I ran into one of those quote pages, and I decided to point out precicely why I am uncomfortable with Harper becoming PM of Canada.
From good old Preston Manning's mouth: (he founded Reform 1.0 as a split-off of the old PC party)
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"Stephen [Harper] had difficulty accepting that there might be a few other people (not many, perhaps, but a few) who were as smart as he was with respect to policy and strategy."
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Former Reform Party founder and leader Preston Manning on Stephen Harper in his memoirs.
The idea that you know more than simply everyone else is a dangerous one. And when you have former PC-party leaders saying that a Liberal is the better choice...
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"In a sense, people are so enraged at the Liberal government, that they're giving Stephen Harper and his government a bye. They should take a look at what he proposes."
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Former Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark, April 26th 2004, accusing Conservative Leader Stephen Harper of harbouring a "hidden" agenda. Reported in the Globe and Mail.
Now, to some who consider the PC's and the Liberals to be indistinguishable, and want a hard-core Conservative party, such a condemnation is good for Harper. But, to most people, it should highlight exactly how much the Conservative party is Reform 3.0, and not the party which is dismantled and name it stole.
He's a regionalist:
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"Much about the Canadian Alliance is worthy of support, and a large number of Canadians do support it. But the CA will be under considerable pressure to rid itself of any tinge of a Western agenda or Alberta control. This we must fight."
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Stephen Harper, now leader of the Conservative Party, in "It is time to seek a new relationship with Canada," December 12th, 2000.
The apparatus of the Reform party is full of crackpots:
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"Rob is a true reformer and a true conservative. He has been a faithful supporter of mine and I am grateful for his work."
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Stephen Harper endorsing Calgary West Conservative MP Rob Anders, who in 2001 called Nelson Mandela "a Communist and terrorist."
While they have played "whack a mole" whenever someone said something that got on the news, this sort of thing makes me worried.
Harper considers people who don't support him ... well, I'll let his own words explain it:
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"You have to remember that west of Winnipeg the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent Asian immigrants or recent migrants from Eastern Canada; people who live in ghettos and are not integrated into Western Canadian society."
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Conservative leader Stephen Harper, in Report Newsmagazine, 2001.
When you explain away people who don't support you by catagorizing them, then dismissing them, you raise my alarm bells.
Quotes from
http://www.intheirownwords.ca/harper.php
For a more intense discussion and description of Canadian politics, read
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/33416
there are a few good, long posts, that describe the political map of Canada quite well.
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In Canada, people who are "conservative" tend to be either Burkean conservatives or neo-conservatives, with a small libertarian wing. We really lack a paleo-con element, partially because religious fundamentalism and millenarianism aren't as common up here (Canadians are predominantly Catholic or atheist/agnostic, whereas most Yanks are some variation of Protestant). There also isn't a really strong tendency towards nativism, which gives Canadian conservatism a very different feel. Conservatives are rarely in power federally in Canada, which means that they aren't really "conservative". It might be better to think of them as Whigs these days in terms of their goals, even though the actual historical members of the Canadian Whig party became the Liberals.
The "liberals" are classical 19th century liberals. Not social darwinists (which was never that common a viewpoint anyhow), but the whole "run the world rationally in order to improve the common lot" etc. schtick is the basis of their viewpoint. The Liberal Party is the institutional party in Canada, and so "liberalism" in Canada is usually more "conservative" (in the sense of wanting to maintain the status quo in regards to the institutions of Canada) than the Conservatives. In terms of actual policy, they're not unlike Third-Way Democrats, except corruption is a modus vivendi.
The NDP are a mixture of old-school organised labour and new-wave Greens, with a few Cold Warriors hanging around in the back. They tend to draw their support from unions, immigrants and the economically disadvantaged. Most "socially aware" upper and middle class people vote Liberal, not NDP. The American Green Party is a close analogue to the coalition that forms the NDP, except the NDP is mainstream in Canada. They've never composed the federal government, but they have, and still do, run provincial governments. They tend to be seen as the protest party in Central Canada, which means that anyone who doesn't want to vote Conservative or Liberal votes for them.
The Bloc Quebequois are a Quebec Separatist / Nationalist party. They used to be devoted to Quebec splitting off from Canada, but after losing two referenda on the matter, they strategically focus on securing greater autonomy for provinces in general. This usually allies them with the Conservatives (who tend to do very well provincially, and thus have an interest in increasing provincial power), though the Bloc itself is a mish-mash ideologically. It's Burkean in its defense of Quebequois tradition, but spends money pretty freely to buy votes when it has to.
Hope that makes things a bit clearer for our American chums.
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the thread contains alot of discussion and clarification and the like about the post.