Canadian Media Prepares to Hand Harper His Balls on a Platter
Sun Feb 12, 2006 at 06:16:09 PM PDT
Traditionally in Canada, new governments are granted what is called a "honeymoon," as Canadians and the media give the cabinet-in-training some time and leeway to get themselves acquainted with their new portfolios and implement their promised platforms.
Stephen Harper's honeymoon ended the same day his government was sworn in last week, with the announcement that he had appointed an unelected Conservative organizer bagman to the unelected Canadian Senate, so that he could serve as Minister of Public Works Pork; and that the former Liberal cabinet minister, David Emerson, had switched parties to serve as Tory International Trade Minister.
The shit hasn't stopped hitting the fan since, as the Canadian media and the public begin to squeeze the new government on three fronts: Its pledge to abandon the old politics of patronage and cronyism, to be a more moderate, mainstream party than its Alliance/Reform progenitor, and to provide continued support for Canada's important social programmes.
Canadians elected Harper et al. with their fingers crossed, prepared to be vigilant that the party they rejected as corrupt in 1993 and as wingnutty in 2004 doesn't go back to its corrupt slash Socon ways.
The Canadian media is not like the American media. Come to think of it, no western industrialized country has a media quite as obsequious and incurious as the US o' A. This week they began cranking out the stories to remind us that, yes, this new Tory government could perhaps be just as corrupt and wingnutty as Canadians feared.
Emerson and Fortier
As Vancouver radio host Bill Good so piquantely put it, "I still have newspapers in the recycling box declaring a Liberal win in Vancouver Kingsway. Kingsway is traditionally a riding that has supported the social democratic New Democratic Party, and, in the last two elections, the Liberals. It has not elected a Conservative candidate since 1958, and the party came in third with 18% of the vote in the most recent election. The constituents of David Emerson are not happy that Emerson crossed the floor. Since the swearing in last Monday, the Emerson imbroglio has only grown, with a rally of 400 last night in his riding demanding he resign to run in a by-election. Another rally is planned tomorrow.
The furor has now infiltrated the ranks of Harper's backbenchers who will no doubt be a mouthier bunch than the Liberal caucus (expect the wingnuts to start baying about abortion and gay marriage, much to the cringing of Harper and his coterie). Even the Calgary Sun's headline "Emerson Called a Traitor," reflects the furor in solid-blue Alberta, where democratic reform - especially of the Senate - and patronage are huge thorns in the side of voters. The Conservative faithful are at best confused, but mostly infuriated by Harper's betrayal of their principles.
Indeed, it is Harper's appointment of Michel Fortier to the Senate that has caused at least as big a furor in Alberta, where Harper's old party - The Canadian Alliance - had campaigned for an "elected, effective, and equal" Senate since its inception. Harper's election pledge to appoint only people who had been elected in their provinces to the Senate has been seen to be, well, stretching the truth somewhat. As Emerson has refused calls to run in a by-election for his new party, so Fortier has refused to seek a seat in the House or run for a Senate seat.
The Tories are desperately hopin that this story won't have legs. The media is making sure it does. It has been a news item every day since the swearing in.
CBC on the Attack
Oh yes, the CBC won't get fooled again! There are still cars rolling around the streets with faded bumperstickers reading, "Protect the CBC!" Everyone here remembers the budget cuts Brian Mulroney and his government inflicted on the crown corporation - Canada's national broadcaster for over 70 years. Now, the "Mother Corp" is making pre-emptive strikes to make sure that any attempt to undercut the broadcaster by cutting budgets or appointing cronies (as Mulroney appointed one of his former cabinet ministers, Perrin Beatty, as chairman of the corporation), is seen to be pure vengeance.
Exhibit One: The Return of Karlheinz Screiber. Schreiber, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and former Conservative Newfoundland Premier Frank Moores, were targets of a 1995 RCMP investigation into unlawful commissions from the sale of Airbus planes to Air Canada, then a Crown corporation. The investigation didn't go anywhere.
Now CBC's documentary programme, the fifth estate has completed its own investigation, in which Schreiber speaks of paying $300,000 to the former Prime Minister. Dredging up Tory corruption at the beginning of the first Tory government since Mulroney and his successor, Kim Campbell, left office, is...well, a little coincidental.
Exhibit Two: The Wingnuts Cometh. This past week, a stunning documentary on CBC Newsworld's The Lens brought together an evangelical pastor and a gay couple. Each travelled to one another's home cities of Calgary and Vacnouver, and the programme ended with the pastor being converted to the reality of marriage equality in Canada.
Hard on the heels of this documentary, came the report that Focus on the Family Canada would be opening a so-called "think tank", called the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada in Ottawa to provide "information" to federal legislators on such things as abortion and marriage equality. By law, special interest groups are not allowed to lobby or fund politicians or political parties, but you can bet that the CBC and other media have been playing this up as the first rank of Bushco's shock troops hitting the ground.
CBC Radio had a blistering report about this last week on The Current. It began with sound bites of Stephen Harper ending speeches with "God bless Canada" - which, to a nation as secular as this one, is cringe-inducing for most Canadians. It then interviewed members of Harper's Alliance Church in Calgary, asking what they'd like to see from the government of their fellow-congregant. "I'd like to see Stephen finally do something about gay marriage," one after another intoned. Cue the report on the new FoF front-organization in Ottawa, and the knife was firmly twisted in the kidneys of the young Tory government.
Looming on the Horizon
The Speech from the Throne has not yet been written, but already Harper's child care proposals threaten to imperil his minority government. The provinces are lining up to pressure the feds to come through with a plan to provide subsidized child care in addition to the tax credits Harper promised during the election. The NDP has jumped on board, issuing veiled threats to bring down the government if they don't write some sort of national programme into their budget.
Stay tuned kiddies, and break out the "beer and popcorn" - the next few months are gonna be fun!
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