The Politics of Authoritarianism: "I've Never Seen Anything Like It"

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"In a democracy, a wannabe tyrant is just a comical figure on a soapbox unless a huge wave of supporters lifts him to high office." - Bob Altemeyer

When accusations arise that Stephen Harper is too controlling, his supporters will attempt to compare him to people like R.B. Bennett, Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien. All of these men took a disciplined approach to governing.

However, the most common remark heard from supporters and critics alike is that they have never seen anything like this before. Not in Canada. Not in a democracy.

Two years into his governance, the man who brought in the Accountability Act was already hearing complaints that he was one of the most unaccountable prime ministers ever. A couple of other words were being used more often to describe Stephen Harper: autocratic and authoritarian. (1)

Pierre Trudeau certainly expanded the size and power of his office, and Jean Chretien kept an iron grip on his caucus, but Harper surpassed even Chretien.

Chretien had nothing like the extraordinary vetting system put in place by the Conservatives. Advisers Eddie Goldenberg and the late Jean Pelletier did wield enormous power--especially in the later years, when Chretien faced an internal uprising from Paul Martin's supporters—but at least caucus members and civil servants felt free to talk to the media without prior approval. (1)

And over the past five years Stephen Harper has continued to wield enormous control, while refusing to be accountable for any of his actions.

We know why the corporate media let him off the hook, "corporate" being the operative word, but why do his followers?

You see it constantly as they come to his aid, leaving their comments at the end of articles, even when they expose corruption.

It's part of what Bob Altemeyer calls Authoritarian Submission.

Everybody submits to authority to some degree. Imagine a world in which people ignored traffic laws and sped through red lights. The cost of auto insurance would shoot through the roof (although the line-ups to buy it would become much shorter). But some people go way beyond the norm and submit to authority even when it is dishonest, corrupt, unfair and evil. We would expect authoritarian followers especially to submit to corrupt authorities in their lives: to believe them when there is little reason to do so, to trust them when huge grounds for suspicion exist, and to hold them blameless when they do something wrong. (2)

But what of the roughly 2/3 of the population who didn't vote for Stephen Harper?

They also appear to be submitting to his authority, questioning very little. Those are the one that frighten me more than the Harper devotees.

Is it just that it's become the new norm? According to Allan Gregg discussing Lawrence Martin's book Harperland:

Even though it has become a cliché to refer to Stephen Harper as a control freak, the power of Martin’s argument hits you like a jackhammer. Those of us who follow these things quite closely remember a number of occasions when the Conservatives have found themselves in hot water because of allegations of abuse of power, but we tend to forget just how frequently this has occurred and the myriad forms this malfeasance has taken over the last four and a half years. (3)

Maybe that's why it's working. We're shell shocked.

He was going to be a different prime minister and indeed he was. And though he was operating more like a monarch than an elected Member of Parliament, his people still defended him.

[They] were content to explain away the abuse of power with the rationale that other PMs had done it and therefore so could Harper. The line of reasoning hardly served to enhance the state of democracy. The system, said [Donald] Savoie*, had devolved into a "court government," with the leader and a few select courtiers, most of them unelected, exercising power with kingly presumption. Savoie had hoped that Harper would move away from such a model once he'd settled in to office. But in fact, he was going the other way. (1)

We've never seen anything like it.

Footnotes:

* Academic and specialist in governance and public administration

Sources:

1. Harperland: The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 120-122

2. The Authoritarians, By Bob Altemeyer, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, 2006

3. Negative Statesmanship: Stephen Harper may end up being known for what he does not do more than for what he does, By Allan Gregg, Literary Review of Canada

The Politics of Exploitation: The Haiti Crisis Revisited

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

There is an interesting summary of Stephen Harper's response to the Haiti earthquake, in Lawrence Martin's book Harperland. He first describes how Harper was in trouble over the prorogation and how the resulting anger dominated the news.

The Haiti crisis then provided him an opportunity to change the channel and present himself as a take charge kind of guy.

A national day of protest as planned, belying the notion that Canadians were apathetic, that they didn't care about the functioning of their democracy. The momentum kept building, and then in an instant it was gone. A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck near the capital of Haiti, sending tens of thousands to their deaths. It was one of the worst natural catastrophes in a century. Images from Port-au-Prince cast a pall over everything. Suddenly, arguments over the propriety of shutting down Parliament, or any other issue of public policy, seemed a trifling comparison.

