Maritime Morning - Andrew Krystal

The late, great, juggler, comedian, vaudevillian, and actor W.C. Fields (January 29, 1880 - December 25, 1946), never really liked kids or dogs. It could be said that Stephen Harper never liked bad actors, actors generally, the arts, or kids - at least 14 year old felons.

But does Stephen like dogs?

Much can be said about a person by what they call their dog. Stephan Dion calls his dog “Kyoto” (after the climate change summit), and apparently, Stephen Harper calls his dog Lehman Bros.

Ok, maybe not.

Clearly, for Harper, his bizarre insistence on cutting funding for the arts (44 million worth) and his “get tough” youth crime policy with punks and violent crime (what Gilles Duceppe refers to as sending them to the “university of crime), will be his “Green Shift” in Quebec - policies that backfire. In fact, according to many, Harper has lost the majority he so coveted by losing the votes in Quebec he so needed with those two foolish electoral planks.

As far as policy goes, “getting tough on punks” works well in Ontario, and in Eastern Canada, but not in big cities and in Quebec where crime issues are seen as more complex; in fact, Quebec has a very low crime rate - a rate that they proclaim is due to their more compassionate social policies, and not punitive policing and sentencing.

As far as the art cuts go, it was the oddest thing Harper has done yet. It was totally unnecessary and not predicated on political gain. It shows, in Harper, a cultural bias and mean-spiritedness that is more true to the persona and form W.C. Fields the curmudgeon, than Stephen Harper the statesman.

But Harper is not a man of the people. One case in point was illustrated by former Tory, now independent Bill Casey, who pointed out this week that Harper has imposed/chosen one third of the riding candidates in Nova Scotia, instead of drawing from grassroots riding associations. Casey said “He would never have gone over the heads of 1/3 of the riding associations in Ontario”. Moreover, Harper, according to Casey, unlike Conservative leaders past, does not consult his regional party caucus members. This lead-from-above-approach culminated in the regionally alienating Atlantic Accord fiasco and the sub contract loss which circumvented the Maritimes for Victoria.

All of this points not to a culture of defeat, but to a culture of defeating the Maritimes.

The debates don’t really matter either. It doesn’t change the facts that Stephen Harper is a mean, dry drunk.

Have a cigar Mr. Fields; boy was he was bitter — dry or wet.