For those of you close enough to hear (or far away, but still care), Canada's minority government has recently fallen on a vote of non-confidence. As a result, the next 60 days will not only be a time of frantic christmas shopping, but also frantic sloganeering on the part of our prospective elected representives.
However, there's a serious threat to the fabric of the country. His name is Stephen Harper, he's the leader of the new Conservative party, and he shares the same philosophical foundation as Bush and many of his junta: they're adherents to the teachings of Leo Strauss.
More after the fold.
To help people who aren't familiar with recent Canadian political history, here's a quick summary of Conservatism over the last couple decades. Feel free to skip ahead if it's old news to you.
The Fall and Rise of Conservatism in Canada
The last time a Conservative government was in control in Canada was under
Brian Mulroney from 1984-1993, during which he ushered in a number of highly controversial and ultimately fatal peices of legislation, the most unpopular being the 7% Goods and Services Tax (GST). With politically unpopular moves, a flagging economy, and his inability to successfully resolve the Quebec separatist issue, Mulroney decided it was time to give up the big seat before being forced out. Following Mulroney's retirement and his short-lived replacement
Kim Campbell's disasterous campaign, the Progressive Conservative party was demolished, going from a majority position to only two seats during the 1993 election.
In the wake of the devastation of the Progressive Conservatives, the only vestiges of politically viable conservatism were in regional parties: the Reform and Social Credit parties out of western canada, both of which held a social conservative and economic viewpoint. Preston Manning's Reform Party would end up taking on many of the disaffected PCs in the wake of the 1993 election, becoming the official opposition in 1997. The Reform party tended to accumulate the social conservative former PCers, leaving the more socially liberal to either continue supporting the battered PC party, or migrate to the Liberal party.
Manning recognized that a split conservative vote in Canada would lead to a permanent state of Liberal majority rule, and put all his energies towards unification of the old PC and new Reform parties. Stockwell Day defeated Manning to become party head in 2000, but maintained the push to merge with the PCs.
After a number of machiavellian manoeuvres (including a written declaration by Peter McKay, then-leader of the PC party, to never merge... a vow which was summarily broken), the two parties merged, yielding what is now known as the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC). Day remained as party head until its first leadership convention, whereupon Stephen Harper became the first elected head of the CPC.
Enter Stephen Harper of the CPC
Harper's pedigree comes from the 'Calgary School' of political thought, which is based heavily on Strauss' concepts of innate inequality, social darwinism and rule of the elite.
In Washington, Straussians exert powerful influence from within the inner circle of the White House. In Canada, they roost, for now, in the so-called Calgary School, guiding Harper in framing his election strategies. What preoccupies Straussians in both places is the question of "regime change."
Strauss defined a regime as a set of governing ideas, institutions and traditions. The neoconservatives in the Bush administration, who secretly conspired to make the invasion of Iraq a certainty, had a precise plan for regime change. They weren't out to merely replace Saddam with an American puppet. They planned to make the system more like the U.S., with an electoral process that can be manipulated by the elites, corporate control over the levers of power and socially conservative values.
...
Is regime change possible through the electoral process? It's happening in the U.S., where the neocons are succeeding in transforming the American state from a liberal democracy into a corporatist, theocratic regime. As Canada readies for a federal election, the question must be asked: Are we next?
The straussians believe that the masses are not responsible, intelligent, wise or otherwise capable of managing their affairs reliably, so the elite must often deceive them into doing what's "right".
Strauss believed that allowing citizens to govern themselves will lead, inevitably, to terror and tyranny, as the Weimar Republic succumbed to the Nazis in the 1930s. A ruling elite of political philosophers must make those decisions because it is the only group smart enough. It must resort to deception -- Strauss's "noble lie" -- to protect citizens from themselves. The elite must hide the truth from the public by writing in code. "Using metaphors and cryptic language," philosophers communicated one message for the elite, and another message for "the unsophisticated general population," philosopher Jeet Heer recently wrote in the Globe and Mail. "For Strauss, the art of concealment and secrecy was among the greatest legacies of antiquity."
