Harper’s hidden agenda now beginning to be revealed as Conservatives flex majority power in Parliament

By Contributor

Editor, The Nelson Daily

Young Justin Trudeau has landed himself in controversy for remarks on the direction Canada may be headed if we continue too long under the regime of Harper’s conservatism, and just how strongly he feels against the agenda of Harper.

Trudeau said he would really wonder if he could live in the kind of Canada that Harper seems to hold as a model; he might wonder if Quebec would be better out of the kind of Canada that Harper wants to mould – and if so, he might favour secession by Quebec.

Not a radical dogma of separatism, but his critics have jumped all over it. I feel as Trudeau does, for B.C.

I recall so vividly in 2005 how then-Prime Minister Martin told Canadians to be afraid of a hidden agenda by Stephen Harper to make a Canada we would not want to live in.

Many commentators in media said Martin was using questionable language to throw Harper in a bad light, as if Harper was not telling us his whole plan for the nation if he could make major decisions for policies in social and economic areas of our lives.

But now, as Harper moves to use his majority power in Parliament, we are beginning to see how he intends to make changes, and indeed he did not make his plans public before.

It comes as no surprise that Harper justifies everything he does in terms of our economy and its growth. He has been transparent about that strongly-held value in his politics. If government acts can make the economy grow, or if its policies might be impeding growth, Harper will change government activity.

So every time he moves against the interest of a healthier planet, a cleaner habitat for humanity, better control of industry to make damage to the environment less harmful -- no one should be outraged at Harper’s “hidden agenda.” He has never pretended to care for ecology if economy is “threatened” by it.

He feels quite secure in his priorities and his analysis of what industry and growth demand. Get out of the way green politicians, tree-lovers, water-protectors, First Nations, any who value natural above industrial…   the Conservative brand is the mark of the dollar, the icon of market expansion, the idol of investors.

If you love your job, vote Harper: He is making this his hallmark. To me, it seems to be working.

Other major areas of Harperite ideology are not so easy to spot inside the economic idolatry.

Social policy that aims to punish rather than rehabilitate, to get revenge rather than apply the best advice of criminologists, and to criminalize drugs when a majority of policy-makers now agree it’s an error, were not items of the Harperite agenda that I, for one, could see being pursued so dogmatically as he now is doing.

That he would follow ideology blindly, in defiance of contrary pragmatic evidence, is disturbing.

He will build more prisons, try to force longer minimum prison terms in defiance of Charter of Rights limits, make drug users into criminals, and spend more on police but at the same time ignore police opinion when police oppose him (the gun registry is wanted by police, but Harper declared it must go.)

Then there is his new Canadian patriotism, wrapping himself in the flag to create an aura of loving our nation and its military assertiveness in a way no party of our history has attempted since John A. and his “old flag, old party, old man” electioneering over a century ago.

But John A. loved the union jack and the British Empire when we had no freedom over our foreign policy. Now we have our own flag and no empire we must serve…  except the empire of globalizing capital and richer nations. Canada, he has indicated, is with the USA and NATO against poorer non-western lands, and – against ecological need.

Harper is not a strong federalist; he will decentralize wherever he can. Let the provinces struggle with health care and education, since they are provincial matters, with little federal money to fund them. He doesn’t care much about federalism.

Canada is a common market for the economy; that’s what matters.

Immigration and refugee policy is important only as they have an impact on the economy. If he can make refugees seem less sympathetic, more criminal, while inviting migrant workers to serve economic growth -- there is not one thing in that agenda that surprises me, given Harper’s dogmas.

But there is a big area of Harperism that needs attention. The social-conservative agenda of Harper’s loyal rural base will demand some reward from him for the extraordinary effect their volunteer work for the party has produced in fund-raising and vote-getting.

Those who oppose liberality in law governing women’s reproductive rights and rights for non-hetero-sexual orientations, and oppose diminution of Christian presence in the public sphere (so that Canada is more secular, lacking religious culture tilted toward Christianity) are motivated people.

They work hard for Harper’s party; there is no other party they could support. Rather than disengage from politics, since Harper has come to power these people are more active, sensing they might have a man in Ottawa to bend policy more to their liking in social life.

Alberta industrialists are secure knowing Harper is their guy in government; now social conservatives are testing the limits of his loyalty to them.

It is no mystery that Nelson readers of  newspapers will have noticed more letters to the editor on the issue of abortion.

This is no accident.

The supporters for more regulation of abortion, to alter the status quo and make abortion less accessible, are following a strategy. They want the debate back on the public agenda after years of quiet on this front.

Do we need the debate? Polling has suggested that Canadians have not been agitated by the question over the decade and more since it went dormant.  But a dedicated minority can put it in front of politicians in a way that will seem to demand action.

What Harper will do is not at all clear; his statements about not re-opening the issue mean nothing. He has already indicated an anti-abortion agenda in his foreign-aid funding policy. Loyalty demands reward.

Harper has a clear field to operate just now, as the left and centre of our politics are in disarray and the NDP particularly is fumbling the best hand of cards ever dealt to it. Unite-the-Left seems the obvious path -- but the Right took over a decade to bring Reform/Alliance/Conservatives together.

We on the left will have to wait and suffer while our people sort themselves out, as the right waited out the 1990’s.

I am not worried that Harper can take Canadians too far to the right for us to reverse course. When we tire of this ideologically-driven reactionary from the Tex-Albertan mindset, we will rise in time to eject him.

If I think we cannot, or will not, I too will promote secessionist opinion: 

Free B.C. — Let the Prairies go!

Annex liberal New England!

A new Canada, independent and progressive, will be my country.

Charles Jeanes,

Nelson, B.C.