That’s why, upon becoming prime minister in 2006, he put in place the most all-encompassing vetting system Ottawa had ever seen. Nothing could go out, not even the most minor of communications, without approval from head office.

But to control the message, you have to have influence in the media. So how’s this for a coup? Harper now has one of his former directors of communications, Kory Teynecke, as de facto boss of Sun Media coverage. The same Teynecke is also leading the bid from the same organization to create a new conservative television network.

On the newspaper side, Teynecke has already overhauled Sun Media’s Ottawa bureau. Several good reporters have been moved out. The replacements are good reporters as well. But anyone who doesn’t think they will be under pressure to provide a lot of Conservative spin is deluding themselves. The changes were made for a purpose, and the purpose was hardly to have the new hires rushing out to hold the government’s feet to the fire.

On the TV side, the new network needs regulatory approval to get up and running. The CRTC will be under tremendous pressure to provide it. As has been demonstrated, Harper does not take kindly to tribunals or commissions that go against his wishes. Those who sit on them can be replaced or have their decisions overturned. Chances of the PM standly idly by and watching this network proposal get shelved are next to nil.

The new network won’t be as biased as Fox News in the United States, its promoters claim. But in attacking the work of the CBC’s Don Newman, they showed their true colours. If they had one-half the experience, the depth and the erudition of Newman, they should consider themselves lucky.

Having one of his former promoters running Sun Media is just one of two great media turns for the prime minister. The other was the recent auction of the Canwest newspapers. Just when it looked like the conservative flagship, The National Post, and the chain’s other big-city newspapers were about to be taken over by liberally inclined buyers, Canwest’s Paul Godfrey came to the rescue with an 11th-hour bid that will keep the papers in the conservative stable.

The prime minister stood on the verge of losing the media balance of power in the country. Not only has he maintained it, he has now increased it.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

Everyone already knew the former prime minister had acted inappropriately in accepting cash payments from wheeler-dealer Karlheinz Schreiber. Mulroney has already admitted this and conceded it was a serious error of judgment.

But what we wanted to know, and what we didn’t find out, is why the secret payments were made. Until that mystery is solved — and it likely never will be — this case is unsolved. The extent of Mulroney’s transgression, his degree of culpability, cannot be answered.

Mulroney had testified that he took the cash to lobby international leaders for the sale of light-armoured vehicles on behalf of Schreiber’s clients. But the Oliphant report drove holes through that theory, as it did to some of the other Mulroney testimony on the case.

One of the most devastating parts of the report concerned Mulroney’s statements regarding his relationship with Schreiber in 1996 legal proceedings on a related controversy. Justice Jeffrey Oliphant cast doubt on the integrity of the testimony, and added that Mulroney’s later attempts to justify what he said were “patently absurd.”

Justice Oliphant’s findings on that testimony could be interpreted as an allegation of perjury. The report also found that Mulroney had violated his own government’s code of ethics in his business dealings with Schreiber.

What now? Yesterday’s report will likely be the end of it. No major new revelations on the story are likely to be found. Journalists have been tracking it for two decades. The RCMP investigated the related matter of Airbus for several years. And this commission took its turn and the questions remain.

One of the strange things was that Mulroney himself encouraged Stephen Harper to call this probe. That’s something a guilty man would not readily have done. He likely felt that, as was the case with the Airbus inquiry, he would be vindicated.

Yesterday’s report was by no means vindication. But after a few days of bad headlines, Mulroney will be able to finally move on. He may in fact be guilty of worse transgressions than have been revealed. But to a certain extent, justice has been done.

It’s about reputation. Mulroney cares about reputation as much as anyone else, even more so.  For years, his reputation has suffered on account of his Schreiber dealings, serving to diminish his accomplishments as prime minister. This shadow on his legacy is warranted. But the shadow is not the substance.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

The old warrior’s portrait, which is to be hung in the halls of Parliament, will be unveiled in a ceremony hosted by Prime Minister Stephen Harper tonight.

