Angry in the Great White North

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has created a panel to review the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, and to make recommendations on the future direction of Canada's involvement. The news is focused, though, on one particular member of the panel. It is John Manley, a Liberal, a former MP, a former Deputy Prime Minister and a former Finance Minister:

The Harper government appointed former Liberal heavyweight John Manley Friday to a five-person panel to decide on the future of Canada's presence in Afghanistan after the 2009 deadline for the current mission expires.

The move was first reported in Friday's Globe and Mail.

The surprise appointment comes a few days before Prime Minister Stephen Harper lays out his plan for the next sitting of Parliament in a Speech from the Throne in which the future of the Afghan mission will be a major component.

Mr. Manley's decision to accept the nomination on the panel will shock many Liberals, who are struggling to come up with a plan for the mission, which they launched when they were in office.

Shocked indeed. Liberals will be forced to castigate one of the most successful Liberal ministers in the past 20 years, or to keep mum and so mute the Afghanistan rant that is only second to the Kyoto moaning in the Liberal talking points sheet.

But I wonder if the decision to bring Manley in is part of a bigger strategy. I've already said that Stephen Harper is pushing towards a tipping point. I think he is trying to initiate a cascade of changes that will dramatically reconfigure Canadian politics.

Is the Manley appointment part of that? Consider that the Liberal Party has always been the party of the opportunistic centre. With no real core beliefs beyond the acquisition of power, the Liberals have simply stolen ideas from the right and from the left. I've pointed out that this is not healthy for the country, and that Canada ought to have a truly left-of-centre party to offer up alternatives to a truly right-of-centre party. [And for those in the tinfoil hats who think I am getting these ideas straight from the PMO scribbled on the back of big fat cheques, the fact is I have no idea what Stephen Harper is really thinking. He doesn't return my calls.]

We also know that Stephane Dion has taken the Liberal Party hard to the left, embracing environmentalism and pacifism as the new Liberal values, putting the Liberal Party on a collision course with the NDP and the Green Party. That change in direction is not sitting well with the Liberal membership, who in a poll revealed their belief that Stephane Dion will never be prime minister, and that the Liberal Party is in danger of disintegration under Stephen Dion's leadership:

Many adults in Canada—as well as supporters of the Liberal party—believe Stephane Dion will not be able to serve as the country’s head of government, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 69 per cent of national respondents—and 66 per cent of those who voted for the Grits in the 2006 federal election—think Dion will probably never form a government as leader.

The poll also showed that only 54% of Liberals believe that the Liberal Party will form a government within five years. Of the nearly 40% who said the Liberals would remain on the opposition benches, an astonishing 9% expect the Liberals to fall into third party status. Who do Liberals blame for this sad state of affairs? The poll reports 60% of Liberals blame Stephane Dion, either exclusively or along with the Sponsorship Scandal, for the Liberal slide.

So Stephen Harper brings John Manley into the fold. A fiscal conservative, John Manley is firmly on the right within the Liberal Party. Manley is a Liberal who believes that close ties with the United States is crucial, and so would not contribute to the steady drone of anti-American commentary that is coming out of Stephane Dion:

"There are many ways I would like to see Canada pick up where it left off before our foreign policy went astray under the Harper government," Dion said. Describing the government's approach as "rigid, simplistic and incompetent," Dion continually drew comparisons between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President George W. Bush, in particular, on issues such as the environment, Iraq and Afghanistan.

"A closer look could reveal an ideological kinship between the Harper government and the Bush administration," Dion said. "Mr. Harper has given Canada a foreign policy that draws its inspiration from the American right, a foreign policy that does little to advance Canada's interests."

Indeed, Manley was key is setting up a working relationship with the administration of George W Bush before and after 9/11, an accomplishment that would be undermined by others in the Liberal Party. Clearly by accepting this position on this panel, Liberal John Manley has not already concluded that the approach of Stephen Harper is rigid and simplistic and incompetent.

I wonder what John Manley thinks of Stephane Dion's approach?

That might be an interesting question, but not what I'm thinking about right now. I'm wondering whether this appointment is an attempt to approach that tipping point I had discussed in my earlier post.

Is Stephen Harper opening the door for others on the Liberal Party right to find a new home in the Conservative Party? I don't expect Liberal Party members to start tearing up their membership cards, but the symbolism of Manley's participation in this panel is going to have significant side effects. There indeed might be some low-level defections, but I doubt any that would rank being reported in the news (though you never know if another Liberal MP might decide to switch sides in the hope of keeping his or her seat in an upcoming election). More likely, though, is that the right of the Liberal Party will find themselves even further marginalized. With views inconsistent with Stephane Dion's decidedly left-of-centre approach, these Liberals were already on the outs, but now that one of their most illustrious members is working with the Conservatives on a topic that Dion has already raised to the level of dogma, these Liberals will likely lose whatever influence they had left. The big media splash associated with Manley's appointment can't help these "blue" Liberals. Indeed, they might find themselves the subject of scorn, definitely a step down from merely being ignored.

As a result, the Liberal Party will continue its tip to the left, falling directly into the area of Canada's political spectrum owned by the NDP and the Green Party. All things being equal, the Liberal Party could probably take these parties on in their turf and hold its own. But with no money, and with confidence in the party and in Stephane Dion's leadership plummeting as shown in that poll, the Liberal Party stands to be seriously hurt. If the Liberal Party continues to lose its centrist equilibrium as a result of Stephen Harper's appointment of John Manley, left-of-centre Liberals might start listening more closely to the NDP and to the Green Party. Money dries up, and worse yet, some Liberals might decide to defect to truly left-of-centre parties. A few defections can turn into a lot of defections, especially in areas like Quebec where the Liberal brand has fallen to such lows that the NDP might be seen as the only viable party that can stand against the Conservatives, and that is simultaneously acceptable to a left-of-centre federalist.

That's the thing about tipping points. By definition, they are large changes in the system initiated by tiny inputs. An appointment of one ex-politician to a five-person one-subject panel might turn out to be one of those tiny inputs that makes all the difference.

Tip away!