By Sheilla Jones, Winnipeg Free Press, Books, November 22, 2014
Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada's Radical Makeover
By Michael Harris
Viking Canada, Penguin Random House Canada
534 pages
Political pragmatists know full well that Canada's political party system is driven by two directives: get into power and stay in power. If good governance should inadvertently break out in the pursuit of those directives or in lulls between elections, that's nice, but not the point.
Stephen Harper, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, achieved the primary objective in 2006 and has pursued the secondary objective with gritted-teeth focus ever since. The non-stop campaigning means any and every issue facing the country is framed by how it will be perceived by the CPC base and the additional 10 per cent of voters needed for a second majority.
Author Michael Harris's latest book, Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada's Radical Makeover, begins with a young Harper determined to achieve power for himself, even if it meant stabbing his mentor MP Jim Hawkes in the back to get hold of his seat, or organizing a smear campaign to humiliate Reform party leader Preston Manning into resigning to clear the way for himself. Harper learned early on that there is no need to take on his "enemies" mano-a-mano when a well-funded smear campaign will do the trick.
What follows in Party of One is the now-standard catalogue of Harper's attempts to control and manipulate public perception in the service of retaining power -- from the election advertising fraud in the 2006 campaign (it worked, didn't it?) to the nasty, personal attacks on anyone Harper considers as a challenge to his power -- including the closest thing Canada has to a bureaucratic saint, former auditor general Sheila Fraser.
Harper, along with his tight circle of loyalists in the Prime Minister's Office, has put considerable effort into creating negative perceptions of his enemies -- real and imagined -- using attack ads, smear campaigns and misinformation. He has, in the process, created a hardening perception of himself as a dirty fighter who will say or do anything to hold onto power.
His power rests on his ability to manipulate the electorate to his advantage, but it also rests on how well he can control his own caucus through fear and reward. He can destroy an MP's life with a snap of his fingers (see Helena Guergis), or reward with a cabinet position or Senate appointment, a power only he possesses.
While all prime ministers wield that same power, the difference with Harper is that he requires his ambitious minions to first prove their fealty to him. The test for MPs is their willingness to publicly humiliate themselves by obediently and repeatedly reciting talking points provided by the PMO (see Shelly Glover, Pierre Poilièvre and, sadly, Chris Alexander). Harper can order his underlings to humiliate themselves at his behest. He knows that he holds all the power in the party, and they know it, too.
It's a relief that Harris has avoided the kind of hyperbole he uses to castigate Harper in the political columns he writes for iPolitics. In Party of One, Harris presents a thorough, well-researched story on Harper's need for control. His interviews with such notables as Fraser, former House speaker Peter Milliken and former diplomat Paul Heinbecker add useful insights -- the reader wants more from them.
Concluding the book with a Farley Mowat interview from shortly before the Canadian literary icon died strikes a discordant note. Mowat had well-known views on politics, but was not a political insider.
Readers who worry about Stephen Harper and his modus operandi will find plenty in Party of One to confirm their concerns. But when taking in the many criticisms in the book about how Harper has crippled Canadian democracy in his efforts to impose his will on the country, it should be remembered that he is just one man.
Harper knows he cannot come out of the next election with anything less than a majority. If he doesn't deliver, the knives will come out and he will quickly find himself powerless and alone -- a true party of one.
Sheilla Jones is a Winnipeg author and a former CBC political commentator and news editor.
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