A safe bet is there will be a lot of Liberals in attendance wishing Chretien was still around.

“Ah, the good old days.” That will be the phrase on everyone’s lips as his three straight majority election victories are recalled.

His legacy is getting better with time, particularly on account of what has happened since he stepped down in 2003. The once-proud party has staggered ever since. Paul Martin won a minority and then was defeated. Stéphane Dion took over and the party declined further. Michael Ignatieff replaced him and the party’s latest poll standing is at 25 per cent.

Three factors have been at the root of the Liberal decline. One was 9/11, which changed the personality of the times, hoisting the security agenda forever to the forefront. A second was the sponsorship controversy that happened under the Chretien watch and which cost the party a dozen points in the polls. The Liberals have yet to recover from that scandal. The third factor has been the party’s inability to find a leader who can catch on.

Chretien’s words today will be parsed for advice, but he has no magic formula for getting the Grits on track. His former adviser, Peter Donolo, is now chief of staff to Ignatieff. There is no doubt the former prime minister has had an opportunity to offer his counsel.

One piece of encouragement Chretien will be able to provide is a reference to his own experience. He served as opposition leader for three years and had a terrible time almost every step of the way...and won.

Another sign of hope is that the party’s major opponent isn’t exactly setting the world on fire. Since coming to power in 2006, the Conservatives have averaged only about 35 per cent support in the polls. Try finding any other government in Canadian history with rankings that low for so long a period.

What helped Chretien enormously was the role of fortune. He knows well that you must have breaks to win in this game. He got his with the complete collapse of the Tory party in 1993.

The little guy from Shawinigan, however, had qualities succeeding Liberal leaders have lacked. He was a strong character with homespun personal appeal. He embodied good old-fashioned Canadian grit.

Stephen Harper is seen as the guy with grit now.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

One of the unwritten stories about Stephen Harper is how the fates continually smile on him. Few Canadian politicians have ever been as fortunate.

The latest break came last week. Just when it appeared the Conservatives were about to lose a huge swath of supportive media in a newspaper sell-off, a darkhorse bidder saved the day.

Liberally-inclined Torstar appeared to be the favourite to win the National Post and the other Canwest papers, all of them in the conservative philosophical corner. The thought of it had the Harper Conservatives climbing the walls. The country’s media landscape was about to change.

But a surprise bid from by a group led by National Post chairman Paul Godfrey saved the day.
Just how sensitive the Conservatives are to media has been demonstrated in their attacks on the CBC for using a pollster, Frank Graves, who says the Liberals should employ a culture war strategy against Harper. What the feverish Tory reaction should tell the Liberals is that such a strategy is a good one.

The break on the newspaper sale followed a highly fortunate turn in January, when just as momentum for a national day of protest against his prorogation of Parliament was building, the Haitian calamity struck. It wiped out all other news and gave Harper a chance to change the dial, which he did effectively with an impressive Haitian relief effort. The prorogue protest went ahead but was half the size it would have been.

In years previous, the wheel of fortune seemed to always spin his way as well. During the coalition crisis he was at death’s doorstep when the opposition parties blew the deal by bringing Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe into a press conference. Then the Governor General saved Harper’s bacon by granting his wish to shut down Parliament, thereby avoiding a confidence vote.

He received a remarkable break in the 2006 election, which brought him to power. Midway through it, the RCMP announced an investigation into the Liberals, which turned momentum in Harper’s favour. Before that, during his opposition days, Harper got the break of a lifetime when the sponsorship scandal exploded, sending the Liberals plummeting in the polls.

He got good breaks in both his Canadian Alliance and Conservative leadership campaigns when no big-name opponents came forward to challenge for the titles. He’s had great fortune as well in drawing weak opposition leaders thus far.

