- Jonathan Malloy, where is your 'The Incremental Tearing Asunder of a Nation' box.

Posted: 9/7/2010 11:23:35 AM The Globe and Mail
Why does the Harper government do what it does? Beats us, Jonathan Malloy, Globe and Mail, Sep. 07, 2010
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/why-does-the-harper-government-do-what-it-does-beats-us/article1694280/

Trying to fit Harper and the Con's into pre-existing and traditionally defined boxes won't work. A big example is referring to Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada as the 'Tories'. The reason that this is problematic is that, in a word, 'they're not the Tories'.

There are a number of things that underlying Harper and the Con's and make it difficult to fit that into one of Malloy Boxes.

- Harper has dedicated his public life to tearing our Canada - the one that our forefather built through their blood, seat and tears, the free, open, tolerant society, whose purpose was to unit and build all of Canada for the good of all of Canadians - asunder.

- Harper has a core of die-hard, right wing extremist supporters with epi-centre Alberta (up until very recently 33%) that he can count on to support him just about no matter what, as long as they feel he will deliver the goods.

- the Harper strategy is to chip away at the underpinnings of our nationalism and Parliamentary form of government with the purpose of defaulting to the Provinces. He is doing it in an stealth fashion, keeping it just low enough, or under the radar so as not to wake Canadians up to what he is doing. To this end Harper is playing a game of inches (more like football than hockey). His targets are either small, with little chance of uniting Canadians in opposition, but with very significant impact, or appeals to people on an emotional basis with rationality suppressed.

- As long as the Harper policies do not consolidate the opposition then Harper can take the position 'Canadians be dam[redacted]d'.

- Harper pushes the limits with these small steps with the intention of demonstrating to the die-hard core that he is still their man. But, sometimes he miscalculates in the reaction to these incremental steps, or simply doesn't care as long as it doesn't unit the opposition, as long as it is not a ballot issue that would go against him.

- Harper cannot simply come out and let all Canadians know exactly what he intends as far as Canada is concerned since it would unite the opposition and he would get the boot, post haste, and that just wouldn't do.

- It is not simply implementing ultra conservative values, reduction of federalism ad absurdum, but also stopping the flow of oil profits from Alberta to the rest of Canada, and that simply wouldn't do, now would it.

Lloyd MacILquham cicblog.com/comments.html