind of thing. That’s why a majority is well possible.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/smoke-mirrors-and-a-harper-majority/article1960537/ >

It’s not the parts that count but the sum of the parts. Which invites the question: Is anyone doing the math?

Just recently, four senior Conservatives (including two senators) were charged with willfully exceeding spending limits in the 2006 campaign that brought the Tories to power. The “in and out” financing scheme came at the same time that Stephen Harper was promising a new era of transparency and accountability.

Just recently, we had the document-altering scandal featuring International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda, who appears in the House of Commons for Question Period but refuses to answer questions on the matter.

Just recently, we had new revelations in regard to the government’s so-called integrity commissioner, the one who received 228 whistleblowing complaints and upheld not a single one. She left with a half-a-million-dollar severance package – and a gag order to go with it.

Just recently, we learned that the office of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney used ministerial letterhead to raise money for the Conservative Party. We’ve also seen a contempt of Parliament motion brought against the government for its refusal to disclose basic information on the costs of crime bills and on corporate profits. And we’ve seen the Conservatives release attack ads of such questionable quality that they were withdrawn.

Just recently, The Canadian Press reported that, in the tradition of l’état, c’est moi, the Prime Minister is insisting that “Government of Canada” nomenclature be changed to “the Harper government.” Some wag suggested the PM might want to change his own name – to Stephen Hubris.

Just recently, the PM appointed Tom Pentefountas as vice-chairman of the CRTC. Mr. Pentefountas comes equipped with two qualifications: his close friendship with the PM’s director of communications, and zero experience in telecommunications.

In this same time frame, we’ve seen what happens to those such as diplomat Richard Colvin and others who dare to speak out. At Veterans Affairs, whistleblower Sean Bruyea’s medical and psychiatric records were circulated in an obvious attempt to have him labelled a nutcase.

The recent math is eye-popping. But getting the full picture requires going a little further back. We recall the PM on the Afghan detainees’ file denying Parliament its right to see documents. The Speaker overruled him, pointedly suggesting that he might show more respect for democratic traditions. Before this, Mr. Harper had shut down Parliament, an act that brought thousands of Canadians to the streets to protest against what he was doing to their democracy.

In keeping with its obsession with secrecy and control, we recall the PMO’s muzzling of the public service and the diplomatic corps, its suppression of research containing data countering its ideology, and its efforts to impede the functioning of the access-to-information system.

The stifling of dissent featured such measures as the shutting down of Peter Tinsley’s Afghan detainees’ probe, the removal of the head of the RCMP Complaints Commission and the removal of the head of the Nuclear Safety Commission. There was the ransacking of Rights & Democracy, the disregarding of a fixed-date election law, the issuance of a secret manual instructing Conservatives on how to disrupt parliamentary committees, and a dozen other examples of authoritarian measures more befitting a one-party state than a 21st-century democracy.

During the Chrétien government years, I reported extensively on malfeasance by the Liberals. To do the math on the Harper government is to conclude that, while it has no sponsorship scandal on its books, it’s already surpassed its predecessor on a range of other abuse-of-power indices.

The government’s arc of duplicity is remarkable to behold. And there are more revelations to come. It may not happen in the next election, but there will be a tipping point and the PM and his ministers will pay the price.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lawrence-martin/on-the-road-to-the-harper-governments-tipping-point/article1933110/ >

Majority! Who needs it?

If that isn’t Stephen Harper’s motto, it should be.

Mr. Harper celebrates his fifth anniversary in office next month – and if there’s a lesson, it’s that majority governments are overrated. Mr. Harper has run his minority as if he won a landslide. He’s overrun the checks and balances in the system to the point where he has the system pretty much under heel.

Examples of his dominance are everywhere you look.

The giant public service bureaucracy that he feared was Liberal dominated has been brought under his wing through a vetting system that effectively gagged the bureaucrats. For the foreign service, it’s been much the same.

He inherited a Liberal-dominated Senate but now has a Conservative majority due to his patronage appointments. He has the media, which he looked on with disdain on taking office, now licking from his soup bowl – so much so that he’s actually beginning to like the media.

Government agencies, tribunals and watchdogs have been put under Mr. Harper’s thumb through dismissals, intimidation tactics and the appointment of lapdogs. And despite his minority, the Prime Minister has been able to impede the access-to-information system – one of the most important tools of democracy – to the extent that studies now rank Canada as an international laggard in freedom of information.

The vulnerability of a minority government has allowed Mr. Harper to impose such discipline over his formerly unruly caucus that the party is now likened to a garrison structure whose members click their heels at his every utterance.