It’s amazing. For other politicians luck usually runs out. For Stephen Harper, it just keeps on coming.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

As for Charest, it was smooth sailing. He was doing so well that there was talk of him leaving the provincial scene one day and perhaps returning to Ottawa. He was a former Tory leader and could perhaps become leader of that party again. Or, being a Liberal, he could perhaps lead that federal formation.

Politics being politics, all has gone awry. Charest is in the dumpster, the Parti Québécois is leading in Quebec, an election could be called within a year or two, and the separatists could be back in power.

In politics two things can rock a government — scandal and a bad budget. One is punishing enough. Get two in the same time frame and look out. That’s what has happened to Charest’s Liberals. They’ve had both.

Given that the setbacks have happened early in his five-year term, there would normally be time to recover. But that’s not necessarily the case. The Liberal majority in Quebec is razor-thin. The National Assembly has 125 seats and Charest has 66 of them. But discount the Speaker, a member with cancer and a member who has just been expelled and he’s down to 63, a one-seat majority. Given a defection or two, or byelection losses, and the majority is gone.

Charest has launched an inquiry into allegations by his former justice minister that the appointment of judges was being dictated by Liberal bagmen. Last week came another bombshell when Charest expelled Tony Tomassi, a cabinet member caught up in allegations of kickbacks. Before all this, Charest’s belt-tightening budget, designed to attack the deficit, squeezed too tight on most stomachs and was met with public scorn.

The latest poll shows Pauline Marois’ Parti Québécois winning a majority with 41 per cent of the vote. The Liberals are at 30 per cent. It need be remembered also that the separatists are doing well at the federal level with the Bloc Québécois holding a big lead over federalist formations.

For many years, the sovereignty option has been dormant. It was a pleasant respite. The country was able to get on with other things without that black cloud overhead.

But so much for the respite. In the space of a couple of months, the black cloud has returned.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

The winning bidder will gain enormous power — the capacity to shape the national discussion. The bidding process has been kept so quiet that little is known about the major candidates for the big prize. But parties representing the right, the centre and the centre-left are apparently in the running.

The newspapers, including the National Post, have been under conservative direction since the late 1990s and have been of major benefit to that cause. Before that, when the Southam family owned many of the titles, it was of significant benefit to the other side.

Never mind the Jaffer affair, never mind the Afghan detainees controversy. If the conservatives lose these jewels, which also include major papers in Vancovuer, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa and Montreal, it would be a bigger blow to Stephen Harper than either.

The reason there has been such little discussion about the big media sell-off is that media don’t do an adequate job of covering media. The old cliché about nobody watching the watchdog applies. In this case, there’s a good reason. Since many of the bidders already own large swaths of media, there’s too much self-interest for the reporting to be seen as being objective.

There is also, regrettably, no discussion about the issue of concentration of media ownership. This has been the ideal time to debate the problem, but there has been none. The papers, apparently, are going to be sold in one big block, meaning the monopoly situation will continue and perhaps worsen.

Media concentration in Canada is among the highest in any Western country. In the mainstream media, a small number of players control what we read, see and hear. If you’re thinking too much power in too few hands, you are on the mark.

Several studies over the years, the last being a Senate report in 2006, have all warned of the dangers of concentration but hardly anything has been done. No government has had the courage to act.

Fortunately, the rise of non-traditional media is denting the domination of the big mainstream players. But it’s still a lamentable situation when one family or small group, no matter what side of the political spectrum they represent, can control most of the major newspapers in this county.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

The story to watch this week is not Hurricane Helena. It is what will likely be an historic decision by House of Commons Speaker Peter Milliken on executive power versus parliamentary power.

In many cases, the Harper government has been able to stay out of trouble by shielding information from the public eye. There are indications that it might soon pay the price.

Milliken will rule on the prime minister’s bid to defy the will of Parliament in blocking the Commons’ request for documents on the Afghan detainees affair.

