How Harper Still Might Get His Majority

If you believe the media reports, not to mention the polls, the Harper experiment will come to an end shortly with the rightful restoration of Canada's 'Natural Governing Party' under the aegis of Stephane Dion.
Don't be so sure.
Oh, count on an election. In fact, I'm somewhat surprised the writ hasn't dropped yet, as it's a favourite political ploy of Prime Ministers of all stripes to call elections when the opposition is least ready for them. And Dion, being a new leader of a still fractious party, is a long way from ready to fight a campaign.
If Harper hasn't contrived to dissolve Parliament yet, he must have a good reason: he's a methodical cuss, is Stephen Harper, and he never does anything without at least three good (to him) reasons. His fans call this prudent and cautious governance. Others call it Machiavellian. Whatever you call it, it's worked for him: written off at every turn, he's rode it all the way to 24 Sussex. And he's led an unconventionally active minority government. Harper has, arguably, done more in a year than his predecessors--Chretien, who had no priorities beyond staying in power; and Martin, who exuded priorities with every breath--did in twelve.

But there's still unfinished business. Varying amounts of progress have been made on four of the five key points Harper laid out: he has cut the GST as promised and initiated "beer and popcorn" payments to parents for each child six and under. The long-promised Accountability Act is proving something of a challenge, as could perhaps have been predicted: power tends to bring with it a certain belief that governments are held accountable solely by means of a ballot box. And Harper has passed some "tough on crime" legislation, though not nearly as much as he'd like to. He's constrained by three opposition parties who believe to varying degrees that if you just show enough compassion, all criminal behaviour will magically disappear.
The fifth priority is (of course) health care in the guise of wait times, and it's been quietly dropped like the hot potato it is. It seems Harper has determined that Canadians are not ready for a rational discussion on our sacrosanct health care system. I can't blame him here, much as I'd like to, because he's right.
How else to explain it? Privatization--the most foul word in the Canadian health care lexicon--has been with us for many years, and a great many Canadians will look right at it and claim it doesn't exist. Nothing is made of the fact injured hockey players can get an MRI before the next face-off while your ailing mother has to wait months for the same procedure. And as for that Supreme Court decision -- "prohibiting health insurance that would permit ordinary Canadians to access health care, in circumstances where the government is failing to deliver health care in a reasonable manner, thereby increasing the risk of complications and death, interferes with life and security of the person" -- uh, if we ignore that, will it unhappen?
I've been wrong a lot in the writing of this blog. But the "wrongest" I've ever been might be when I predicted a slew of cases in the wake of that decision, bringing that second tier of health care out into the open. Bzzzt. Canadians, it seems, would rather watch loved ones suffer and die in the name of equality. Whodathunkit?
Given that undeniable irrationality, is it any wonder governments fear to tread in this particular realm?

So: health care's been replaced by the "fiscal imbalance", and Harper's hard at work trying to figure out how best to placate thirteen premiers, each with their own agendas, without bankrupting the treasury. Good luck with that one, sir: you're gonna need it.

Then there are the two other background issues that have have sprung or will spring: Afghanistan and the environment.

Afghanistan: Stephen Harper has shown great pride in our armed forces: more pride than any PM in generations. Boys and their guns, sniff the liberal elites on the Toronto-Ottawa axis of weevils. Bring them home...yesterday. Funny how nobody ever seems to ask the opinion of the only people whose opinions matter: our soldiers and their families. They know the good they're doing. And you don't hear of Canadian soldiers up and deserting the mission the way several Americans have up and deserted Iraq.

The environment: This has been Harper's biggest bungle so far, and it may be his undoing. He forgot one of the laws of Canadian politics, which is when the economy's doing well, people actually start pretending to care about the environment. (When the economy's down the crapper, of course, nobody even notices we have an environment. Nice set of values.)

I don't think Harper, even now, sees greenhouse gas emissions as a serious problem. The funny thing is, neither do most Canadians: hey, if it means I don't have to shovel my driveway and my heating bills go down, that's a problem how? Just look at the media coverage of this balmy "winter". I haven't seen one negative article yet. Everybody's gushing: I can walk around in a spring jacket! The construction business is going great guns at a time they're usually shut down! The price of oil's down dramatically! And so on and so forth.
But Canadians are two-faced on this issue. They won't make meaningful sacrifice for the sake of the environment, but they'll crucify any government who doesn't paint itself green.
You could hear Harper through Rona Ambrose, pleading into the wind. Uh...smog? Air pollution? Water pollution? C'mon, people, work with me here...
And the chant went up: Green House Gasses! Green House Gasses! Green House Gasses!

Now we have a Liberal leader who's named his dog Kyoto. He was Minister of the Environment at a time when our greenhouse gas emissions were steadily climbing, outpacing even those of the United States, yet he's somehow escaped all culpability for it and dares to fight on a green platform. What's more, most people agree it's his strongest selling point. Canadian politics: it just ain't rational.

Despite some mistakes, though, all is not lost for (or on) Harper. Witness Wajid Khan.
Khan, then a Liberal, took on a role as 'special adviser' to Harper on the Middle East and Afghanistan. Liberals were very uncomfortable with this development, which goes against all convention: a Liberal advising a Tory PM? The more Khan worked with Harper, the more he grew to admire and respect him, until...presto! 'cross the floor he went, giving Harper one more MP and thus an added measure of stability. The PM only needs Layton's support now to ensure his government doesn't fall.
If you're not something of a political junkie like me, you probably find this boring as hell. Sorry 'bout that: I'm amazed at Harper's audacity.

I believe very strongly that Canadians, by and large, don't care who's in power. If there's a good idea, they want it voiced and acted upon, no matter where it comes from. They want to see and end to, or at least a marked reduction of, the antagonistic bickering that epitomizes politics in this country. They want to see parties working together to solve problems.
Harper's very much in tune with that. He has to be: he's beset by enemies all around. So he took on Emerson, a Liberal, and Emerson got more done on the softwood lumber file than has been achieved since Confederation. He took on Wajid Khan, a Liberal, and created a Tory who looks as though he'll continue to be an asset. Don't think he's done poaching people...or ideas.

Paul Wells says in this week's issue of Macleans that he expects Harper to just up and steal Dion's environmental platform in toto, depriving the Liberal leader of his whole raison d'etre. I'm not sure I agree. Canadians might...might...see that as blatant theft. Harper would have to handle it with kid gloves, and a mea culpa would help: look, we screwed up on the environment. I've been looking with fresh eyes at the ideas of Stephane Dion over there and...you know...they just might work. Or something to that effect.

But what if he turned around and took Jack Layton's environmental platform instead? It's even greener than Dion's.

The Prime Minister has a careful balancing act to maintain. He has a vested interest in a strong NDP, all the better to split the left-wing vote: his old Alliance was the victim of vote-splitting on numerous occasions and he hasn't forgotten its harsh lesson. So he'll work with Layton as much as possible...and...just maybe...appropriate a few ideas. With credit where it's due, of course. These are really strong, bold, refreshing thoughts from Mr. Layton. They would make Canada a real environmental power.

I can just see it. Layton could sputter all he wants: he'd look like a fool. Harper could then out-environment the former Minister of the Environment. He'd be shown to be a non-partisan leader, capable of acting on ideas from all over the political spectrum. A ticket to a majority? Maybe.

Hang on, folks, we're in for a fun year.