Stephen Harper

Wednesday May 18, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 18, 2022

Conservative Party leadership race divides along Harper, Mulroney lines

Nov. 12, 2007

Stephen Harper and Brian Mulroney are at war again over the future of the Conservative Party.

While neither former prime minister has said so publicly, everyone knows Mr. Harper opposes the efforts of former Quebec premier Jean Charest to become Conservative leader, while Mr. Mulroney is a Charest supporter.

Mr. Harper speaks to a conservatism that supports lower taxes and balanced budgets, that places a lower priority on fighting climate change than on developing oil and gas. As leader, he paid careful attention to the needs of Western voters.

Mr. Mulroney’s supporters place a stronger emphasis on environmental issues and are less dogmatic on taxes and deficits. As leader, Mr. Mulroney paid careful attention to the needs of Quebec.

Wednesday November 17, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 17, 2021

O’Toole kicks senator out of Conservative caucus after she questioned his leadership

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole has kicked Saskatchewan Sen. Denise Batters out of the national caucus a day after she launched a petition calling for an expedited review of his leadership.

November 9, 2021

“As the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, I will not tolerate an individual discrediting and showing a clear lack of respect towards the efforts of the entire Conservative caucus, who are holding the corrupt and disastrous Trudeau government to account,” O’Toole said in a media statement late Tuesday.

The statement was released shortly after Batters emerged from a virtual meeting of the Senate Conservative caucus. The Conservative leader in the Senate, Manitoba Sen. Don Plett, took no action against Batters on that call.

Instead, Batters said she learned she was out of the Conservative fold through a telephone message from O’Toole.

January 22, 2021

“Tonight, Erin O’Toole tried to silence me for giving our CPC members a voice. I will not be silenced by a leader so weak that he fired me VIA VOICEMAIL,” Batters said in a social media post.

“Most importantly, he cannot suppress the will of our Conservative Party members!”

Batters launched the petition Monday, saying she and other party members have lost faith in O’Toole. She argued the party experienced “significant losses” in the fall campaign after O’Toole flip-flopped on major issues such as carbon pricing, firearms and conscience rights. She said she wants members to have a say on O’Toole’s future prior to the planned 2023 party convention.

September 14, 2021

Party rules require an automatic leadership review at the first national convention following a failed federal election campaign. Batters has said she wants that vote to happen in the next six months.

“Mr. O’Toole flip-flopped on policies core to our party within the same week, the same day, and even within the same sentence. The members didn’t have a say on that, but we must have one on his leadership,” Batters said in a statement announcing the petition.

Under the party’s constitution, a referendum on any matter can be launched if five per cent of Conservative members sign a petition calling on the party to poll the membership on the topic through a referendum. (CBC) 

 

Friday February 14, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 14, 2020

The Conservative Party’s moderate-centres have disappeared

Alone among the senior party elephants who in the past few days have fled the high veldt of the federal Conservative leadership campaign, former Quebec premier Jean Charest left behind disquieting words as he took the exit road. The party, he observed, has changed a lot since he was last active in it in 1998.

March 24, 2018

You wonder why Conservative strategists and the media have not made more of what he said.

They’ve stated that the party is confused; it has lost its identity, needs to find itself—when, for the most part, the party knows exactly where it is and how it got there. It’s the strategists and media who are living in something that looks a lot like a state of denial.

They’re engaging in a surreal debate about what the party needs to do to fix itself and grow its political message—make symbolic or mild policy nods toward the political centre, have its leaders walk in a pride parade, declare it won’t be re-opening the abortion debate, do something to hobble the party’s “extremist wing.”

Yet the Conservative moderate-centre has all but disappeared. Largely, the so-called Red Tories have left the party and gone elsewhere. There is no “extremist wing”—that’s imaginary. Fundamental changes have shaped the base of the party that reflect differences in outlook, preferences and values from the great majority of Canadians and have little to do with what someone thinks about gay pride parades. As in the U.K. and the U.S., authoritarian or ordered populism has polarized Canada into two incommensurable camps.

Animated!

The Conservative Party that most Canadians have known—the political centre that previously had the ability to find centre terrain on the most divisive issues of the day—has disappeared. What contemporary Conservative strategists and the media seem to have significant difficulty recognizing is that Canadian politics has become much more like American politics—it’s become tribal. And just as two Americas have taken root and blossomed, two Canadas are appearing on this side of the border.

EKOS Research found that four years ago, there was a 10-percentage-point gap between Liberals and Conservatives who selected climate change as the top issue of political concern. That gap is now 46 percentage points.

More than 90 per cent of Canadians who identify with the political centre-left, which is 65 per cent of adult citizens, think that Canada now has a climate emergency (they don’t believe that it’s coming, but that it’s here now.) For people who identify as Conservative or People’s Party supporters, the figure is less than 30 per cent. Four years ago, there was a 20-percentage-point gap between Liberals and Conservatives on trust in science. That exploded to a 40 per cent gap following the last election.