The Conservatives have thus far only released heavily censored documents. They argue that to release them would jeopardize national security. It’s a convenient rationale and has been used and likely abused countless times on countless issues.

If Milliken rules in favour of the rights of Parliament, it could lead to a devastating string of embarrassments for the government. Recent testimony from a number of sources suggests strongly that contrary to what the government has been saying, it knew prisoners taken by Canadian soldiers were turned over to Afghan authorities for torture. Chances are good the uncensored documents will prove this. That would mean the government would be caught red-handed in having repeatedly misled Parliament with its statements on the matter. It would mean it could be found to have violated the Geneva Conventions and potentially face charges of war crimes.

It’s a good bet government lawyers are busy looking for loopholes in the system that will allow the government to challenge the Milliken ruling if it goes against them.

A related question of legalities is confronting the Harper team. Evidence is accruing to the effect that political operatives may have instructed civil servants to block the release of documents requested under the Access to Information Act. If such were the case, the actions would be a violation of the law. The last thing the government needs now are civil servants blowing the whistle on political manipulation of the access to information process.

These issues make the shenanigans of Helena Guergis and Rahim Jaffer pale by comparison. The explosive story in Ottawa is not that one. It is secrecy and censorship practised by the government and whether  developments in the weeks to come will blow the lid off what they have been doing.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

Corruption of the latter kind stung both the Mulroney and Chrétien governments and hurt the reputations of each prime minister. Jean Chrétien was never tied directly to the sponsorpship scandal, wherein lower level Liberals were on the take. But the Prime Minister’s Office had oversight of the sponsorship program. In the Mulroney government, there were ministerial resignations over shady dealings and Mulroney himself is still trying to clear his name for having accepted cash payments from German dealmaker Karlheinz Schreiber.

The troubles currently surrounding bad girl Helena Guergis do not appear to be in a league with some of Ottawa’s bigger scandals, but the risk is that she torpedoes the government’s record of rectitude.

It’s rare when a prime minister will call in the Mounties to investigate one of his ministers. Much of the limited information available points to a possible influence peddling scandal featuring Guergis, her husband Rahim Jaffer, and assorted unsavoury types with whom Jaffer, the former MP, kept company. The more that is learned about the hot-headed Guergis, the latest being that she could hardly keep staff for more than a week at a time, the more one wonders why the tightly-run government didn’t rein her in.

Critics called on Harper to fire Guergis weeks ago. It’s something he probably wishes he had done before she started adding to her blunder streak, which began with her childish temper tantrum at the Charlottetown airport.

The PM has often been slow to unload troublesome ministers. He allows them to dangle while the media and the opposition feast. This was the case with former defence minister Gordon O’Connor and former environment minister Rona Ambrose. In the case of then foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier and Bikergate, he moved more quickly.

The Oliphant Commission, which is looking into the Mulroney matter, is due to report within the next month or two. The public will be reminded of that low-level operation at the same time as the Guergis one is being investigated. It’s the kind of link the Harper government was hoping to avoid.

The PM has often been pilloried for being a control freak. With people like Helena Guergis in his cabinet, it’s easy to understand why he felt he had to be that way.

Canada has never had a member of our First Nations as governor general. That’s quite an oversight and the word from the prime minister’s neighbourhood is that he has been thinking of this and feels it’s time the problem was rectified.

The aboriginal candidate who is attracting attention is Inuit leader Mary Simon. If the prime minister can be satisfied she can do the job with rudimentary French, sources say she’s got it in the bag.

Forget all those celebrity names being bandied about like William Shatner. The post, as has been amply demonstrated in recent times, requires experience in politics and public affairs.

Among other positions in her distinguished career, Simon has been ambassador to Denmark, ambassador for circumpolar affairs, chancellor of Trent University and a negotiator for native peoples during the repatriation of the constitution.

