ONE of the best lines about former Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau came from journalist and satirical wag Larry Zolf.
Trudeau was elected as a philosopher king and morphed into Mackenzie King.
From his inspirational notions of a “just society” in 1968 that started sounding like Plato or Jean-Jacques Rousseau but quickly lost their lustre, Trudeau became adept at manipulating the political system to retain power the way William Lyon Mackenzie King did for 22 years to become the country’s longest serving prime minister.
Now to Stephen Harper, Canada’s 22nd prime minister.
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No one ever even imagined him as a philosopher king but a few did imagine him as a modern Mackenzie King, skilled at political strategy and policy tweaking, skills that could possibly give him a long run at 24 Sussex once he got the keys to the PM residence in early 2006.
He is not charismatic but then neither was King.
But he is clever, strategic and power-comfortable, went the thinking, and so was King.
This week puts a huge dent in the analysis of Harper as a prime ministerial survivor. Future events might prove this wrong but he currently looks like a prime minister on the ropes, promising anything for a chance to continue governing.
This week’s budget would have been a nightmare of socialist stupidity for Stephen Harper, private citizen – billions for social housing that he thought market forces could best provide, money for regional development agencies he once thought should be abolished, a $34 billion deficit of the kind that drove him out of the Progressive Conservative party to help form the Reform party.
It looks like an unseemly plea to keep a job he has come to enjoy.
The most recent parallel was Paul Martin’s pitiful 2005 national television address pleading for six more months. He got them and then was turfed to leave a legacy as one of Canada’s shortest serving prime ministers with a record number of unfulfilled promises.
But the historical incident that seems to parallel the Harper episode is R.B. Bennett’s political deathbed conversion to interventionist government in 1935.
The lawyer, capitalist and grain company owner was elected in 1930 as the Depression settled in and for almost five years thought market forces were the answer to economic misery.
With an election looming and the misery continuing, Bennett looked south, saw the popular and expensive activist New Deal plan of Democratic president Franklin D. Roosevelt and wrote a Canadian version.
On Jan. 2, 1935, Bennett went on radio in the first of a series of radio addresses that demonized his economic class, calling grain merchants “economic parasites.”
A biographer said listeners accustomed to Bennett’s capitalist bromides “could hardly believe their ears.”
The Liberals led by King said voters were correct. They shouldn’t believe their ears and a capitalist leopard does not change his spots overnight. Three months later, the election tally was Liberals 172 and Conservatives 39. Voters didn’t believe him.
Which is to say that Harper this winter has a huge task of convincing voters he is no longer the anti-government, anti-deficit guy he was when he made his political reputation.
On the other hand, King was a failed leader when he lost the 1930 election. After 1935, he led the country for 13 more years.
Stephen Harper: Bennett or King?