Since 2012, the incidence of Conservative voters who think Canada is admitting “too many” visible minorities as immigrants has swollen from 47 per cent to 70 per cent . Meanwhile, the corresponding incidence of Liberals agreeing there are too many has dropped from 35 to 15 per cent. A modest 12 per cent gap has also expanded to a massive 55 per cent gap. (MacLean’s) 

 

Friday January 24, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 24, 2020

Where the Tory leadership race stands now that Ambrose and Charest are out

Rona Ambrose is out and she wasn’t even in. The former Conservative minister ended weeks of speculation about whether she would run for the party’s leadership by saying that she is going to pass and “focus on making a difference through the private sector”.

May 31, 2016

She said she struggled with the decision of whether or not to return to political life but her conclusion came as no surprise. Her friends were always dubious that she would commit. She married her partner, businessman JP Veitch, last summer and people who know her well said she is enjoying the pace of life in the private sector, as well as being back in Alberta.

The announcement will be lamented by Conservatives who saw her as the most likely bet to modernize a party that has been disparaged as out-of-date and narrow-minded. In her written statement, Ambrose tacitly made the case for change. “I know we will choose a strong, compassionate person to lead us, who supports ALL families,” she said.

She joins former Quebec premier Jean Charest on the sidelines.

May 13, 2015

There is general agreement among the dozen or so senior Conservatives I spoke with on Wednesday, that this is shaping into a contest between Peter MacKay and Pierre Poilievre, with Erin O’Toole a wild card in third place but still capable of pulling off a shock.

Charest’s decision certainly upsets any plans Poilievre had of running as the rock-ribbed movement candidate, who would stop the Progressive Conservatives and other socialist apparatchiks from taking over their party.

On the other hand, Charest would have brought in new members who would have been more likely to transfer their support to MacKay, if and when Charest fell off the ballot.

There are growing concerns that this could prove to be a particularly divisive contest, if the two candidates are viewed as proxies – Poilievre for Stephen Harper; MacKay for Brian Mulroney.

But it is an over-simplification to suggest Poilievre will be the hard-right Reform candidate and MacKay the voice of the mushy Red Tory middle. (Continued: National Post) 

 

Wednesday January 15, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 15, 2020

Harper says change needed in Iran to bring peace to region

July 15, 2015

Former prime minister Stephen Harper says peace in the Middle East will only come after change comes to Iran.

Speaking at an international conference on global challenges in New Delhi Tuesday, Harper said he does not believe Iran would have shot down a civilian aircraft deliberately — but the fact that Tehran knew it could happen and still allowed normal civilian air traffic “tells you something about the nature of that regime and its priorities.”

“I do believe we need to see a change in Iran if we are going to see peace in the Middle East,” he told the international audience at the Raisina Dialogue conference.

January 6, 2016

“I see an increasing number of states in the region — Israel, that I’m close to, certainly the Sunni Arab monarchies, others who are increasingly trying to work together and see a common future and common interests — and you have this one actor that quite frankly is … based on religious fanaticism and regional imperialism and, as I say as a friend of the Jewish people, frankly an anti-Semitic state.”

Iranian leaders confirmed Saturday that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard shot down the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 using surface-to-air missiles, killing all 176 passengers and crew on board. Of those passengers, 138 were destined for Canada, but it’s not known how many were permanent residents or were travelling on visitor or student visas.

Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne has said that 57 of the victims were Canadian citizens.

PM Merch

The aircraft was shot down just hours after Iran launched missiles against two military bases in Iraq where U.S. and Canadian soldiers were stationed. Those strikes were ordered in retaliation for a targeted drone strike on Jan. 3 by the U.S. that killed Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani.

This week, Canadian Jewish and Iranian organizations called on the government to list the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist entity in response to the attack on the Ukrainian aircraft. (CBC News) 

Letters to the Editor, The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday January 18, 2020

Ignore Trump lovers

It’s good that you recognized the PM’s leadership since you condemned him the day before in your editorial cartoon for not being tough enough. Sounds like the writer and the cartoonist are not on the same page.

Yes, there are people who think Trudeau should be more like Trump in his dealing with Iran. But if he followed that advice, the families of the victims would pay the price. It’s easy for Trumpians to whine. Good thing Trudeau is acting for the rest of us.

Helen Bonham, Burlington

Be thankful for Trudeau’s leadership

I usually find Mr. MacKay’s works amusing and/or thought provoking. This one I did not.

Justin Trudeau is not perfect, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but he is certainly not begging for anything from Iran. I have been very impressed with his calm but clear expectations about this horrific tragedy. Unfortunately society has normalized blustering, bullying, lying, name-calling and threatening behaviour from elected leaders.

I am thankful that our Prime Minister is acting responsibly and not reacting impulsively. Let’s continue to support the families who are dealing with this terrible situation and our elected leaders who are trying to sort it out.

Sharon McKibbon, Hamilton