Most Canadians are pretty jaded by US politics; as are most Americans, for that matter. I have to commend Stephen Harper’s latest initiative stolen directly from the Liberal playbook. Conservative Prime Minister Harper has been rapidly spending an unexpected $10 Billion surplus by sponsoring huge provincial issues in key voting districts but at the same time cutting women’s and childcare programs, as well as housing programs for the poor, and proposing a tax cut to the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Stéphane Dion, leader of the Liberal Party has been opposed to these plans and proposed instead that the money be kept, invested in critical programs and that the GST remain as it is while cutting income tax for the poor.

So, yesterday, Mr. Harper’s folks starting sounding like Liberals with an almost identical financial plan for the budget that will be submitted by Mr. Harper in March.

Is it possible for a leader to become so cynical about his/her fellow citizens that s/he would play games with their lives and families and companies? Is it possible that such a leader would drive people into apathy and stop economic growth just to win an election? Is it possible he would damage Canada’s reputation in the global community just to gain more power? Apparently so.

Mr. Harper is starting to look a lot more like George Bush the closer we get to the election. He has become a master at playing on the fears and concerns of Canadians, manipulating his own party into a shell that looks very similar to the Liberal or even New Democratic Party (read: Socialist Party for you Americans). Once again, The Chameleon is adapting his playbook cover to appeal to all liberals in Canada.

An important thing to remember about Mr. Harper is that he admires George Bush and his politics of fear and autocracy. He is willing to lie and manipulate the truth to reach his goals.

Mr. Bush has lied about Iraq, having destabilized the Middle East and made the US the one of the three least admired countries in the world. Mr. Harper’s mis-information has caused Canada to be rebuked by the UN not once but three times in the past year.

Mr. Bush has refused, categorically, to do anything about environmental issues such as pollution and conservation. In the past two years, Mr. Harper has stated that those issues are a “socialist plot” and that “the jury is still out” on global warming only a year ago.

Mr. Bush has the Patriot Act which allows his paranoid cronies to spy on citizens, demand information about anyone without a warrant or probable cause, imprison citizens or visitors without ever providing evidence or bringing them to trial, and keep Americans in a state of fear due to possible terrorist activities (somewhere in the world … or not). Mr. Harper has promised that the Liberals will be defeated for bringing about the end of similar (though not as broad) anti-terrorism legislation in Canada; that same act allowed a man to be held for six years without trial or charges being laid while not making Canadians one tiny bit more secure.

Mr. Bush has packed his cabinet with sycophants and picked a vice president that couldn’t be any more idiotic or downright corrupt. His first Secretary of State was emasculated; his first Secretary of Defense was a vicious, nuclear hatchet man; his first Attorney General couldn’t beat a dead man in a State election.

Mr. Harper is packing the courts here with conservative politicians. His first environment minister couldn’t even spell the word; his second is almost as bad (“we are going to focus on reduction, not adaptation”). A Liberal MP was recruited while on a tour of Lebanon to give opinions and then pulled into the Tory fold and all the information from that report was made confidential so that Canadians will not benefit from the tour or the information.

The Chameleon has become a master at “silly-putty” politics, a term Conservatives used for Liberals prior to Mr. Harper.

In a move even more typical of Mr. Bush, Mr. Harper seems to love big oil and big corporations. He has given $600 million to Alberta to make the province green. Alberta has more money than god! Like Alaska, the residents get a profit-sharing check due to the oil-sands project. Like Alaska, folks from Alberta vote conservative. Alberta is sitting on a mountain of cash while the other provinces are paying off its bankruptcy of several decades ago. And it is not sinking its own money into its infrastructure – schools, hospitals and public services all lag behind the other provinces …even Saskatchewan who is considerably poorer. In Feb 2007, Macleans reported that “Federal tax auditors are reluctant about ordering Canada's largest corporations to turn over key financial records because they don't want to damage relations … [a]dding to the massive backlog in a program that roots out $1.4 billion in unpaid corporate taxes each year.” See: Macleans.CA, Federal taxman's angst lets giant corporations off the hook: audit, Feb 25, 2007, Dean Beeby.

Mr. Harper has promised $350 million to Quebec to fund its green initiatives even though Quebec’s own public officials are concerned by its citizens’ lack of productivity. Quebecer’s work less than anyone else in Canada and are seeking to have paid naps added to their rough daily schedule.

Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Harper hasn’t got a clue how he’s going to get out of Afghanistan. When Liberal Leader Dion proposed being out next year, Mr. Harper verbally painted a picture of Mr. Dion torturing women and children courtesy of the Taliban. Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Harper apparently thinks that Canadians should stay in the Middle East forever; it’s damned sure that no other country involved there has ever gotten out without giving up. Hundreds of years have proven that their cultures cannot be westernized by westerners and that is simple fact.

Maybe the ugliest of Mr. Harper’s lies relates to child-care. Mr. Harper has stated that the Liberals did nothing to create spaces for child-care during their tenure in government leadership. In fact, the Liberals initiated a 5-year plan at a cost of $5 billion to create thousands upon thousands of spaces for children in child-care. This same plan was slashed immediately upon Mr. Harper’s ascension to power.

Now, Mr. Harper is giving money to any issue that seems to be a focal point for Canadians. He killed the Wheat Board then, realizing what a mistake that was, he reinstituted another similar project and funded them with $100 million.

He has promised $300 million to homeowners and businesses that retrofit their buildings to meet new greener standards; another Liberal program he scrapped last year.

