This piece by Naomi Klein is still worth reading even if it's a day old and already a tad dated. I bring it up because I'd have to disagree with one of her central arguments: that what we'll see in January is a deeply chastened Harper.
"Chastened" is not the way I'd describe the man I listened to on the radio a couple hours ago. More like: "somewhat contrite for the time being." What was all that stuff about there being four parties in the House but only the three national parties have to work together through this time of economic instability? Way to distance yourself from all the "deal with the devil" rhetoric there, Stevie. Way to cool the fires of separatism in Quebec and quench the flames of franco-hating in the West.
That he said it the same in French and English will, I suppose, be read as "honourable" in Alberta (though I think they spell it "honorable" there). But in Quebec it'll sound like a big ol' eff you. Duceppe has a right to be pissed.
I expect to see more of the smug Harper in the months to come. He's just pulled off the biggest coup of his career -- figuratively and, one could argue, literally.
12.04.2008
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3 comments:
I think the real tragedy in this that the Cons have lost Quebec. Frankly, I was hoping they'd pick up some Bloc seats in the last election. The upside would have been bringing Bloc voters back into the fold of a national party and hopefully bringing a little Quebec intelligence into a West-centric party. but no, they blew it in the election and now they've guaranteed the existence of the Bloc for the forseeable future.
What has this week told us? Two-thirds of the people in Quebec are disenfranchised from ever playing a role in government because any national party that tries to let them into the sandbox gets labelled a traitor.
I had hoped the coalition would succeed because Harper, well he can't play well with others. But you ask
"What was all that stuff about there being four parties in the House but only the three national parties have to work together through this time of economic instability?"
The Bloc is the Bloc. It's a provincial party elected federally. They will align themselves in the best interests of Quebec. Always. They will not consider the best interests of Canada unless they also see it as in the interest of Quebec or at least as neutral to Quebec and not damaging to their power base. In that sense Harper is correct in implying only three national parties. I believe that's his thinking anyway.
I do think you're right that Harper's vitriol will play badly in Quebec and well in the West and that can't be a good thing for Canada as a whole. We've got a big problem in this country and Quebec sovereignty, like it or not, is a big part of it.
Harper of course only makes it worse.
Sure Anon... the Bloc's a provincially focussed party. No argument here. But... by excluding the Bloc from his list of parties that can be counted on to work constructively towards solving the nation's economic problems, Harper is implicitly promoting the idea that what is good for Quebec is bad for the rest of the country --- or, perhaps more accurately, he's suggesting that because the Bloc has a mandate to act in Quebec's interest first, they are somehow incapable of acting for the greater good. It's an idea popular in the West but contrary to fact.
What's in Quebec's interest is often in the rest of Canada's -- granted, their concerns (aid for the manufactoring sector, for instance) may dovetail more often with Ontario's -- but to suggest Quebec is always out to screw the rest of the country with spite is just wrong.
The Bloc's been in the House for i don't know how many years now and have been voting on issues of national import that whole time. And I have to say, when I hear which way the Bloc is voting on any of the issues I follow, I tend to agree with their judgment. (Gay marriage, the environment.)
So Harp's assault on the Bloc, seems to me, is nothing more than cynical manipulation of western paranoia. And, I wouldn't doubt, an act of spite to punish quebeckers for abandoning him in favour of Duceppe during the eleciton.
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