Angry in the Great White North
The value of divisiveness
Monday, March 13, 2006 at 09:36 PM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
Leader

It is a given that after an election campaign, the winner must unite the electorate.

That is, for the most part, true. In Canada, Stephen Harper has to lead a country where there was no clear majority vote for any one party. That means he must fashion coalitions in order to lead.

Having said that, Stephen Harper must also be true to himself and his party platform. That is difficult if your potential coalition partners have allied themselves to pull in a common direction.

Of course, Stephen Harper's Conservatives won the single largest block of votes, so they should have the most pull. But if the other parties unite...

So it is key to keep the opposition off-balance and fractured. And one way to do that is to drive the opposition party to their extreme positions. Whereas the Liberals, the Bloc Quebecois, and the NDP have some common ground, there are plenty of things they disagree on. If Stephen Harper can keep them focused on their differences, the better his chances at successfully pursuing his agenda.

I bring this up because with Stephen Harper's brilliantly executed visit to Afghanistan, I see a sign of that sort of division building.

Recall that Canadian troops are in Afghanistan because the Liberals sent them in. The key is to force Jack Layton and the NDP to occupy a position which rigorously opposes that mission, and in doing so, create a source of serious friction that can play a role in the way the Liberals and the NDP are able to coordinate constructive opposition on other issues. Jack Layton is a politician, so he is certainly able to compartmentalize irritants for political expediency if he is allowed to. But true believers have it in their power to deny Jack Layton that latitude. For these people, that the Liberals put troops in Afghanistan means that the NDP should not make common cause with the Liberals.

Do these true believers exist? Here's a sample of comments about the visit from rabble.ca:

Let's hope that "support the troops" line of propaganda doesn't work here. I don't think it works with the military either as (using all the people in the military I know as a sample) most of them vote Liberal. [Euhemeros]

I fear for the morale of our troops. Imagine having that goop slobbering platitudes in your face, and you stifling a gag reflex. Back in the day, the troops referred to guys like Harper as "plugs". [nister]

No, this repulsive clown is simply aping his moron-mentor to the south, with his militaristic proclivities. Bush, it seems, is always addressing cadets or fresh recruits or marines or Westpoint graduates and seems to enjoy hanging around the engines of war, he must get some vicarious buzz of it...making up for earlier lost opportunities I suppose. Why doesn't Harper go visit a daycare center? An Innu community? Something a little more central to the Canadian identity than Victorian era colonialism? He's just a puke. [Merowe]

He invoked 9/11 early in the speech, moved to “we won’t cut and run… That’s not my way” and finished it all up with a “God bless Canada”. All Harper needs is the Texas drawl. [caliope]

He is a freak. [Cueball]

Jesus. Time to move to Europe. [Michelle]

Oh well, at least he's honest about it. Unlike the Liberals who did all their pro-Bush regime stuff behind closed doors and kept us happy with a well-spun lie about how we're "peacekeepers" and somehow only benignly imperialist. [kuri]

I like the last comment in particular. As much as these people hate the Conservatives, the Liberals have earned a special disdain. The Conservatives are a clear antithesis, but the Liberals steal NDP votes by posing as liberals but acting like conservatives (from the point of view of the NDP folks). Many would have been willing to hold their noses and work with the Liberals, but now...?

If the true believers can be kept in full "Hate Harper" mode, that will compromise the ability of Jack Layton to work constructively with the Liberals. The Liberals are not ready to go into an election. They need to tread carefully in this minority government. With the right level of pressure, working in unity with the NDP or the Bloc Quebecois, the Liberals might be able to influence this minority government, even blackmail it, without going to far as to trigger an election.

Working with the Bloc is fraught with political peril for any party, but especially for the Liberals who still portray themselves as Canada's only true party of national unity. That leaves the NDP, but if Jack Layton is unable to make pragmatic compromises when required if it means being seen to take the lead from the evil Conservatives or the duplicitous Liberals...

Unwilling to pull the pin on the election grenade, and faced with a seething and irrational NDP base handcuffing Jack Layton, and unwilling to work with the politically unpalatable Bloc, the Liberals may be forced to support the Conservatives (at least by not voting against the Conservatives) just to maintain the status quo until the Liberals have a new leader (a year away, if not longer). The bizarre situation might even inspire more Liberals to cross the floor.

I know this is an elaborate chain of reasoning, but in the end, in a minority situation, the pragmatic will win over the ideologue. Ironically, the pragmatic Conservatives will have to act like ideologues into order to draw the NDP into behaving the same way, and so give the Conservatives the upper hand.

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