It is pretty obvious that the Prime Minister has a plan but it is interesting to note what isn't there:
The Liberals embraced the Charter, the flag, peacekeeping and multiculturalism. Now, the Harper Tories are pursuing symbols and areas ignored by the Grits – the Arctic, the military, national sports and especially the monarchy, according to senior Tories. For Mr. Harper and his Conservatives, the payoffs could be great: a new pride in the country, an ability to shape the view of new Canadians and, politically, the potential to marginalize the Official Opposition NDP, who could be forced more and more to defend Quebec’s interests against all others. Quebeckers are not as supportive of national symbols and the monarchy as is the rest of Canada.
I happed to be rereading George Grant's Lament for A Nation, the 2005 reissue of the 1965 book - or rather Andrew Potter's extensive introduction as I sort of nodded off last evening before I got any further. I took course from Grant and, as a King's Man, got to socialize with the guy over beers like other small college profs. Just remembered that he smoked all the way through class. Good guy.
Anyway, his lament was the end of the conservative era. But what he described as conservatism was dramatically different from what we know today: plenty of state institutional intervention in the economy, anti-libertarian, pro-heritage and pro-respect. The sort of thing still seen in Maritime Canadian politics and, in large chunks but not others, utterly different from Harper's plan. Because Harper's plan is actually liberal, progressive.
He wants to make something out of nothing. To create a new national order. He pledges to reassert the importance of the military then takes a billion out of the budget. He expects the largely population-free Arctic to be an important symbol but as it is a place few will visit which has other traditions and characteristics than where most Canadians live, it is a foreign land. He wants us to focus on sports - but only the ones we win at - like short track speed skating or ski dance, not the ones we actually like to play and which keep us fit... like soccer, softball or curling.
So what to make of it? Not traditional, not really conservative and not really authentic. Shallow, temporary and, in the long term, unsatisfactory. Good luck to you.
Comments
Ed Carson - August 20, 2011 12:34 PM
This has nothing to with your post, but I thought you might appreciate it: http://harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=9. copy and paste at your leisure.
Ben (The Tiger) - August 20, 2011 5:12 PM
Cranky, cranky.
Alan - August 20, 2011 9:59 PM
If that is what you mean by plastic, phony, made up tradition yes, well, I crank at it.
Ben (The Tiger) - August 22, 2011 8:33 AM
Think of it more as a corrective to the Liberal whitewashing.
But the Charter and the flag aren't going anywhere (nor should they), and I think Taber reads a bit too much into the moves.
Alan - August 22, 2011 9:15 AM
Phrases like "the Liberal whitewashing" really have no meaning and are part of the fabrication of the Tories' new past.
There is, apparently, a new movement in historical theory which points out that "the Quiet Revolution" in Quebec is just what was called "the 60s" everywhere else. The Federal Liberal party no more controlled the changes that occurred worldwide in the 60s to early 80s than the Beatles did.
Ben (The Tiger) - August 22, 2011 10:07 AM
Hellyer did what he did. It had to be undone.
Alan - August 22, 2011 10:28 AM
Hellyer: a man so singularly and wickedly powerful he duped the Aussies, too.
Alan - August 22, 2011 10:38 AM
And it is not like the Harper government has undone the unification of the Canadian Forces.
Ben (The Tiger) - August 22, 2011 10:58 AM
Oh, the unification was fine.
Trying to kill off the history was what sucked.
So, keep the unification, ditch the ditching of the history, and all is well.
Alan - August 22, 2011 11:21 AM
So, you will agree then that much of Harper's "new past" is phony-baloney and dangerous?
Ben (The Tiger) - August 22, 2011 11:46 AM
No, I certainly won't.
The RCN and the RCAF are not phony, nor dangerous, except to our enemies.
All we're doing is looking at Canada as a country that didn't get started in the 1960s. This is a readjustment, not a revolution.
Alan - August 22, 2011 11:54 AM
Well, it would be interesting then to find actual evidence of pre-1960s Canada in something produced by Harper. His anti-state-enterprise, continentalist, faux pioneer hugging is all a bit embarrassing as an expression of what was. It may actually not be bad but history it ain't.
Ben (The Tiger) - August 22, 2011 12:12 PM
Canada's always had a mix of private and state enterprise, with promotion of and resistance to the latter. And continentalism has a long history, too -- what were the Reciprocity debates, after all? All that's happened is the Grits and Tories have switched sides over the years -- but that was Mulroney and Turner's doing, not Harper's.
Plenty of real history here.
Alan - August 22, 2011 12:36 PM
Well, not really. English-speaking Canada was founded on old school conservative state policy and the alliance between the conservatism, the Crown and the church managed Quebec until the mid-1900s. Everything from populating open areas in a state controlled and state supported manner as opposed to US private land speculation to the continuation of massive wheat pools, huge tightly regulated chartered banks and even the LCBO as legacies of centralized conservative statism on the corporate side.
Like Trudeau, Harper's not switching sides but just says he's creating something purportedly new while maintaining the fundamental status quo (like Chretien's financial policies to a lesser degree of success than the Grits). Unlike Trudeau, Harper faces a problem - fewer cards actually in his hands. Not worse ones, fewer. Thirty years of weakening Federalism has left Ottawa without as many levers to pull. Plus, centralized administration sorta works (the Canadian Forces at the Federal level, public health at the provincial) so he can't frig with that. Plus he and his own have no capacity to enunciate vision. It has become a self-fulfillment.
Ben (The Tiger) - August 22, 2011 12:47 PM
There's a streak of Trudeau in Harper, yes, though many of his supporters would hate to hear it.
I don't know if he's that bad at the vision thing -- his government sure seems to have pushed your buttons, here.
But I really don't see that that much has changed. Again, it's a readjustment, not a revolution. Which is also very Canadian.
Alan - August 22, 2011 1:31 PM
He only pushes my buttons because he is incoherent. And it is a big waste because he could do so much better.
Ben (The Tiger) - August 22, 2011 1:35 PM
Give him time... :p
Alan - August 22, 2011 2:16 PM
Doubt it. He's a well meaning half-dud. He'll manage the economy fine, leave a confused legacy based on playing with symbols and the next generation of leaders - including Tories - will move on.