Is Steve Harper forgetting the right?
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© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
By Ted Byfield
Stephen Harper, Canada's new prime minister, unveiled his Cabinet last week and promptly found himself denounced for unprincipled expediency and hypocrisy.
The same Steve Harper, who had said he would appoint only elected senators, chagrinned his supporters by choosing an unelected top-flight Montreal businessman as his first senatorial appointment. This was Michael Fortier, who had helped mastermind Harper into the Tory leadership and helped deliver 10 unexpected Conservative seats from Quebec in the January election. He will be minister of public works.
The same Steve Harper who had deplored the desertion of zillionairess Belinda Stronach last year from his own party to join the Liberal Cabinet, persuaded former Liberal Cabinet minister David Emerson, just re-elected as a Liberal MP in British Columbia, to cross the floor and become Conservative international trade minister.
Harper's explanation was that he couldn't have Montreal and Vancouver, Canada's second and third cities, unrepresented in the Cabinet. Neither had elected a single Tory MP. But it also reflected Harper's determination to make his Cabinet efficient and effective. Both appointees are highly respected in the private sector as men who get things done.
Of far more significance, to my mind, is one man who did not make it into the Cabinet at all. This was Jason Kenney, the Calgary MP who played a key role in putting together the coalition of right-wing parties that made Harper's victory possible, and effectually acted as the party's No. 2 spokesman in the election campaign. So where was Kenney?
Harper's people hastened forth with explanations. A "big job" was being established for Kenney, they said, though it was not in the Cabinet. He was to be made "parliamentary secretary to the prime minister – maybe." And since Harper was appointing no deputy prime minister, Kenney would speak for the whole government when Harper was not in the House. But then a few days later it was announced that other Cabinet ministers would play this role when Harper was away.
So the question remained: Where was Kenney? Kenney, after all, was the foremost "social conservative" in the Harper line-up. He is a Catholic Christian with a record of tireless effort in the pro-life movement. Moreover, he is articulate, reasoned, quick-witted and devastating in debate, all skills he used to great effect in the opposition and in the election campaign.
Two other Albertans had made it into the Cabinet – Calgary's Jim Prentice, as minister of Indian affairs, and Edmonton's Rona Ambrose, as minister of the environment. Both are social liberals. So the question arises: Does the rejection of Jason Kenney signal the rejection of social conservatism in the new government?
To which Harper's defenders would make two replies: For one, they would say, Stockwell Day of British Columbia is no social liberal. He's in the Cabinet. In fact, his blatant social conservatism cost him the election when he led the old Alliance Party. Harper succeeded him as leader, then allied it to the Conservative Party.
But Day is no Jason Kenney. He's what might be called a "Nice-Guy Christian," unlikely to make trouble in Cabinet. Kenney is not a Nice-Guy Christian and, if he saw social conservatism being quietly dumped, could make great trouble. (Jesus Christ, as somebody recently pointed out, wasn't always a Nice Guy, either. That's why they crucified him.)
Not at all, not at all, Harper' defenders would say. Is Harper not allowing a free vote on the bill to repeal gay marriage – "sodomony," as it has been unkindly (though more accurately) called? Certainly, he will, and it might even pass the House. But it will be killed in the Senate, as Harper well knows, so he won't have to apologize for it in pro-gay Toronto and Montreal.
Then what about his plan to pay federal subsidies direct to parents, rather than set up a state-run day-care system? True enough, but he has also signaled Quebec and Ontario that he won't withhold the federal funding for their projected state systems, thereby helping to establish a state system in the two biggest provinces where five-eighths of the Canadian population live.
To the uninformed outsider, all this looks very suspicious. Is the rejection of Kenney the repudiation of what Kenney represents? Will it be paraded before the gays and feminists of the big cities as evidence that Harper has really been their boy all along, and that all these religious wackos in the West really count for nothing in the New Conservative Party? We'll soon know.
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© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
By Ted Byfield
Stephen Harper, Canada's new prime minister, unveiled his Cabinet last week and promptly found himself denounced for unprincipled expediency and hypocrisy.
The same Steve Harper, who had said he would appoint only elected senators, chagrinned his supporters by choosing an unelected top-flight Montreal businessman as his first senatorial appointment. This was Michael Fortier, who had helped mastermind Harper into the Tory leadership and helped deliver 10 unexpected Conservative seats from Quebec in the January election. He will be minister of public works.
The same Steve Harper who had deplored the desertion of zillionairess Belinda Stronach last year from his own party to join the Liberal Cabinet, persuaded former Liberal Cabinet minister David Emerson, just re-elected as a Liberal MP in British Columbia, to cross the floor and become Conservative international trade minister.
Harper's explanation was that he couldn't have Montreal and Vancouver, Canada's second and third cities, unrepresented in the Cabinet. Neither had elected a single Tory MP. But it also reflected Harper's determination to make his Cabinet efficient and effective. Both appointees are highly respected in the private sector as men who get things done.
Of far more significance, to my mind, is one man who did not make it into the Cabinet at all. This was Jason Kenney, the Calgary MP who played a key role in putting together the coalition of right-wing parties that made Harper's victory possible, and effectually acted as the party's No. 2 spokesman in the election campaign. So where was Kenney?
Harper's people hastened forth with explanations. A "big job" was being established for Kenney, they said, though it was not in the Cabinet. He was to be made "parliamentary secretary to the prime minister – maybe." And since Harper was appointing no deputy prime minister, Kenney would speak for the whole government when Harper was not in the House. But then a few days later it was announced that other Cabinet ministers would play this role when Harper was away.
So the question remained: Where was Kenney? Kenney, after all, was the foremost "social conservative" in the Harper line-up. He is a Catholic Christian with a record of tireless effort in the pro-life movement. Moreover, he is articulate, reasoned, quick-witted and devastating in debate, all skills he used to great effect in the opposition and in the election campaign.
Two other Albertans had made it into the Cabinet – Calgary's Jim Prentice, as minister of Indian affairs, and Edmonton's Rona Ambrose, as minister of the environment. Both are social liberals. So the question arises: Does the rejection of Jason Kenney signal the rejection of social conservatism in the new government?
To which Harper's defenders would make two replies: For one, they would say, Stockwell Day of British Columbia is no social liberal. He's in the Cabinet. In fact, his blatant social conservatism cost him the election when he led the old Alliance Party. Harper succeeded him as leader, then allied it to the Conservative Party.
But Day is no Jason Kenney. He's what might be called a "Nice-Guy Christian," unlikely to make trouble in Cabinet. Kenney is not a Nice-Guy Christian and, if he saw social conservatism being quietly dumped, could make great trouble. (Jesus Christ, as somebody recently pointed out, wasn't always a Nice Guy, either. That's why they crucified him.)
Not at all, not at all, Harper' defenders would say. Is Harper not allowing a free vote on the bill to repeal gay marriage – "sodomony," as it has been unkindly (though more accurately) called? Certainly, he will, and it might even pass the House. But it will be killed in the Senate, as Harper well knows, so he won't have to apologize for it in pro-gay Toronto and Montreal.
Then what about his plan to pay federal subsidies direct to parents, rather than set up a state-run day-care system? True enough, but he has also signaled Quebec and Ontario that he won't withhold the federal funding for their projected state systems, thereby helping to establish a state system in the two biggest provinces where five-eighths of the Canadian population live.
To the uninformed outsider, all this looks very suspicious. Is the rejection of Kenney the repudiation of what Kenney represents? Will it be paraded before the gays and feminists of the big cities as evidence that Harper has really been their boy all along, and that all these religious wackos in the West really count for nothing in the New Conservative Party? We'll soon know.