Though the EI working group has inspired public sniping from both sides, it may yet yield some kind of compromise. Either way, the Prime Minister had already indicated an intent to make reforms in the fall. The Conservatives will be due to deliver another report card on their economic stimulus efforts when the House returns in September. If they survive that, they will also have a chance to table the traditional fall economic update. And while Steven Fletcher, the minister of state for democratic reform, has renewed talk of eliminating the vote subsidy, the Prime Minister’s Office says the focus will be on the economy and the government’s crime agenda.
“Minority government eschews the big idea,” Power says. “I think what you will have is practical approaches from the Prime Minister. The big idea guys of recent memory—Stéphane Dion and Paul Martin—went up in flames. I don’t think the Prime Minister has a desire to self-immolate. I think his strength is not being the advocate of the big idea, but being the steady hand, with some practical approaches, on the rudder of Canada.”
On this, the book may already have been written. This spring, Tom Flanagan, the University of Calgary political scientist and once one of Stephen Harper’s closest allies, released an expanded edition of Harper’s Team, his insider’s account of the “Conservative rise to power.” In an added final chapter—“The Politics of Survival”—he reflects on the crisis of last winter, the damage done to the Prime Minister’s reputation and the danger presented by a recession. He publicly counsels Harper to focus on the business of government, comfort the party faithful and avoid unnecessary nastiness. But his most trenchant analysis is less a prescription for the future than an observation of the past.
“To end on a personal note, I went through many ups and downs with Stephen. He has never made it easy for himself,” Flanagan writes. “But he has powers of recuperation, and those who now predict his demise because the economy is down and because he made some tactical errors shouldn’t start writing his epitaph. Just as Stephen found a way to survive against the threat of the coalition, he will find a way to lead Harper’s team into the field again.”
With John Geddes