The Chameleon was surprised by Dion’s win. No matter your political affiliation, Dion is a man respected for his principles, decency and intelligence. It would have been so much easier to deal with some of the more traditional politicians of the opposition party. But such is life. Reacting with the only tools available, Mr. Harper has launched an all-out non-campaign against the Liberal Party (see previous editorial) by spending money like it wasn’t his and changing his playbook to appear liberal while remaining inherently conservative. Don’t kid yourself. This is the same Harper who just two weeks ago targeted a minority citizen as a possible terrorist based on ethnicity alone. This is the same Harper who cut slashed housing for the poor in B.C. This is the same Harper who supported the war in Iraq. This is the same Harper who didn’t give a damn about the environment until it became politically inconvenient.

Harper will buy, steal or lie to win this election. And he will do it with his religious persona and corporate look fully intact. He will appear to be a leader and a man for all seasons. In reality, he is simply a chameleon and once he has majority control of the government he will revert to form.

Mar. 13, 2007

Say Anything: Harper's Chameleon Politics, Tarri Hall

Harper: The man for all seasons? Or a very nimble chameleon?

To anyone supportive of the International AIDS conference held in Toronto last year, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's abdication of the conference for a survey of port locations in the Arctic seemed insensitive, at best, and provided the worst example of leadership ... at best. But that action wasn’t truly out of character for Mr. Harper, looking back at his leadership platform of late 2005 and early 2006.

· Mr. Harper proclaimed early in 2006 that he believed the "jury is still out on global warming."
· Mr. Harper’s platform included a promise to force Canadians to again debate the question of discrimination against gays – something they got right the first time they voted against it.
· Mr. Harper said he would not tax income trusts (equity investments of higher risk, non-diversified).
· He said that he wanted a smaller, more stream-lined government and cabinet.
· He supported Mr. Bush's decision to attack Iraq despite the majority opinion of Canadians that the attack on Iraq was not only a mistake but ethically wrong.

And later in the year, Mr. Harper claimed that during a 15 minute chat with Wen Jiabao he stood strong for Canadian values on human rights with the Chinese Premier while at the same time standing strong for British Columbia and Alberta's economic ties to China.

Being the leader of a minority government is hard and to solidify his position, Mr. Harper has obviously revisited his political beliefs, especially and in light of the Liberal Party’s gaining popularity. Mr. Harper wants to be the leader of a majority party and wield the power that goes with that position. In the past few weeks, Mr. Harper has done an about face, of sorts, on the environment. So much so that supposedly liberal columnists for Canada's finest publications find they can no longer distinguish between the Liberal Party's Stéphane Dion and Stephen Harper. How's that for seasonal wear? The PM in clear-cut green.

Mr. Harper gracefully acceded to public opinion after parliament reopened the debate refusing to allow the state to discriminate against gays. With a sage nod of the head, Harper claimed he represented his supporters against a floodtide of public opinion. Not exactly pink but it could pass for late spring tan.

Mr. Harper has launched a non-campaign for the upcoming election. What is a non-campaign? In Canada, a party is only allowed to spend a specific amount of money on an election. However, if your party is flush with cash and no one has called an election yet, you can spend lots of money on ads against your political opponents for no particular reason except that you don't like what they say. You can even buy ad time for the Super Bowl and then everyone can see what a power player you are. A political leader can do all this without spending any of his party's election funds. So, in effect, a politician runs a non-campaign before a campaign so everyone hates the idea of an election before an election is even called. This is so corporate America I can only call it "Mr. Harper in winter black."

Obviously, Mr. Harper lied about income trusts but that may be okay because no one really believed he was going to let this tax issue slide when he said he wanted to cut other taxes. The money had to come from somewhere! Of course, the seniors that voted for him are out crucial funds for their retirement but most of them are waiting in long medical lines trying to get important health care. Mr. Harper won't have to worry about them for long. Yes, that's another campaign promise Mr. Harper fudged on: solving the long health care waiting lists. And his tax cuts also cut women's programs and child care. I'm afraid we will have to dress Mr. Harper in ashen grey but that is his favorite color and he wears it a lot. It goes well with his coloring and his eyes. By the way, what is Mr. Harper going to do with those taxes on income trusts?

One thing is he's going to do is pay for a much larger cabinet. Yes, Mr. Harper did, in fact, dramatically increase the size of his cabinet ... 34 or 37 members or more … maybe even more tomorrow. He has cleverly allowed Peter MacKay and the Khan guy he stole from the Liberals to deal with Middle East policy, and leaves his general to deal with Afghanistan so that he can back away from Iraq easily without offending his big brother in Washington DC. This is when we see Mr. Harper in a lovely, loud Hawaiian print ... feel the hot air blowing about? It’s not all coming from the oil-sands projects of Alberta.

Those Canadian values we heard were shining in China are a little dim. The Chinese Premier had longer meetings with folks from Indonesia and Southeast Asia and, actually, every other country. And we haven't got our Canadian citizen out of Chinese prison yet. But China may build a port in the northern part of BC so Mr. Harper is going to look fantastic on paper when the next budget comes around. I'm sorry, it will take several budgets for that to happen, but still, we know it's coming. Who cares at that point whether he wears a red silk top with a Maple Leaf Toque? If Canada looks a little less humane, does it really matter, so long as Canada stays in the G8?

But Mr. Harper standing up with Mr. Bill Gates recently and announcing the beginning of a joint initiative for an HIV vaccine was like falling headfirst into flu season. The cynical, unprincipled politics of this, in the latest of a long list of gambits designed to transform Mr. Harper into a man for any season, made me sad. Like giving $360 Million to Quebec for their green initiatives, it is such a blatant political move to secure power that it hits hard … right in the face of all those grandmothers who came from Africa to plead their cases and troubles raising their grand-children … right in the face of all those who believe in Canada and her heart for social issues … right in the face of all those voters who would not discriminate against gays any longer … right in the face of every one of us who wants to believe that Canada is something better. Feb. 24, 2007