The priority became a massive aid campaign, and the prime minister set about it in a blaze of activity. No one could accuse him of sitting idle now. Among the many fortunate breaks Harper had received in his career, the timing of this tragedy ranked high.

There was a month go before the Vancouver Olympics, and until the earthquake, he was destined to be on the defensive that entire month. The opposition parties had the wind in their sails, and the national protest day was promising to be a dramatic event. But Haiti totally consumed the airwaves for two weeks running, knocking prorogation and the planned protest to the back pages.

Harper hardly had the image of a great humanitarian or friend of & United Nations. But given the opportunity to change the political channel and lead a humanitarian effort, he did so with great aplomb, winning applause from all quarters. He dispatched the military in a timely fashion; made good use of his cabinet, most notably Peter MacKay and Lawrence Cannon; was more than generous with financial aid; played host to a quickly assembled international conference on the crisis, and shared the spotlight with a shaken Michaelle Jean, the Haitian-born governor general.

The epic catastrophe also allowed Harper to showcase the rebuilt armed forces. Canada's once sluggish and ill-equipped peacetime military was now well tuned and ready to respond to a crisis. When the 2004 tsunami struck, Canadian medics and engineers had to wait days to hitch a ride, as it was put, to get there. But this time, Canada's big new military aircraft were doing the job. (1)

Aside from the obvious, exploiting a crisis, there are many statements in the above that show either a deliberate attempt to gloss over the situation, or a misunderstanding based on the popular media reports of the day.

However, I suppose Martin is only tackling the story from the political perspective, and he's right. It was a gift. Just not for the victims of the quake, who received very little.

He Dispatched the Military in a Timely Fashion

Aside from my knee jerk reaction to the statement, "Among the many fortunate breaks Harper had received in his career, the timing of this tragedy ranked high", which was to resort to language I couldn't use here, let's break down this great humanitarian effort.

He did indeed show off our hardware and the planes took off with great thrust and enthusiasm. The people in Haiti needn't worry. Help was on it's way.

Harper's dispatch of troops matched a similar response from the United States. The military must first restore order we were told. But before saving lives?

It seems that the military was given landing preference over medical supplies and health personnel.

A Doctors Without Borders/Médecins SanscFrontières (MSF) cargo plane carrying 12 tons of medical equipment, including drugs, surgical supplies and two dialysis machines, was turned away three times from Port-au-Prince airport since Sunday night despite repeated assurances of its ability to land there. This 12-ton cargo was part of the contents of an earlier plane carrying a total of 40 tons of supplies that was blocked from landing on Sunday morning. Since January 14, MSF has had five planes diverted from the original destination of Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic. These planes carried a total of 85 tons of medical and relief supplies. (2)

And the Navy ships that Harper dispatched with "great aplomb"? According to the Chronicle Herald:

OTTAWA — When HMCS Athabaskan and HMCS Halifax were ordered to sail on a humanitarian mission to Haiti on Jan. 13, they worked through the night, passing boxes hand to hand, loading stores aboard the ships — everything they would need for the humanitarian mission. But sailors didn’t take aboard much in the way of relief aid — food packages, medical supplies or shelters — for distribution to Haitians.

In the House of Commons on Thursday, during his response to the speech from the throne, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said otherwise. "Ships of the Atlantic fleet were immediately ordered to Haiti from Halifax, loaded with relief supplies," he said as he recapped the government’s efforts to help Haiti recover from the earthquake.

... During the voyage, some sailors wondered if the ships might have been better off staying in port a little longer — say 12 hours — to take on more relief supplies, food aid and medical equipment before sailing for Haiti. (3)

They could have used a little less "aplomb" and a few more necessities. And they could have done it with just 12 more hours.

And we also learn that 10 months after the crisis, only 35% of the promised money (matching Canadian citizen's donations) has been delivered by our government.

The Canadian International Development Agency says only $65.15 million has been paid out so far. The $65 million that has been delivered has been to large agencies only, among them ones identified by many observers as the least able to deliver timely aid directly to victims. (4)

1.3 million Haitians are still living in tent cities and a cholera epidemic is threatening more lives.

So pardon me if I don't get all warm and fuzzy over our country's response to this crisis. These people have been exploited for years, which is why they were so poor in the first place. And sadly, our prime minister saw an opportunity to exploit them some more for his own political career.