She hails from a town in Nunavik in northern Quebec with the world’s most unpronounceable name: Kangiqsualujjuag. Harper has become fond of the North since becoming prime minister. Northern development and Arctic sovereignty are among his top priorities. He has also taken a keener interest than expected in the native peoples.

Put it all together and Simon, first revealed as a candidate for governor general by Macleans last fall, appears an ideal choice. It would give the PM a first in history, it would be a great boost for the pride of the native peoples, and it would put a strong stamp on the Northern identity.

Simon has been taking French lessons for the past several months, apparently since her name began being bandied about as a governor general candidate. Though her French is weak, it is stronger than that of Raymond Hnatyshyn, who served as governor general in the Mulroney years. Her appointment would mean two successive governors general from Quebec, but Simon would be seen less as a Quebec governor general than as a native peoples one.

The Paul Martin Liberals seriously considered an aboriginal Canadian for the post in 2005 before settling on Michaëlle Jean, who leaves after a high-profile tenure that showed how important the governor general’s post can be. In 2008, Jean granted a prorogation to Harper, one that may have saved his government. Earlier that year she granted him a dissolution to call an election even though he was breaking his new fixed-date election law to do so.

From that point of view, Harper should be sorry to see her go. But if he is thinking of Simon as a replacement, he may very well have found a splendid successor.

Now the march has reached the destination. Health-care reform passed its major legislative hurdle Sunday and will likely be given the final go-ahead later this week. The triumph comes courtesy of the sustained effort of Barack Obama, whose presidency is now revitalized.

It’s a remarkable win. Following the Democrats’ loss of former Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts, it looked like health-care reform was dead. It looked as if Republican regressives were gaining momentum. The Sarah Palin movement is essentially a reactionary one, one that preys on people’s base instincts and base prejudices, a rebellion of sorts against enlightenment and erudition. With her down-home charm, her ability to connect, Palin turned her knowledge deficit into a political attribute. She’s made it cool to be uniformed.

Through much of the last century, it has been the hard-line Republicans who led the drive against other social security advances, who were the holdouts on civil rights, who pushed for handguns in every household. The health-care reform, the biggest social welfare advancement in decades, won’t slow them much. It will give Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck and Palin all the more reason to try to advance their backward agenda.

But for the moment the progressives lead the way. “Today is the day that is going to rank with the day we passed the civil rights bill in 1964,” said veteran Democrat lawmaker John Dingell. Remarkably, Dingell had introduced a universal health-care bill in Congress every year since the 1950s.

As a reflection of the polarization in American politics, not a single Republican voted in favour of the legislation. “This debate is not about the uninsured,” said Devin Nunes, a California House member. “It is about socialized medicine. Today, Democrats in this House will finally lay the cornerstone of their socialist utopia on the backs of the American people.”

The legislation, Nunes forgot to mention, does not include a new government-run insurance plan like there is in Canada.

It won’t be like the Canadian system, but it will nonetheless enhance the American reputation on this side of the border. Given that one of the deterrents for Canadians moving south was their weak health-insurance system, it may even lead to an increased brain drain. But in the circumstances, that’s tolerable. The important thing is progress. A president who can lead the United States to a higher place is on the move.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

Most all other Conservatives have sadly been reduced to courtiers and toadies for fear of what might happen to them if they say anything off cue.

Bernier fell from grace as a result of his affair with Julie Couillard, the woman who hung around with biker gangs. She subsequently wrote a book, quoting Bernier as calling the prime minister a control freak among other things. Mad Max, as the tall charismatic Bernier is sometimes called, figures he has no future under Harper. So why not rock the boat?

In speeches, he’s come out against the need for big stimulus to get the country out of the recession. As well, he sees no need for government activism to combat climate change. In one speech he put a new twist on the famous line from John  F. Kennedy. Said Bernier, “Don’t ask what your country can do for you. Ask your government to get out of the way.”

