While the results are not yet in, of course, it would appear that there are still serious reservations about giving Harper the keys to the kingdom. Despite all his time in power and his tactical brilliance in remaining in power, even among his supporters he generates a certain ambivalence. For much of the rest of the populace, he remains a divisive figure and a spectre of far right ideology. But is that a fair assessment of his politics? Just how right wing is Harper? And what, if any, role does his ideological platform have in either maintaining his power or preventing him from acquiring the stability of a majority?
How Right Wing Has the Harper Government Been?
Back in the day – cue 70s music and a montage of big cars and bigger hair – the difference between the left and the right was straightforward. But during the 1990s, what were once right-wing fringe views became fairly mainstream and centrist. Harper himself noted this, writing (with Tom Flanagan) in a piece called Our Benign Dictatorship:Almost everyone in public life now takes balanced budgets, tax reduction, free trade, privatization of public enterprise and targeting of social welfare programs for granted, while critics on the left bemoan their loss of influence.
For Harper, the challenge of the right was less ideological and more regional – the Canadian right had fractured into an eastern half and a western half, and were handing election after election to a Liberal party that had lost its base in Quebec. All that remained was to form a grand coalition of regional conservative parties in order to usurp the Liberal party as the defacto ruling party of Canada. Which is precisely the course he has been sailing. And in acquiring and maintaining political power, Harper has governed primarily in the centre and, on many issues, may be fairly seen as to the left of his predecessor Liberal governments.
For the sake of this discussion, we can provide a broader definition of the elements of contemporary right-wing politics than the one provided by Harper himself. There are essentially six elements to North American right-wing ideology: social conservatism (often influenced by Christian religious views) with respect to family and lifestyle issues; a desire for small or restricted government (often influenced by classic libertarian views); an obsession with low taxation rates for individuals and business; a strong belief in the primacy of the market as the ordering force in society; an emphasis on domestic law and order; and a strong military.
There are other areas that may be typical of right-wing governments – skepticism about settled science and the running of deficits for example – but I would argue that the six above represent the core elements of North American conservatism. And I would also argue that while the Harper government is clearly a centre-right government, it can be seen as being to the left of the Chretien and Martin governments on a number of issues. It is simply false for Harper, or his political opponents, for that matter, to characterize him as a standard bearer for the right.
Social Conservatism
In Canada, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, makes it very difficult for any government to enact legislation that restricts the rights of one group based on the mores of another group. Any government wishing to roll back rights for gays and lesbians, or to formally restrict access to abortion, or to reinstate capital punishment, for example, would have to invoke the Charter’s notwithstanding clause and run the risk of opening fire in a serious, no-holds barred culture war. The stark truth for even a right-wing majority government is that these constitutional and political constraints would require major and long-term ideological support from the electorate. Without that, any attempt to engage in a wholesale legislative effort to impose a socially conservative morality on the country would likely result in massive electoral defeat for the offending government.
Even in this context, Harper's efforts to impose a socially conservative order on the country have been minimal. The most visible effort in the regard would have to be considered his major foreign policy effort to fund women’s health initiatives in the developing world to the exclusion of funding any abortion related programs. While this may be considered wrong-headed and nefarious by many, it can hardly be said to have had a lasting effect on the domestic social fabric.
Nor could the Harper government be said to be anti-immigration in the traditional sense, often an element of right-wing social ideology. The reforms enacted to Canada’s immigration system certainly removed rights and access to appeals for applicants, and the government could not be considered to be overly committed to the plight of refugees. But the overall immigration numbers, though focused more than ever on the professional class, have remained consistent. Indeed, in a particularly Canadian development, the Conservatives have sought to target immigrant communities during this election in the hopes that their socially conservative ideology will be appealing to voters with ties to socially conservative homelands. I cannot think of a right-wing government that has ever been friendlier to immigration.
Small or Restricted Government
This is an area where Harper could - and should - show his true right wing colours. Not only are there very few constitutional limitations on reducing the size and reach of government, and widespread frustration within the electorate for bureaucracy and governmental arrogance, but the practical challenge of shrinking the size of government will probably emerge across the political spectrum as one of the major international movements in the coming years. The timing couldn’t be better for a serious and sustained assault on the growing size and reach of governmental structures.
Despite this, Harper’s efforts have been surprisingly tepid or simply frivolous. Sure, there have been efforts to direct tax credits to families as opposed to institutions but this boutique taxation approach could hardly be touted as slaying the bureaucratic dragon. Nor could Harper’s ham-fisted change to the long-form census be taken seriously as an effort to protect citizens from the rampages of governmental authority.
A committed right-wing voter would have serious cause to be disappointed by Harper on this issue. There has been little or no meaningful discussion about the size and role of government for the past six years. Any opportunities to, for example, reform the tax code or reduce the size of the bureaucracy or reduce the number and scope of government ministries and agencies have been ignored or otherwise missed.
