The Harper Revolution
The Big Five: He promised change. Here are the five priorities that matter.
Mark Kennedy
The Ottawa Citizen
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Prime Minister Stephen Harper launches a political revolution next week. In the election that catapulted him to power, the Conservative leader's main message was simple. He promised change. Now, with Parliament set to open Monday, Canadians should ready themselves for a shift in governing -- in both style and substance -- that could truly be historic.
Love him or hate him, voters are about to discover that Mr. Harper is intent on changing the country.
The societal role of government and of the family; much tougher punishment of criminals; greater spending power for the provinces -- these are just some of the debates Mr. Harper will spark.
He is determined not to make the same fundamental mistake that doomed his predecessor, Paul Martin. He will not dither. He will be clear on what he intends to do with power and he will refine his priorities to a handful of key objectives.
Mr. Harper will employ a near-obsessive approach to maintaining the discipline of office, reminding his staff and his cabinet that it's the five priorities that matter. He will be so intensely focused that, at many times, it will seem he is a one-man spokesman for the entire government.
His leadership style will endear him to some Canadians, and his single-mindedness will impress many. At the same time, Mr. Harper could just as easily alienate voters who conclude he is dangerously inflexible, too willing to run roughshod over the concerns of those who don't share his political philosophies.
Nevertheless, it's clear that Mr. Harper will talk about little else other than the Big Five:
Political Accountability Reforms
The Tory plan is ambitious in scope. Among the changes: limit individual donations to parties or candidates to $1,000; ban corporate, union and organization donations to parties, ridings and candidates; ban cash donations to parties or candidates of more than $20; prevent former ministers, staffers and senior public servants from lobbying government for five years after they have left government; introduce "whistleblower" measures that include protections and even monetary rewards for people who expose wrongdoing; give more money to the auditor general to conduct investigations.
Lower Taxes
The centrepiece is a promise to immediately reduce the GST by one point, to six per cent. It would be further lowered to five per cent within five years. The costly promise will be financed by cancelling some of the personal income-tax cuts enacted by the Martin government.
Law and Order
Among the plans: repeal the gun registry; impose mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug crimes, weapons offences, crimes committed while on parole and repeat offenders; end conditional sentences (known as house arrest) for serious crimes such as violent and sexual offences and weapons offences; repeal the Criminal Code section (known as the "faint hope clause") that allows criminals serving life sentences to apply for early parole; try to amend the constitution to forbid prisoners in federal institutions from voting in elections.
Child Care
The plan will create conflict in Parliament and with the provinces. Mr. Harper will give parents a taxable $1,200 child-care allowance annually for each child under six. He will also allocate $250 million a year in tax credits to employers who cover the full cost of creating day-care spaces.
To pay for the promise, the Tories will cancel the agreement the previous Liberal government had struck with provinces to create child-care spaces, thereby denying them the several billion dollars they had been counting on in the next few years.
A Health-Care Wait-Times Guarantee
Provinces will establish "benchmarks" setting out how long patients should have to wait for treatment in areas such cancer, heart, diagnostic imaging, joint replacements and sight restoration. If patients aren't treated within that period, they will be allowed to travel to another jurisdiction outside their own province -- even the United States -- and still be publicly insured by their own government.
The health-care priority will apparently be funded at least partly by a deal with provinces to resolve their long-standing complaint of a "fiscal imbalance," which puts too much revenue into the federal treasury and not enough money into provincial coffers.
In the coming weeks and months, the questions hanging over this minority Parliament will be: How long can it last? How far is Mr. Harper, who will need at least some opposition support to pass controversial legislation, willing to go without risking an early election? Will he press ahead with reforms he knows will be defeated? Will he form alliances with any of the opposition parties -- most likely the Bloc Quebecois -- to ensure passage of some legislation?
And how much stomach do any of the opposition parties have to force another campaign before, at the earliest, the spring of 2007?
But make no mistake, the prime minister's overriding political objective is to go to the polls in the next election with a string of clear accomplishments, a record of achievements which will persuade voters to give him the majority victory that eluded him this year.
"We know what we have to do. We know what we want to achieve ..." he said this week. "We're going to need the active support and involvement of Canadians, our supporters and all Canadians right across this country. We're going to need all of them writing, e-mailing, faxing and telephoning their MPs to tell them to get on with the plan."
As Mr. Harper takes his first steps toward the country he envisions, few things are clear about how far down the road to reform he'll get, but it's increasingly evident that this is one prime minister who won't back down easily -- if at all -- under pressure.
There will be issues that threaten to knock Mr. Harper off stride. The continuing TV images of coffins containing the remains of Canadian soldiers coming home from Afghanistan could easily diminish public support for military involvement there, particularly among Quebecers.