His Darwinian musings have prompted some observers to suggest he is openly challenging Harper, aiming at a leadership run. That’s a bit of a stretch. But it was interesting to note that in a speech to the Preston Manning Institute on the weekend, he was full of praise for the goals of the old Reform Party, but failed to mention Stephen Harper once. That raised a few more eyebrows.

On Quebec policy, Mad Max is far to the right of the party, arguing that free-market policy prescriptions is the way to Quebecers’ hearts. In his riding of La Beauce he is hugely popular, winning by a giant margin — even after “bikergate.”

Bernier is also the only Conservative MP to run his own blog. Garth Turner, the one Tory who tried that before, was hoofed out of the caucus for not toeing the party line.

Bernier sounds like he wants to bring the politics of Ronald Reagan north of the border. It’s a bit early for anyone to start thinking of the Conservative leadership. But should Harper not get a majority in the next election, which will be his fourth kick at the can, it may be time.

Meanwhile it’s nice to see a Conservative who has the courage to air his views. Bernier had better watch his back, though. It’s not a government that takes kindly to this type of thing.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

Tom Flanagan, his former top strategist, spoke of incrementalism as being the favoured approach. The Conservatives didn’t want to scare Canadians by putting out a muscular policy blueprint that would have them thinking they were in the grip of Republican-styled rednecks.

But four years in, it’s become clear that the Conservatives are the party of vision and the Liberals are the party without one.

We couldn’t see what the Conservatives were really up to because they kept taking detours. Only a year ago, Harper had party purists up in arms with his Keynesian big-spending approach to fighting the recession. It went against all his former precepts. But governance requires pragmatic detours and most of the detours have been taken, and now it’s clear what the Conservatives are all about.

They’re about law and order, a strong military, smaller government with low tax rates, traditional Anglo-Saxon family values and flag-waving patriotism. It’s classic conservative stuff and a bold departure from the Trudeau-styled liberalism Canadians knew for so long.

Progress has been made on all fronts. The crackdown-on-crime bills roll out with regularity. Defence spending has soared and only now will tail off. The GST has gone down two points and other tax reductions, especially for corporations, have been introduced. Multiculturalism has been curbed. With the emphasis on Arctic sovereignty, the flag has been hoisted in the North and, in this Olympic year, all across the country. Last week’s budget signals a shutting down of the spending taps that have been open for so long. With a smaller tax base in place, future governments won’t have room for welfare-state initiatives.

On foreign policy, the Conservatives are displaying a stronger partisanship, moving Canada from its traditional honest broker role. With the provinces, there is more of a decentralizing hands-off approach.

What we’ve seen so far is only part of what the Tories have in mind. It’s only been four years and it’s been done with a minority government.

This idea of Canada — a Canada with stronger right-wing values than ever before — may not be what the majority of Canadians want. But it is coming and it is coming fast. And a big reason for this is that no strong alternative has been put in place by the Liberals. They are in the grey middle. They have been lurching all over the place without a concrete vision, leaving the people with no attractive option.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

Harper was at the Games, trying as best he could — as any politician would — to share in the spotlight.

The euphoria should pay off in a handsome bounce for him in the polls, though there is no guarantee. Our 1972 triumph over the Russians did not produce a political benefit for the Trudeau Liberals. They came within a hair of losing the election that took place right after the series.

There will be an irony of sorts if Harper gets a big boost from the Olympics. The big rap against him is that there is no sportsmanship in the games he plays, no demonstration of Olympic ideals. He runs from the field when the opposition gets tough. He headbutts opponents. He repeatedly throws away the rulebook. If politics were an event in the Games, the Olympic movement would have had Harper expelled long ago.

On that note, it is to be hoped that the prime minister, as well as opposition leaders, learned something from the way in which our athletes comported themselves. They showed how you can win with hard work and an honest and honourable effort.

Parliament finally returns this week. Our MPs have been on vacation for much of the last year and a half. In 2008, from June until into the new year, Parliament sat only two weeks. Last year, it had its traditional three-month summer break and, more recently, starting in December, it had another three-month break. If our Olympians took this much time off they would never win anything.

