Herald Column: The Radical Harper Cometh?

My latest Calgary Herald column looks at the hope/fear that with a majority government, Stephen Harper will take a sharp turn to the right - epsecially on social issues. I remain unconvinced:

 

...Initiatives such as eliminating the long-gun registry, scrapping party subsidies, addressing the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly, and reforming the Senate may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's hardly tantamount to a "cold new dawn", to quote the ever-hysterical Toronto Star columnist Heather Mallick.

 

Those expecting a radically different Stephen Harper are ignoring three obvious implications of the recent election:

 

1.       After five years of governing, Harper was rewarded with a majority. Surely that must be seen as a vindication of his governing style.
2.       Harper's majority was largely contingent on a remarkable breakthrough in the Greater Toronto Area. I'm assuming Harper's future plans involve retaining those seats.
3.       The Conservatives lost a number of seats in Quebec, and presumably hopes to win them back next time around.

 

Clearly for the Prime Minister, he will be seeking a balance between the sorts of policies he'd like to pursue and the political realities that could preclude a repeat Conservative victory in four years.

 

Under no reasonable calculation would that in any way include an issue like abortion, but that's no barrier it seems to the delusions of the oddly overlapping forces of optimism and dread.

 

Prior to the election, a number of pro-choice groups warned that a Harper majority would threaten abortion rights. The aforementioned Heather Mallick wrote in a rather shrill and error-filled piece for the UK Guardian that, "The Evangelist Christian right … will now demand an end to a number of things, including abortion rights." 

 

Well, one can demand whatever one might like. One could, say, demand that batty left-wing columnists be publicly flogged, but that doesn't mean that the government is under any obligation to do anything about it.

 

Yet, it is true that the Evangelical Christian right is at the very least more optimistic.

 

The Toronto Star managed to dig up someone by the name of David Krayden who leads something called the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. I'm not sure what makes him so newsworthy other than the fact that he is helping to advance a political narrative.

 

Krayden clearly wants to see the abortion issue re-opened, despite the fact that he has the bar set rather low. He told the Star, ``Perhaps Stephen Harper would consider a commission of some sort to examine the abortion laws in this country".

 

Perhaps.

 

Perhaps though, the Prime Minister has little time for the likes of David Krayden.

 

Prior to the election, of the leaders of Canada's evangelical religious right, Charles McVety, told the Globe and Mail that Harper's stand on abortion had alienated religious conservatives. McVety said there was "no energy out there" when it came to campaigning for the Tories and warned that apathetic social conservatives could cost Harper his majority.

 

Well we don't know whether McVety's flock turned out to vote, but we do know that Harper did get his majority. By what calculation then would Harper feel he owes this constituency any favours?

 

Of course, we really won't know how Harper plans to govern with a majority until he actually does so.  Who knows, maybe the Mallicks and McVetys of the world will get their hell/utopia - there's just no rational reason to think so.