[Bcma-l] CMA Clip Serv: Stephen Harper's summer of love
bcma-l@museumsassn.bc.ca
bcma-l@museumsassn.bc.ca
Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:18:00 -0700
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<b>Stephen Harper’s summer of love</b></span></font>
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Stephen Maher, Chronicle Herald, Saturday, June 27, 2009</span></font>
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper kicked off his summer of oversized
cheques with a visit to Halifax on Thursday in which he showed us
some money and some love.</span></font>
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If he keeps going like this — and I don’t see why he shouldn&r=
squo;t — this
should be a good summer for him and a bad summer for Michael
Ignatieff.</span></font>
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On a flag-bedecked stage at Pier 21, flanked by dignitaries in suits,
Mr. Harper was prime ministerial, warm, relaxed and statesmanlike,
with a sincere-looking smile.</span></font>
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He announced that Pier 21 would be a national museum, with $10
million in initial funding and $5 million annually.</span></font>
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This is great. Pier 21 is the gateway through which a million
immigrants came to Canada, and the story of how they helped</span></font>
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build this country is a credit to them and to the society that was
flexible and open enough to make room for them.</span></font>
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Canada’s unrivalled ability to absorb newcomers is a significant and=
singular achievement — unlike, say, our exaggerated contributions to=
international peacekeeping — and Mr. Harper is able to speak
convincingly about it.</span></font>
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The museum, he said, "will tell the story, not just of the Europeans
who passed through Pier 21, but of those who came later from Asia,
Africa and our own hemisphere and of those who will come
tomorrow, because newcomers will be as much a part of Canada’s
future as they have been of our past."</span></font>
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In a news conference after his speech, Mr. Harper remained on high
ground, praising former (Liberal) governor general Romeo LeBlanc,
who had just died, and vowing to work with new NDP Premier
Darrell Dexter.</span></font>
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"All governments in Nova Scotia are first and foremost highly
committed to the best interests of the country, and we all have
enormous challenges these days because of the world economic
situation," he said.</span></font>
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Throughout, Mr. Harper behaved like a kindly old-style Progressive
Conservative politician, blandly and pleasantly talking about the
economy.</span></font>
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And he was on TV doing so all day, which is every politician’s
dream.</span></font>
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Because Parliament is on recess until Sept. 14, Mr. Harper doesn’t
have to cope with pesky opposition attacks; he can fly around the
country dispensing cheques and blandly discussing the economy — a
walking, talking economic action plan, tailor-made for your TV
screen.</span></font>
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And Mr. Ignatieff can say nothing about this.</span></font>
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What’s he going to do? Criticize Mr. Harper for making Pier 21 a
national museum?</span></font>
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The Liberals can’t really attack because, this winter, after his fai=
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economic update, Mr. Harper had to chart a course for the economy
more or less as they wanted.</span></font>
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Because of this, the Liberals have had to attack on employment
insurance — which has not turned out to be the political winner they=
had hoped — and managerial competence, which is a hard case to
make to voters even when ministers are leaving secret documents in
TV studios.</span></font>
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Mr. Ignatieff made things easier for Mr. Harper at the end of the
session when he awkwardly led the country to the brink of an
election, seemingly without a good tactical plan for the showdown,
and Mr. Harper saved the day by agreeing to appoint a bipartisan blue
ribbon panel to study EI.</span></font>
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Part of the deal for the Liberals is that they get to vote on the panel&rs=
quo;s
results in September, which gives them a trigger for the election they
want.</span></font>
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But the awkward manner in which Mr. Ignatieff won the concession
makes it less likely that he will be brave enough to pull that trigger.</s=
pan></font>
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The latest EKOS poll shows the Liberals trailing the Tories for the
first time in months, all a result of Mr. Ignatieff’s amateurish
management of the showdown.</span></font>
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The Liberals are reduced, therefore, to spending the summer getting
themselves organized, sending Mr. Ignatieff to more barbecues and
hoping, desperately, that Mr. Harper’s team does something stupid.</=
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Otherwise, it will be a long summer of Mr. Harper looking good and
Mr. Ignatieff struggling to get any TV time at all.</span></font>
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Meanwhile, the Tory attack ads play on in heavy rotation, fixing in
Canadians’ minds the idea that Count Ignatieff is some kind of funny=
foreigner.</span></font>
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After his speech in Halifax, Mr. Harper did a sit-down interview with
CTV’s Steve Murphy, and Mr. Murphy held his feet to the fire over
the attack ads, asking the prime minister repeatedly to explain
whether he really thinks that Mr. Ignatieff is unfit to serve just
because of his long absence from Canada.</span></font>
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Mr. Murphy made Mr. Harper squirm a bit, but the prime minister
managed to justify the ads, saying they helped avoid an election.</span></=
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I think Mr. Harper is right. The ads did stall Mr. Ignatieff’s
momentum, and they are likely to continue to do so.</span></font>
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One of the best things about Mr. Ignatieff is his considerable
intellectual strength on questions like human rights and international
relations — areas where the Harper government’s record is weak=
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Happily for Mr. Harper, those issues are not vote winners.</span></font>
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To win the next election, Mr. Ignatieff must win over rural and
suburban voters who have voted for Mr. Harper’s team in the past,
and now care about little else but the economy.</span></font>
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All summer, they’ll be seeing Mr. Harper on their TVs, cutting
ribbons and signing cheques.</span></font>
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