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Harper’s tough-guy image turns turtle
2-23-2015
Stephen Harper is a trash-talker. Every so often, the dour, responsible, serious-minded persona this charlatan has affected for public consumption slips to reveal his true character.
We saw it on display last week when the prime minister claimed on a Quebec private radio station that “a lot” of Radio-Canada employees “hate” conservative values.
This rare moment of candor came after Harper was asked how he intended to court Quebecers in the upcoming election. Not that there was ever any doubt: Harper plans to play the wedge-politics card once again. What kind of festering well of animus, grievance and paranoia prompts a prime minister to utter the word “hate” in response to a question about political strategy?
I suspect Harper feels much the same about the other journalists who aren’t on his Christmas card list (chief among them, Michael Harris) — and about the overwhelming majority of Canadians who don’t share his crummy “values” and don’t like how he and his boorish gang of acolytes have made this country unrecognizable in so many ways.
Harper’s metastasizing enemies’ list is beginning to rival Dick Nixon’s infamous ledger … and we all know what eventually happened to him.
The prime minister, simply put, is a nasty piece of work. His every act and statement is a product of a petty, parochial political calculus; the quaint notion of ‘nation-building’ isn’t part of his lexicon. And like any unrepentant bully, Harper prefers adversaries who can’t fight back — hence his venomous attack on Radio-Canada journalists.
(Note that CBC president Hubert Lacroix didn’t say a word in his maligned troops’ defence when he appeared before a Commons committee earlier this week in Ottawa. Apparently, he was too busy dousing other bushfires — paging Amanda Lang — or perhaps he didn’t want to alienate the CBC’s Tory-friendly board of governors.)
Happily, however, other Canadians smeared by Harper’s hate machine aren’t willing to turn the other cheek. And when he’s called on his dirty tricks, the prime minister tends to turn turtle.
You probably saw this iPolitics report — about how the PM quietly invoked parliamentary privilege to escape being grilled by lawyers representing the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM). Not exactly the stuff of profiles-in-courage, is it?
The NCCM sued Harper and his freshly departed PR guy, Jason MacDonald, for libel after MacDonald appeared on Sun News Network to slime the NCCM by insisting it “has documented ties to a terrorist organization … Hamas.”
(Look, I’m no Stanley Knowles, but how can Harper invoke parliamentary privilege when the offending statements weren’t made in the House, but on TV?)
Anyway, the NCCM argues that MacDonald’s attack had his boss’s implicit, if not explicit, approval. Make no mistake, the explicit intent of that slur – based on laughable, discredited information culled from an obscure court case heard in the backwoods of the Lone Star state – was to malign all the loyal, hard-working Muslim-Canadians working at NCCM as Hamas sympathizers or worse. When Harper and company refused to retract and apologize, the NCCM sued the pair last May.
The overall effect, of course, is a blot on Harper’s carefully cultivated tough-guy image. A bad hombre wouldn’t hide behind his lawyer’s pinstriped pants. No sir. He would waive parliamentary privilege, agree to appear at discovery with his former spokesman — who, by the way, is still being represented by a government-hired lawyer — put his hand on a Bible and say: Fire away.
But the optics on the eve of an election campaign would be awful — and in Harperland, the optics are all. It’s all about saving the PM’s tainted hide — and if that means chucking yet another loyal disciple under the bus, so be it.
Indeed, in his statement of defence, Harper claims it’s all MacDonald’s doing since he did not “direct, authorize or approve” his flak to say nasty stuff about the NCCM.
Talk about déjà vu: It looks and smells like the cockamamie Nigel Wright cover story all over again.
So while MacDonald will be questioned later this month, Harper has once again avoided being tested under oath by a tenacious, prepared lawyer.
Still, I applaud the NCCM for standing up to this bully prime minister and I hope that, in time and with patience and perseverance, it knocks the stuffing out of him.
Andrew Mitrovica is a writer and journalism instructor. For much of his career, Andrew was an investigative reporter for a variety of news organizations and publications including the CBC’s fifth estate, CTV’s W5, CTV National News — where he was the network’s chief investigative producer — the Walrus magazine and the Globe and Mail, where he was a member of the newspaper’s investigative unit. During the course of his 23-year career, Andrew has won numerous national and international awards for his investigative work.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.
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