IN SO many ways, Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government is limping into the parliamentary summer recess more disheveled and vulnerable than it has ever been in its 16-month existence.
Finance minister Jim Flaherty’s March budget measures on equalization and natural resource revenue issues have become the catalyst for strident opposition from premiers in Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, provinces whose 18 Conservative MPs represent more than 14 percent of the government’s base.
His decision on income trusts has alienated many in the natural Conservative constituency of seniors.
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Meanwhile, human resources and social development minister Monte Solberg has been struggling to defend a botch-up in student summer program funding.
Harper’s defence minister, Gordon O’Connor, can’t seem to keep his feet out of cow patties on the Afghanistan war issue, which is not playing well in coveted Quebec seats.
Then there are disgruntled western Reformers griping about Harper’s move to the centre in search of those elusive and necessary urban and suburban voters that spell the difference between defeat, minority and majority.
All in all, this is a government limping into summer, still slightly ahead in the polls only because all opposition parties have their own issues. Some ministers are in retreat, others are hiding under their desks and the government is looking for a new agenda that will recreate its image.
So what, then, to make of agriculture minister Chuck Strahl and his methodical march toward dismantling the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly?
On Monday, he confirmed the barley single desk will end Aug. 1 and despite notice several hours later of a court challenge, it undoubtedly will end Aug. 1.
In the political context of the day, it is amazing that Strahl has gone this far this fast. In Parliament, he has faced an opposition majority that opposes his wheat board agenda and regularly votes against it.
On the Prairies, he has faced vocal opposition from farmers and two NDP governments that have convinced most media that the wheat board is hugely popular, most farmers support it and the Conservatives will pay a price for their treachery.
Through it all, Strahl, undoubtedly with constant prodding from parliamentary secretary David Anderson who considers grain marketing freedom of choice a theological certainty, has plowed on.
The Conservatives believe the CWB is not a ballot issue for most prairie voters.
And they are marching to Pretoria.
Strahl’s opponents scoff that he is able to pursue this plan to undermine collective farmer market power only because he is prepared to trample democratic principles, fairness and the rule of law to get his way.
They may win their point if the courts rule that Strahl cannot end the barley monopoly by regulation or if voters decide to throw the Conservatives out of rural prairie ridings.
But for the moment, from a position of political weakness, he is winning the battle through stealth, cunning and resolve.
Harper may want to consider the success of tactics in one of his lesser priorities if he is looking for a road map to the way ahead.
As Pierre Trudeau proved, voters may hate the direction but they admire a politician who knows and explains the way ahead.
