Remember this age-oldCanadian Political Nursery Rhyme?
"Liberal, Hoary (nee Tory & Ref/Con), - Same old story"
The Reform Party dragged it out for 1993. The UnionDp also chants it to their true-believers
The puff-piece below is an example of the bland misleading the blindly trusting & benignly-neglectful. You'd think there might be opposing points of view to contrast and compare - or snappy one-liners making pithy comments.
The Root problem (not discussed) is that the PMO is party of the Legislative Power while the Privy Council, the Gov Gen and the Monarch form the Executive Power.
The PM is supposed to be the key advisor to the Executive, but not be running the whole show.
It's not ol' Firewall's fault - he's just the latest chappie utilizing the (wholly-anti-BNA/Constitutional) command and control format devised in 1940 by SeanceSister W L M King and continued and refined (read expanded) by Mr St Laurent, our PET, Myron Baloney and the l'il guy who pretended he could speak Engish OR French (and relying on the total lack of knowledge of the spirit and/or the letter of our presciently-masterful, power-sharing hierarchy of 1867)
NB Google "P.C.1940-1121" to examine the Order in Council that deftly accomplished the first part of Mr King's revenge-served-cold. (He never forgot being denied a Dissolution in 1926 by Lord Byng, so when the chance came he "cut off the power" to the Offices superior to his own)
from The Hill Times
PM keeps Tories together, but observers predict trouble once Harper leaves
However, Tory pundit Geoff Norquay says the PM is no different from every other Prime Minister, all accused of being too controlling.
excerpted.....
"Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s ability to keep the muted factions of his majority-governing party tightly together is part of his “genius” as a political leader, but some political observers say whenever Mr. Harper leaves, there could be trouble for the party.
" ..... said Gerry Nicholls, a political consultant who once worked with Mr. Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) from 1997 to 2001 when Mr. Harper headed up the National Citizens Coalition. “Once Stephen Harper steps aside, you no longer have that sort of hero, that great general, that Napoleon of politics at the apex of your party, then there could be trouble because I think the party could actually break apart,” said Mr. Nicholls"
"Mr. Gardner based his column, in part, on a study published in the Canadian Parliamentary Review by political scientist Bruce Hicks who compared the power of Prime Ministers in Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. In it, Mr. Hicks found that Canada follows party discipline far more loyally than any of the other Westminster models, that in these other Westminster countries there’s an expectation that MPs will sometimes vote and against their government, that Canada has a culture of deference to authority and said it stems from Canada’s “presidentialization” of Canadian politics. (emphasis added)
Said Mr. Hicks to The Ottawa Citizen: “It’s a corporation in which one person controls all the mechanisms for fundraising, for distribution, for marketing, for organizing nomination contests in everybody’s riding. It’s all centralized. That’s unique to this party.”
But a senior Conservative source, who did not want to be identified, said Mr. Harper has purposefully built the Conservative Party into a “monolithic” party: “There are not those centres of opinion…the people involved in the caucus now aren’t as prone to taking positions on public policy that diverge from the government’s.”
The Conservative source said down the road the Conservative Party is going to have to assess whether there are “enough Conservatives in the country to sustain and maintain” the party. Today’s Conservative Party, unlike the former Progressive Conservative Party, is not a “big tent” party, and that Mr. Harper has set out and has achieved a monolithic Conservative Party and “a clear choice” on the right, said the source.
....
“[Mr. Harper] doesn’t like that kind of opposition, which is why it’s a very monolithic party, why there’s no youth wing, why they supported a Speaker who’s 30 years of age—he doesn’t want opposition,” said the Conservative source.
"While Mr. Nicholls likened Mr. Harper’s management of the Conservative Party to the way an army is commanded, Geoff Norquay, a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group and a high-profile Conservative pundit, said Mr. Harper is running the party “like a modern politician in the Canadian context.”
Mr. Norquay said Mr. Harper certainly holds an “unassailable position,” after having played “an absolutely pivotal role” in the creation of the party without having to compete against a large roster of leadership candidates, but said he’s not entirely sure there’s less of a check to Mr. Harper’s power because “old leadership factions really fall away pretty quickly.”
Mr. Nicholls said the Conservatives do have factions, but after carefully toeing the line during their years of minority government, he said MPs are now afraid of Mr. Harper and the muted factions that still exist don’t have any clout. (emphasis added)
....
But Tim Powers, vice president of Summa Strategies and another high-profile Conservative pundit, said one of Mr. Harper’s strengths is his ability to learn from competitors in determining what works and what doesn’t. (spin)
Mr. Powers said Mr. Harper developed a model for success, just as “each leader has a different model.” When Mr. Harper is gone, Mr. Powers said the next leader will do the same.
Mr. Norquay said every Prime Minister is “accused” of exercising more power and being “more centralizing than his or her predecessor…everything that has been written about Mr. Harper’s government…the exact same words were written about Mr. Mulroney’s government.”
Moreover, Mr. Norquay said the media expect to see discipline and coordination in the government.
“The Canadian media see political dissent in a caucus as a sign of weak leadership, chaos, lack of direction, lack of discipline,” said Mr. Norquay. (pshaw! ... a real independent press - who just want easy stories emanating from just one source - they've become Bureaucrats, Big Wigs, Ottawa-diseased quasi-Civil Servants)
....
The senior Conservative source said Mr. Harper’s Cabinet and PMO: run with a very “top down” approach, but said so did former prime minister Jean Chrétien’s, who was dubbed “The Friendly Dictator.” (actually Jeffrey Simpson's book "The Friendly Dictator was about the too-powerful office of Prime Minister now with combined -control {anti-Constitutional as it is} of the Privy Council Office)
Mr. Nicholls said parties have been moving towards heavy centralization and discipline over the decades, and said if New Democrats win government they would likely adopt a similar approach.
{Why not! .... esp. if "everyone" accepts/expects it as the proven-best method}
lryckewaert@hilltimes.com
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