A confrontation with Ralph Klein's Alberta government over the Canada Health Act, which could occur if the premier proceeds with his proposed "Third Way" reforms, is not something Harper would like to have bog down his carefully scripted agenda.
Earlier this week, Mr. Harper set the tone for the coming session in a highly partisan speech he delivered on Parliament Hill. The event was as carefully staged as most of his appearances on the recent election trail. Members of the new Conservative caucus were invited to attend, as were the MPs' parliamentary staff -- many of them eager young men and women in their 20s who have spent half of their lives watching the Liberals rule the country.
Journalists in the parliamentary press gallery -- some of whom have complained of Mr. Harper's efforts to limit their access to cabinet ministers and control the news agenda -- were allowed into the room for the event to ensure it received widespread coverage.
Mr. Harper was enthusiastically greeted by his supporters like a political messiah. He didn't disappoint the crowd, poking fun at the Liberals for acting as though they believed they were still "entitled to be in power."
"Canadians voted for change," said Mr. Harper. "They don't want to vote again. They want us to deliver change and that is what we are going to do."
The Liberals, meanwhile, are feeling bruised and directionless. They won't pick their next leader until December. Before then, the Grits are keen to portray Mr. Harper as the right-wing zealot they had warned Canadians about during the election.
"Canadians were not prepared to give Mr. Harper an unlimited neo-conservative mandate," Liberal House leader Ralph Goodale said this week."They gave him a chance, not a blank cheque. They want to know whether his sudden metamorphosis to moderation is genuine, or is it just terrific packaging and control?"
The Liberals say they will battle the Tory government's day-care policy and its promised cut to the GST. But when pressed on whether their opposition is so deep that they would defeat the government in Parliament over the issues, the Liberals become vague.
NDP leader Jack Layton has also played coy in recent days, complimenting Mr. Harper on how the two private meetings he has had with him since the election seemed genuinely designed to be consultations on what the New Democrats want to see in Parliament.
"Mr. Harper seems to be willing to at least consider the ideas that we present," said Mr. Layton. But he, like the Liberals, is guarded on strategy. "Our party intends to oppose where that's appropriate and propose solutions on key issues," said Mr. Layton.
The Bloc Quebecois is equally careful in discussing tactics. "We have said that we will be a constructive opposition," Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe said this week. "We have never had the attitude of having an election for the pleasure of having an election. However, we're not going to fold on our convictions."
The Big Five: He promised change. Here are the five priorities that matter.
Mark Kennedy
The Ottawa Citizen
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Prime Minister Stephen Harper launches a political revolution next week. In the election that catapulted him to power, the Conservative leader's main message was simple. He promised change. Now, with Parliament set to open Monday, Canadians should ready themselves for a shift in governing -- in both style and substance -- that could truly be historic.
Love him or hate him, voters are about to discover that Mr. Harper is intent on changing the country.
The societal role of government and of the family; much tougher punishment of criminals; greater spending power for the provinces -- these are just some of the debates Mr. Harper will spark.
He is determined not to make the same fundamental mistake that doomed his predecessor, Paul Martin. He will not dither. He will be clear on what he intends to do with power and he will refine his priorities to a handful of key objectives.
Mr. Harper will employ a near-obsessive approach to maintaining the discipline of office, reminding his staff and his cabinet that it's the five priorities that matter. He will be so intensely focused that, at many times, it will seem he is a one-man spokesman for the entire government.
His leadership style will endear him to some Canadians, and his single-mindedness will impress many. At the same time, Mr. Harper could just as easily alienate voters who conclude he is dangerously inflexible, too willing to run roughshod over the concerns of those who don't share his political philosophies.
Nevertheless, it's clear that Mr. Harper will talk about little else other than the Big Five:
Political Accountability Reforms
The Tory plan is ambitious in scope. Among the changes: limit individual donations to parties or candidates to $1,000; ban corporate, union and organization donations to parties, ridings and candidates; ban cash donations to parties or candidates of more than $20; prevent former ministers, staffers and senior public servants from lobbying government for five years after they have left government; introduce "whistleblower" measures that include protections and even monetary rewards for people who expose wrongdoing; give more money to the auditor general to conduct investigations.
Lower Taxes
The centrepiece is a promise to immediately reduce the GST by one point, to six per cent. It would be further lowered to five per cent within five years. The costly promise will be financed by cancelling some of the personal income-tax cuts enacted by the Martin government.
Law and Order
Among the plans: repeal the gun registry; impose mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug crimes, weapons offences, crimes committed while on parole and repeat offenders; end conditional sentences (known as house arrest) for serious crimes such as violent and sexual offences and weapons offences; repeal the Criminal Code section (known as the "faint hope clause") that allows criminals serving life sentences to apply for early parole; try to amend the constitution to forbid prisoners in federal institutions from voting in elections.