And he wonders why we lost the UN Security bid.

This is who we are now, and life in Harperland is just peachy keen.

Continuation:

The Haiti Crisis Revisited: Canada's Military Response

Sources:

1. Harperland:The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 241-242

2. Doctors Without Borders Plane with Lifesaving Medical Supplies Diverted Again from Landing in Haiti Patients in Dire Need of Emergency Care Dying from Delays in Arrival of Medical Supplies, January 19, 2010

3. The Halifax Chronicle Herald, March 12, 2010

4. Aid doesn't help Haiti much if it never gets there, By pogge, Peace, Order and Good Government, November 5, 2010

The Politics of Sucking Up: Handling the Quebec Question

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"Look. I've got to suck up to Quebec, so just shut up and let me get on with it." Stephen Harper (1)

When Stephen Harper announced that he would be giving Quebec a "distinct society" status, many of his supporters were shocked, including his minister of Inter-governmental affairs, Michael Chong, who was not consulted on the plan. He resigned his position as a result.

This was a complete 180 for a party that had always taken a strong stand against Quebec nationalism.

The Reform party is very much a modern manifestation of the Republican movement in Western Canada; the U.S. Republicans started in the western United States. The Reform Party is very resistant to the agenda and the demands of the secessionists, and on a very deep philosophical level. (1997 speech to the
Council for National Policy) Stephen Harper (2)

When Stephen Harper suggested that the Reform party was against giving into Quebec on a "very deep philosophical level", he meant it. It was very deeply ingrained.

Preston Manning was a fan of Abrahm Lincoln and in many ways saw himself as the man who would unite the country by getting tough with Quebec. He even hinted that violence may be necessary and often worked parts of Lincoln's 'A House Divided' speech into his own.

The Reform Party would represent English Canada with an Anglo hierarchy. French would be "allowed" in Parliament and the courts, but not mandatory anywhere. (3)

So it's interesting from Lawrence Martin's Harperland, that Stephen Harper was only interested in Quebec for his own political gain. A superficial gesture just for show.

But then he blew it when he went ballistic during the 2008 coalition "crisis", painting the entire province with a separatist brush. And his rhetoric further inflamed the West against La Belle Province. His remarks about the unsuitability of the Bloc Québécois involvement in the proposed Liberal-NDP coalition were characterized by professor C.E.S. Franks of Queen's University, Kingston, as "inflammatory and tendentious rhetoric' . (Globe & Mail, March 2009).

I remember comments at the end of online articles, often becoming so visceral, the editors would have to close down the comments section. One man suggested that "the boys from Alberta" need to come down and teach those you know what a lesson. It was horrible.

Dennis Pilon, a political scientist at the University of Victoria, stated that : "I do not mean to be an alarmist in suggesting that we may be heading for violence. But the actions of this prime minister are coming dangerously close to inciting mob rule." (4)

I don't think Stephen Harper or the Reform Party really understood Quebec grievances or their French-Canadian culture. He was often dismissive. When on Fox News in 2003 telling Canadians that Chretien was wrong not to go to Iraq, he suggested that "Only in Quebec, with its "pacifist tradition," are most people opposed to the war. Outside of Quebec, I believe very strongly the silent majority of Canadians is strongly supportive."

Quebec may have a "pacifist" tradition but they are not unlike most Canadians in that regard.

And then when speaking to the American Council for National Policy he brought up the Meech Lake Accord and the demands made by the province.

The establishment came down with a constitutional package which they put to a national referendum. The package included distinct society status for Quebec and some other changes, including some that would just horrify you, putting universal Medicare in our constitution, and feminist rights, and a whole bunch of other things.

I guess it also means he doesn't understand the rest of us either, because most Canadians would not be "horrified" by universal Medicare, feminist rights and "a whole bunch of other things" (aka: gay rights).

But now that we know he was only "sucking up" to Quebec, and "had to get on with it", then it's all OK. Wink. Wink.

Sources:

1. Harperland:The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 82

2. Full text of Stephen Harper's 1997 speech, Canadian Press, December 14, 2005

3. Preston Manning and the Reform Party, By Murray Dobbin, Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing, 1992, ISBN: 0-88780-161-7

4. Losing Confidence: Power, Politics and Crisis in Canadians Democracy, By Elizabeth May, McClelland & Stewart, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-7710-5760-1, Pg. 226