by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
July 12, 2004
It has been reported that in his first post-election caucus meeting, Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper announced that he is going to take steps to moderate the party and bring it closer to the political centre.
In other words, he wants to make the party the same type of Liberal-light organization that the Progressive Conservative Party was.
During the election, Paul Martin constantly said that Harper had a hidden agenda and that he was dangerous and would lead Canada to ruin by adopting american-style everything. The PM’s scare tactics obviously worked. Contrary to the close election that all of the major pollsters called for, the Liberals managed to get or hold onto 36 seats more than the Conservatives did.
Martin’s negative campaign about hidden agendas was successful. The difference between the polls and the actual vote was the result of people leaning to or supporting the NDP switching their votes to the Liberals to stop the scary Harper. and there were those who were intending to vote Conservative, only to go to the ballot box and vote for the Liberals.
It didn’t help matters that Stephen Harper played defense for much of the campaign and allowed Paul Martin to define the issues that were in many cases non-issues. No doubt the Conservatives were hampered in their campaigning by the fact that the new party had yet to come up with a platform. But much of the Conservative leader’s time was taken up rebutting what members of his own caucus were saying about such issues as abortion, bilingualism, same sex marriage and the notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights. That gave Harper very little time to counter what the Liberals were saying about him.
Now it appears that Stephen Harper may in fact have a hidden (or not-so-hidden) agenda. But instead of becoming a dangerous George W. Bush wannabe, he may be morphing into Joe Clark. Harper doesn’t appear to laugh as much as Joe does, but at least he has a better laugh. Ha…….ha……ha….huh. Harper has said that he plans to have more former Progressive Conservatives playing major roles in the new party, including in his own office. While this is both desirable and necessary in the newly merged party, the desire to move to the centre is a step backwards.
I have previously written in this column that the merger was a mistake; that the PCs should have been allowed to rebuild from their almost total destruction back in 1993 and the Canadian alliance should have been satisfied to be a right wing version of NDP--able to greatly influence policy, but never being able to attain power. and it is not insignificant that for all of the talk about vote splitting, the Conservatives received fewer votes than its two predecessor parties got in the 2000 election.
It is understandable why Stephen Harper wants to move to the centre. The party will not be able to make further inroads into Ontario or Quebec if it is, or is perceived to be too socially conservative. But by moving towards the centre, Harper will come to alienate the mainly Western supporters who were members of the previous Reform and Canadian alliance parties.
It seems that the Conservative Party will become the party that leadership candidate Belinda Stronach envisaged--a "big tent" that welcomes all people regardless of their political beliefs.
If the Conservative Party moves too far to the centre, the social conservatives will leave and probably try to start their own Western based party.
as the great american philosopher Yogi Berra once said--it seems like déjà vu all over again.