I'm sure few people on Kos haven't yet heard the "code-words" issued by right-wing ideologues over their
causes célèbres in the US ("activist" judges, "crusade" in Iraq, etc) which seem innocuous to the masses but have specific meanings amongst the true-believers. Some Canadian subcultures also have their codewords. One of the most popular terms exploits regional bigotries: the concept of "Western Alienation". Canadians Straussians have the luxury of dual-use of this phrase; its original connotation to rally the plebes in the west against Upper canadian resource exploitation, and its newer more subtle context:
The Calgary School has successfully hidden its program beneath the complaint of western alienation. "If we've done anything, we've provided legitimacy for what was the Western view of the country," Calgary Schooler Barry Cooper told journalist Marci McDonald in her important Walrus article. "We've given intelligibility and coherence to a way of looking at it that's outside the St. Lawrence Valley mentality." This is sheer Straussian deception. On the surface, it's easy to understand Cooper's complaint and the Calgary School's mission. But the message says something very different to those in the know. For 'St. Lawrence Valley mentality,' they read 'the Ottawa-based modern liberal state,' with all the negative baggage it carries for Straussians. And for 'Western view,' they read 'the right-wing attack on democracy.' We've provided legitimacy for the radical-right attack on the Canadian democratic state, Cooper is really saying.
Of course, it's pointless to have a message if you have no means to disseminate it. To accomplish that, the last decade has seen the growth of biased news sources in Canada, mostly in print form (National Post, various Sun newspapers) and increasingly on cable TV (such as the CanWest Global network). While perhaps not as extreme and blatantly partisan as Fox News, these sources are perhaps more dangerous; they present their message in more subtle forms and operate from a basis of voluminous on-message work, rather than pure volume and audacity of lie.
A network is already in place to assist Harper in foisting his radical agenda on the Canadian people.
In 2003, he delivered an important address to a group called Civitas. This secretive organization, which has no web site and leaves little paper or electronic trail, is a network of Canadian neoconservative and libertarian academics, politicians, journalists and think tank propagandists.
Harper's adviser Tom Flanagan is an active member. Conservative MP Jason Kenney is a member, as are Brian Lee Crowley, head of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and Michel Kelly-Gagnon of the Montreal Economic Institute, the second and third most important right-wing think tanks after the Fraser Institute.
Civitas is top-heavy with journalists to promote the cause. Lorne Gunter of the National Post is president. Members include Janet Jackson (Calgary Sun) and Danielle Smith (Calgary Herald). Journalists Colby Cosh, William Watson and Andrew Coyne (all National Post) have made presentations to Civitas.
The Globe and Mail's Marcus Gee is not mentioned in relation to Civitas but might as well be a member, if his recent column titled "George Bush is not a liar," is any evidence. In it, Gee repeats the lies the Bush neocons are furiously disseminating to persuade the people that Bush is not a liar.
(Oh, and a quick shout out to his fans: You'll probably notice references to a couple former
Conrad Black properties in the prior block quote. Suprised? I didn't think so.)
Battle for the Soul of Canada
So Harper has established his credentials as a true believer and adherent to the same concepts currently running roughshod through the once-democracy that the US has now become. The Straussian school of thought really stands as the antithesis of most everything the majority of Canadians consider as "Canadian". Populism, Humanitarism, Equality and Fairness are all foreign and counterproductive to the straussian worldview, except possibly as empty gestures used to pacify the plebes and keep them in line. A Harper victory may not guarantee the dismantlement of all things we hold dear as ineffably Canadian, but would certainly be a great blow.
The speech Harper gave to Civitas was the source of the charge made by the Liberals during the 2004 election -- sure to be revived in the next election -- that Harper has a scary, secret agenda. Harper urged a return to social conservatism and social values, to change gears from neocon to theocon, in The Report's Ted Byfield's apt but worrisome phrase, echoing visions of a future not unlike that painted in Margaret Atwood's dystopian work, A Handmaid's Tale.
The state should take a more activist role in policing social norms and values, Harper told the assembled conservatives. To achieve this goal, social and economic conservatives must reunite as they have in the U.S., where evangelical Christians and business rule in an unholy alliance. Red Tories must be jettisoned from the party, he said, and alliances forged with ethnic and immigrant communities who currently vote Liberal but espouse traditional family values. This was the successful strategy counselled by the neocons under Ronald Reagan to pull conservative Democrats into the Republican tent.
Ironically, the success of the Straussian viewpoint in the U.S. can serve progressive Canadians as the most explicit reason to reject it, assuming that other parties' politicians can make the point without beating it to death and turning people off of the message. If there's any consolation to be drawn from the misery caused by the Bush junta, perhaps it could be that your example could spare Canada from sliding down the same slope.
Still, we can't presume that the big bad example to the south can keep us safe...
Movement towards the goal must be "incremental," he (Harper) said, so the public won't be spooked.
Regime change, one step at a time.
Many Canadians have developed the 'feeling' that Harper is harbouring dark secrets, but aren't aware of the form those secrets take. It's entirely possible that, in the event of a Conservative loss in the upcoming election, he'll be replaced by a more respectable-appearing candidate... one that can hide the Straussian agenda more effectively, and deflect the creepy feeling people get from Harper.
We may then have some SERIOUS danger to contend with here in the northern latitudes.