Child Care
The plan will create conflict in Parliament and with the provinces. Mr. Harper will give parents a taxable $1,200 child-care allowance annually for each child under six. He will also allocate $250 million a year in tax credits to employers who cover the full cost of creating day-care spaces.
To pay for the promise, the Tories will cancel the agreement the previous Liberal government had struck with provinces to create child-care spaces, thereby denying them the several billion dollars they had been counting on in the next few years.
A Health-Care Wait-Times Guarantee
Provinces will establish "benchmarks" setting out how long patients should have to wait for treatment in areas such cancer, heart, diagnostic imaging, joint replacements and sight restoration. If patients aren't treated within that period, they will be allowed to travel to another jurisdiction outside their own province -- even the United States -- and still be publicly insured by their own government.
The health-care priority will apparently be funded at least partly by a deal with provinces to resolve their long-standing complaint of a "fiscal imbalance," which puts too much revenue into the federal treasury and not enough money into provincial coffers.
In the coming weeks and months, the questions hanging over this minority Parliament will be: How long can it last? How far is Mr. Harper, who will need at least some opposition support to pass controversial legislation, willing to go without risking an early election? Will he press ahead with reforms he knows will be defeated? Will he form alliances with any of the opposition parties -- most likely the Bloc Quebecois -- to ensure passage of some legislation?
And how much stomach do any of the opposition parties have to force another campaign before, at the earliest, the spring of 2007?
But make no mistake, the prime minister's overriding political objective is to go to the polls in the next election with a string of clear accomplishments, a record of achievements which will persuade voters to give him the majority victory that eluded him this year.
"We know what we have to do. We know what we want to achieve ..." he said this week. "We're going to need the active support and involvement of Canadians, our supporters and all Canadians right across this country. We're going to need all of them writing, e-mailing, faxing and telephoning their MPs to tell them to get on with the plan."
As Mr. Harper takes his first steps toward the country he envisions, few things are clear about how far down the road to reform he'll get, but it's increasingly evident that this is one prime minister who won't back down easily -- if at all -- under pressure.
There will be issues that threaten to knock Mr. Harper off stride. The continuing TV images of coffins containing the remains of Canadian soldiers coming home from Afghanistan could easily diminish public support for military involvement there, particularly among Quebecers.
A confrontation with Ralph Klein's Alberta government over the Canada Health Act, which could occur if the premier proceeds with his proposed "Third Way" reforms, is not something Harper would like to have bog down his carefully scripted agenda.
Earlier this week, Mr. Harper set the tone for the coming session in a highly partisan speech he delivered on Parliament Hill. The event was as carefully staged as most of his appearances on the recent election trail. Members of the new Conservative caucus were invited to attend, as were the MPs' parliamentary staff -- many of them eager young men and women in their 20s who have spent half of their lives watching the Liberals rule the country.
Journalists in the parliamentary press gallery -- some of whom have complained of Mr. Harper's efforts to limit their access to cabinet ministers and control the news agenda -- were allowed into the room for the event to ensure it received widespread coverage.
Mr. Harper was enthusiastically greeted by his supporters like a political messiah. He didn't disappoint the crowd, poking fun at the Liberals for acting as though they believed they were still "entitled to be in power."
"Canadians voted for change," said Mr. Harper. "They don't want to vote again. They want us to deliver change and that is what we are going to do."
The Liberals, meanwhile, are feeling bruised and directionless. They won't pick their next leader until December. Before then, the Grits are keen to portray Mr. Harper as the right-wing zealot they had warned Canadians about during the election.
"Canadians were not prepared to give Mr. Harper an unlimited neo-conservative mandate," Liberal House leader Ralph Goodale said this week."They gave him a chance, not a blank cheque. They want to know whether his sudden metamorphosis to moderation is genuine, or is it just terrific packaging and control?"
The Liberals say they will battle the Tory government's day-care policy and its promised cut to the GST. But when pressed on whether their opposition is so deep that they would defeat the government in Parliament over the issues, the Liberals become vague.
NDP leader Jack Layton has also played coy in recent days, complimenting Mr. Harper on how the two private meetings he has had with him since the election seemed genuinely designed to be consultations on what the New Democrats want to see in Parliament.
"Mr. Harper seems to be willing to at least consider the ideas that we present," said Mr. Layton. But he, like the Liberals, is guarded on strategy. "Our party intends to oppose where that's appropriate and propose solutions on key issues," said Mr. Layton.
The Bloc Quebecois is equally careful in discussing tactics. "We have said that we will be a constructive opposition," Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe said this week. "We have never had the attitude of having an election for the pleasure of having an election. However, we're not going to fold on our convictions."
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