Harper Learning a Hard Lesson

[FiveParadox]

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P., the Member for Calgary Southwest and the Prime Minister of Canada, is learning a lesson that I would think he had hoped would never be necessary — one person, alone, cannot control the entirety of the Parliament of Canada, or even the members of one's own party. This week may have been one of the toughest for the new Government of Canada to endure, since the Thirty-ninth General Election.

At a conservative group conference of the Civitas Society, where the media is barred from entering to pick up the comments of the participants, Maurice Vellacott, M.P., the Member for Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, sought out reporters from the CBC, to suggest that the Right Honourable Beverly McLachlin, P.C., the Chief Justice of Canada, had been abusing her authority as a justice on the bench. The severity of this situation for the new Government became apparent, as Mr. Vellacott came under increasing pressure to resign from his post as the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development (and he agreed to do so, only hours before he would have been thrown from the chair by a motion of no-confidence).

PoliticsWatch[/i]]He went on to say that chief justice of the Supreme Court, Beverley McLachlin "herself said actually when they step into this role that suddenly there's some kind of mystical power that comes over them, which everything that they've ever decreed is not to be questioned."

Vellacott's statements most likely would have been greeted with applause and "hear, hear" behind the closed doors of the Civitas Society.

The problem was McLachlin said no such thing about mystical powers.

McLachlin did give a speech last year in which she outlined her judicial philosophy and said judges have to uphold written laws and "unwritten constitutional norms."

Not mystical powers, but definitely not in line with strict constructionism that conservatives want to see in judges.

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Those "unwritten conventions" are some of the most important parts of our constitution! I am shocked that members of the Conservative Party of Canada, and members of any party for that matter, would want to return to the days where the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland would take the text of the constitution at face-value, without considering the document to be "alive"; that was part of the huge push to have the Supreme Court of Canada replace the U.K. Privy Council as the highest arbiter of the constitution! Why would we want to run a "System Restore" on that?

Perhaps even more interesting, the Prime Minister was forced to contend with the fact that one of the seniormost members of his Government may have leaked information from the report of Sheila Fraser, the Auditor General of Canada, to the media. An investigation is reported to be underway, and it should be interesting to see if any more members of this new Government are going to be toppled at the hands of the opposition parties.

PoliticsWatch[/i]]Had Vellacott simply walked past the CBC cameras and had someone not called Allan Woods with the goods on the gun registry then this week would have been another week of reporters talking about how bored they are with Harper's five priorities.

But unless the PMO gives every cabinet minister, MP and senior staffer a GPS device and a baby monitor, preventing missteps such as these is not possible with hundreds of reporters and camera crews hanging around Parliament Hill.

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Cet article n'est pas disponible en français à ce temps.

Mr. Harper is going to realize that he can't control the chaos of politics in Ottawa.

:?: Sources
1. Click here for the Web site of PoliticsWatch¹.

:!: Revision : (1) Corrected a formatting error.

 

[Jersay]

Good. His party is killing him. :lol:

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Well, maybe not his party so much as his own personality. You can't be a control freak and run an outfit as large as the Government of Canada successfully. He seems to have a problem with delegating, and trusting subordinates.

But if I had his subordinates, I wouldn't trust them either. :lol:

 

[sanch]

But if I had his subordinates, I wouldn't trust them either. :lol:

This is a very good justification for paranoia.

 

[JonB2004]

RE: Harper Learning a Har

If he keeps running his government the way he is, we're going to be on our way back to a Liberal majority government. Yippie!

 

[Vicious]

RE: Harper Learning a Har

I disagree. If he keeps walking hise election talk, he will have put to rest the Liberals 'hidden agenda' crap from bygone elections.

I think he is rightly in election mode already. Every misstep gives the opposition parties something to talk about, every MP that speaks his/her mind and contradicts policy or governement direction gives the opposition something to attack. After the next election (most likely within 18 months), the priority should be to support differing opinions and free votes. I would like that to occur now, I would also have perferred no new spending in the budget and a roll-back on taxes to offset the surplus but I understand I'm in the minority on that.

I'm hoping that the conservatives keep the promises of last election. Create some next-step type goals and go to the polls for approval to act on them. It's perferrable that the conservatives choose to ask for another mandate and not get forced into an election by the opposition.

 

[Jo Canadian]

 

[Em]

I don't blame him for being a control freak either. He has a very VERY clear vision right down to the letter of where he believes our country needs to go. And I tend to agree with him on about 85% of the various issues I am aware of. So, if some of his subordinates cause waves, it is inevitable. So far, most of the "problems" that he has had PALE in comparison to the monumental blunders of our previous government.

It is so refreshing and relieving to have someone in the PM's office who's very strong willed and has a clear path laid out. He's very precise about what he thinks would benefit Canada, and he's truly doing his best to get it done. To me, so far, everything that has come out of the office has been very concise and deliberate. Information is generally not leaked prematurely because I am well aware that if/when it is leaked, it gets a spin from every corner of the political and media world.

And Mr. Joe Canadian's image is fantastic! It seems that the only opposition Harper has been getting has been on a "lets smear his image" level. Okay, if you can come up with several $ multi-million scams, blunders, screw ups that have been directly attributed to Harper's PCs, then maybe I will think the Liberals smell better.

I think for the first time, we have a PM (and a party in power) that genuinely wants Canada to become better than it ever was. Our previous government didn't seem to honestly care. It seemed to be a lot of posturing and bluffing in order to line pockets.

And one last thing ... I am so happy to have a PM who doesn't suffer from saggy eye-bags.