During Mr. Harper’s minority, he has put together a fundraising operation that dwarfs those of his opponents and gives him broad advantage over the Liberals.

The Liberals had a large advantage in ethnic and immigrant communities, but the Conservatives have made significant inroads, a foremost example being the Jewish community. It used to tilt Liberal but is now solidly in the Harper camp. The latter has been accomplished through changes in foreign policy, changes that the minority government has had no problem effecting.

Another important element in the power infrastructure is religious activism. Under the radar during the Harper years has been the rise in influence of the religious right. Although it’s by no means comparable with the religious presence in American politics, Mr. Harper has opened the door to evangelicals, and they constitute an important political advantage for him.

Minorities, by definition, are supposed to provide more clout for Parliament. But Mr. Harper has found ways to assert his authority over Parliament, whether it be by shutting its doors via prorogation, trying to deny it documents, or making the committee system dysfunctional through a variety of heavy-handed tactics.

Viewing the degree of authority, command and control that this Prime Minister has been able to effect with a minority, he should have no regrets over its limitations. To achieve his paramountcy, Mr. Harper has resorted in dozens of instances to overreach and to abuse of power. But democratic standards in this country have declined over the years and – to date, at least – he’s been able to get away with it.

The story of his first five years has been less in policymaking than in taking over control of the infrastructure of power in a way that few prime ministers ever have and in a way that, should he win the next election convincingly, he could be invincible.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/majority-who-cares/article1864740/ >

Canadians have gained a reputation as a fair-minded people. There have been exceptions through our history, but, by and large, we have been seen as a moderate and tolerant country.

We didn’t do guilt by association, for example. But that’s what so distressing about the character of today’s Conservatives. They revel in it. The most recent manifestation is the cancellation of a speech by the head of the Canadian Islamic Congress at the National Defence Headquarters. Many years ago, a former director of the group made some remarks – vile remarks – about Israelis over the age of 18 being legitimate targets for suicide bombers.

By all accounts, new director Imam Zijad Delic repudiates that extremism. By all accounts, he is trying to bridge the divide. But the Conservatives tar him with the same brush and won’t allow him to give a speech at the National Defence Headquarters. Imagine the harm it would have done!

There are countless examples of the intolerant streak that marks this government. Canada opposed the Iraq war, yet we won’t allow a haven to Americans who opposed fighting in that war, as we did with Vietnam. We’re probably the only G20 country that tried to bar George Galloway, at the time a British MP, from coming to speak. Minister of State Diane Ablonczy was stripped of some of her responsibilities for her support of Gay Pride week. Those criticizing aspects of our Afghanistan policy are berated for not supporting our troops. If a bank executive like Ed Clark criticizes government economic policy, he’s pilloried for supposedly being motivated by politics rather than economic expertise.

The tolerant Canada of old would have allowed Omar Khadr his basic Charter rights. The tolerant Canada of the past would have allowed our federal scientists to express their views, not have them vetted by political operatives. It would allow sophisticated research at the Justice Department to see the light of day even if it contradicted government sentencing policy, and it would give full wing to data collection by Statistics Canada.

One of the more remarkable observations by our Prime Minister came with his dumping of Linda Keen, the head of the Nuclear Safety Commission, after she shut down the nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ont. The PM had reasonable grounds for arguing for a different course, and he was within his rights to dismiss her. But he then gave away his deeper motivation – he suspected she was secretly doing the handiwork of the Liberal Party. “Since when does the Liberal Party have a right, from the grave through one of its previous appointees, to block the production of necessary medical products in this country,” he said.

Guilt by association. It’s a hallmark of the modus operandi, a cheap instrument of attack politics that tarnishes the image of all Conservatives.

The Progressive Conservatives of old would not have put up with it. Those Tories always had a right-wing cabal that manifested a prejudice and narrow-mindedness, like some U.S. Republicans. But that faction was always very much in the minority. It was frowned upon by the likes of Joe Clark, Robert Stanfield and John Diefenbaker. Brian Mulroney used the faction’s support to win the party leadership in 1983, but once in power, he paid the hard-liners little heed.

They eventually linked arms with the Reform Party. They could hardly dream, back then, of becoming Canada’s government. But the merger of the two conservative parties in 2004, more a Canadian Alliance takeover than a merger, gave them the prominence of place they enjoy today.

That’s why the Canada of today isn’t as tolerant as it once was.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/when-guilt-by-association-wasnt-the-canadian-way/article1750751/ >