Ibbitson: Harper and Bush Compared
Harper and Bush more alike than columnist will admit
John Ibbitson (Thursday Nov 9, 2006 We have our politics; they have theirs – The Globe and Mail) goes to great pains to paint Stephen Harper as the antithesis of George W. Bush, without illustrating any of the similarities so inconvenient to his thesis.
Some cry foul when Harper’s past comes back to haunt him, but any observer of the man knows full well his ideas on policy have long been cast, if not in stone, then at least in brick—firewall red in fact. He may be something of a political pragmatist in order to gain power, but his stated goal has always been to make Canada unrecognizable, an objective quite far removed from pragmatic change.
Illustrating this “bag it, change it” approach, south of the border Mr. Bush originally campaigned on a pragmatic, “compassionate conservative” platform but his rule has been anything but. The similarities between the two covers much policy ground.
On health care, Harper has been quoted numerous times as favoring the American model. As a contender for Prime Minister, Harper has come out in favour of Canada’s Health Act which enforces universal availability of care for all Canadians. Yet back when he didn’t expect to run for office again, writing a personal opinion piece for the ultra right-wing National Citizens Coalition newsletter, The Bulldog, Harper flat-out said that Canada “should scrap the Canada Health Act” (1997).
On the environment, Harper, and his former parties the Canadian Alliance and Reform Party, have for years fought against any Canadian effort to join the global fight against climate change including voting against the Kyoto Accord. Bush and his party likewise never endorsed Kyoto, nor even the concept of climate change.
On public education: Commenting on a Harris policy proposal to offer tax credits to parents whose children attended private schools, Stephen Harper said (2001, The Hill Times) “pulling their children from ‘union-run’ schools should be a viable option for all parents.” Bush, driven by a similar ideology, in 2001 made such tax credits into law, stating that the vouchers would merely innocently free “parents to make different choices for their children”. Can either be trusted to avoid the temptation to design funding schemes which create failing public institutions as a self-fulfilling prophecy?
On Iraq, in early 2003 Bush, capitalizing on an under-informed and over-politicized Congress, sent the country marching on to a foolhardy and unnecessary war in Iraq. At that same time Harper demonstrated his unconditional support for Bush’s imperial ambitions repeatedly in the House of Commons and for any Canadian and U.S. media that would record him.
Harper may not be a clone of Bush, but he is shaped in a substantially similar image, and he has openly expressed his desire to mould Canada into a form more like the United States including campaign promises of radical reforms to our system of government that would see an elected senate (making our upper chamber just as politicized as the U.S. senate), leading to the day when the Prime Minister’s office and a wholly or largely unelected cabinet (Emerson, Fortier precedents made or reinforced) rule by governor in council decrees, rather than gain the approval of Parliament.
Canadians are not naive and understand that many politicians are willing to say almost anything when campaigning, even if they plan on doing exactly the opposite in the future.
We need only look at Mr. Harper’s many campaign promises that he wouldn’t tax income trusts for the latest example of “say one thing to get their votes, in power do the opposite”.
The writer is a Westerner and a card-carrying member of the Conservative Party of Canada who, like many former Progressive Conservatives, opposes an elected senate, among other of Mr. Harper’s recycled Reform policies.