If you’re like me, you haven’t heard the words “Stephen Harper” and “vision” in the same sentence too often, except when the topic is Canada’s north.
Harper is no small-time politician: in addition to having been president of the National Citizens Coalition, a well-funded right-wing lobbying organization, in 2003 Harper was a co-founder of the federal Conservative Party and shortly thereafter became its leader. He is, according to the Conservative Party of Canada website, a “leader of competence and vision.”
Where’s the beef?
But what is that vision? The page mentioned above makes no direct mention of it. If we look to the biographical page on the Prime Minister website, we see, along with the featured “Foster Pet Program” graphic, that
As Prime Minister, Mr. Harper is committed to building a Canada that remains strong, united, independent and free. He is committed to enacting accountability measures for government, lowering taxes for working families, reforming the criminal justice system, helping parents cope with the costs of child care and negotiating a patient wait times guarantee with the provinces.
Foster pet programs?
Now, let no one say that I have anything against foster pet programs.
Nor do I have an inherent disagreement with the idea that Canada remain “strong, united, independent and free.” That, of course, is just the point: none of these “big picture” elements of Stephen Harper’s purported vision is interesting or compelling enough that anyone, other than fervent Québec separatists, could possibly disagree.
In addition to “independent” and “free” being synonyms in most people’s vocabulary, I was not aware that Canada’s independence was in any way threatened, or that our freedom was going to be put into question.
There is similarly little in principle to question in Harper’s commitment to a strong Canada. But where a strong federal government has been needed, the Conservatives have let Canada down on several significant occasions. At the same time, the federal Conservatives’ efforts to forge a “strong” and “independent” Canda have resulted in isolationist policies that have earned us international shame.
Harper’s vision is out of touch with reality
What about the more tangible items, like “lowering taxes for working families”? Tax cuts for working families is a not unreasonable idea, so long as the tax cuts themselves are useful and not excessive. But polls suggest that Canadians do not feel this is the case. Survey data released last April by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities show Canadians are “so concerned about municipal under-funding that they would have preferred the federal government kept the GST at 6 per cent and used the funds to help municipalities.”
It is not entirely frequent that Canada could learn progressive lessons from its neighbour to the south, but on child care the federal Conservatives would do well to observe the trend towards increasing State-level government in childcare that is cropping up across the political spectrum. A vast and ever-growing wealth of research on child care and early learning documents the benefits of well-funded and regulated state-sponsored child care programs.
The Conservatives’ vision for child care sees it as a purely private matter and flies in the face of the best evidence that is informing policy decisions in other jurisdictions across the world. Canadian NGOs roundly award the Conservatives poor marks in this area.
Canada needs a strong leader with a strong vision
Stephen Harper’s vision is weak, poorly defined, and out of touch with Canadians.