Low Taxation
In this area Harper has most clearly demonstrated his right-wing bona fides. In addition to reducing the G.S.T. from 7% to 5%, Harper’s planned corporate tax cuts would see the rate fall from 18% to 15%. While there has been no corresponding reduction to the personal income taxation rates, no Prime Minister in Canadian history has been more aggressive about reducing governmental revenue than Stephen Harper.
The Primacy of the Market
Despite his rhetoric, in practice, Harper’s significant interventions in the market have been of the type that we might have seen in previous Liberal governments. First and foremost in this respect was the massive Keynesian response to the global economic crisis. In increasing government spending in the manner that he did, Harper was essentially conceding that market-first approaches would be ineffective and inappropriate in times of economic crisis. Added to this, we have seen the kibosh on the Potash deal, the billion dollar bail-out of the automotive industry, the denial of expanded landing rights for Emirates and the refusal to issue a tender for the replacement of the aging CF-18 fleet. These are typically Canadian governmental market workarounds that suggest that political actors are better able to run the economy than private business interests. The overturning of the CRTC’s decision on allowing Wind Mobile to operate domestically and the recent intervention with respect to internet billing rates are anomalous in this respect. There simply has not been a significant effort on the part of Harper to ensure more competition within the Canadian market.
Law and Order
This is an area where Harper’s policies more closely reflect a typical right-wing worldview. The addition of a some mandatory sentences, the elimination of extra credit for pre-trial custody, billions of dollars for new prisons and the massive investment in the federal and Ontario policing infrastructure occasioned by the G20 summit, and the now infamous reference to the secret statistics on unreported crime reflect a government that is being driven primarily by ideology and not by voter priorities. It is notable, however, that federal prosecutors remain among the poorest paid in the country. The commitment to law and order only goes so far.
Strong Military
As pointed out in a previous post, Harper has certainly not shied away from politicizing the military. But has he made it stronger? Certainly the Canadian military is more influential than it has been in a few generations - two armed conflicts tend to do that – but is it stronger?
I would argue that Harper has overseen significant spending with respect to equipment upgrades but the remuneration of soldiers, especially those wounded in action, remains a significant weakness with respect to military morale and overall effectiveness. So too, the detainee scandal in which political actors were willing to put soldiers into positions where they were in violation of international law cannot be said to be strengthening the military.
It’s the Minority Government, Stupid.
The obvious argument for both right-wing defenders of Harper and his left-wing critiques is that the political realities of the minority government situation that he has been in has forced him to govern more from the centre than he would otherwise be inclined to do. With a majority, we’ll see his true colours and a significantly more right wing government.
In many respects it is true that being in a minority has kept Harper in check. There is no doubt that with a majority his legislative and policy agenda would be more right wing. But I would also argue that there are still significant factors that would prevent a “Common Sense Revolution” from occurring at a national level.
First, the fundamental institutions and instruments of law and policy in Canada are biased toward the centre. As discussed above, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides a significant bulwark against a government seeking to roll back the hard won rights of individuals or groups who would otherwise be targeted by a socially conservative agenda. Similarly, the public service, the media, the courts, and the timelines and path dependency of public spending in this country work to make radical change in this country very difficult.
Second, even majority governments need to be re-elected. A massive shift to the right would run the risk of creating a massive backlash in the electorate at the next election. I suggest that Harper’s primary concern is establishing his party as the de facto ruling party in the country. This requires an adherence to some of the centrist reasoning that he decries in his political rhetoric.
All this by way of saying that even in a majority government, Harper is apt to lean less to the right than is hoped by many of his supporters and feared my many of his critics.
A Modern Mackenzie King?
Re-reading Our Benign Dictatorship and assessing his performance over the past six years, what is clear is that Harper, like many politicians, is far more obsessed with the mechanics of tactical supremacy than he is with ideological principle.
While the media and the opposition present him as a creature of right-wing ideology, his time in office, his major policy initiatives, reveal, at best, a right of centre moderate who flirts with libertarian ideals on fringe matters only. And while he remains a figure of contention in Canadian politics and, for many, a symbol of aggressive politics and the disregard of many of institutions and instruments that meld together the disparate elements of the rule of law in Canada, in many ways Harper has emerged as a latter day Mackenzie King. A man for whom the reliance on political and ideological compromise has usurped the role of ideas in his approach to governance.
I would also suggest that it is this very obsession - and genius - with tactics and not his ideology that has prevented him from containing a majority mandate from the Canadian electorate. It is hard to mask one's true nature after six years in the public eye. I think most Canadians have developed a respect - even if grudgingly - for Harper's competence as a manager and a leader. I also think that they recognise he is, essentially, a centrist with rightward leanings and not a rabid, right-wing ideologue. I would suggest, however, that the voters have an unease with his tactics. his lack of a big picture unifying political vision, and his often narrow or petty responses to his colleagues or his opponents. It is here that he is most vulnerable and, like King before him, generates the most ambivalence.
-BC
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