Tomorrow, there’s the speech from the throne, likely the last from Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean, whose term expires in the fall. The budget from finance minister Jim Flaherty follows Thursday.

Among the reasons offered for the shutdown of Parliament was the need for time, the Conservatives said, to “recalibrate.” But don’t look for anything too exciting from the recalibration exercise. The budget will likely be a stabilizing effort that holds off on more stimulus spending in order to keep the deficit in check.

The Conservatives will contend that they have the country on the right track. They will want, though they play a different sport in a different way, to bask in the Olympic glow.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

The revelation follows publication of a book revealing all sorts of tantrums by the prime minister — grabbing staffers by the lapels, pulling them out of chairs, punching walls. And we all thought Brown was a staid economist, duller than dishwater.

Now that the news is out, Brown’s spinners, while denying some of the allegations, are trying to work the story in their favour. These outbursts show a tough-minded leader at work, his PR men say, so dedicated to solving the nation’s problems that he is sometimes overcome by emotion.

The tactic — the humanizing of a robotic leader — might even work. Or the British might buy the take of opposition Conservatives — this shows Brown is an unstable bully unfit for high office.

The revelations from across the pond will likely be greeted with some relief in the office of Stephen Harper, a prime minister painted as somewhat of a bully himself. It’s always comforting to have the focus moved to others, to have your own alleged faults be seen as commonplace.

Interviews with many who have worked in the Harper PMO reveal that he can be cold and severe and occasionally blow a gasket. But if the stories about Brown are true, it should be said that our prime minister isn’t even in the same league. No staffers running to bully hotlines here.

Nor have we seen our PM get so irate that, à la Jean Chretien in 1996, who grabbed a protester by the throat and hurled him to the ground. Nor does he appear to have the short fuse of a Brian Mulroney, who would go into frequent rages, or John Diefenbaker, who was a towering inferno of megalomania.

The issue with Harper is not whether he bullies staff. It’s whether he bullies the system. It’s whether his smearing of opponents, his inclination toward censorship and secrecy, his overcentralizing of powers have downgraded democracy to an unprecedented degree.

The latest allegation suggests that his operatives have violated access to information regulations by delaying or blocking the release of potentially embarrassing government documents. Before this, we saw stories of how his political team crushed a democratic challenge to the nomination of incumbent MP Rob Anders in Calgary. Before this, literally dozens of other such examples.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

But it was hard to keep from yawning. His complaint sounded 20 or 30 years out of date, from a bygone era. Bilingualism is still a noble cause but in the public psyche it has faded in importance. It was part of the Quebec grievance era. That era, beginning with the arrival of separatist forces in the early 1960s, spanned almost four decades.

It was remarkable when you think about it. Quebec angsts, Quebec separatists, Quebec issues dominated the national agenda to an astonishing degree. There was the rise of René Lévesque, the October Crisis, the election of the Parti Québécois, the 1980 referendum, bilingualism uproars, the repatriation debate, Meech Lake, Charlottetown, Jacques Parizeau, Lucien Bouchard, the 1995 referendum, the Clarity Act. There was the run of Quebec-based prime ministers — Trudeau, Mulroney, Chretien, Martin.

Nothing lasts forever. The grievance era has passed. Nobody gets excited about the separatist threat anymore. Nobody gets excited about bilingualism anymore. Politically, the province is only half as important as it used to be. With the Bloc Québécois firmly entrenched, winning usually most of the province’s seats, the federal parties aren’t inclined to pay Quebec the heed they used to.

Getting far more cultural visibility at the opening ceremonies were Canada’s First Nations with all their dancing bands. In terms of political correctness, it is the native peoples whose sensitivities now hold sway.

In British Columbia, only 55,000 of four million people are native French speakers. They are overwhelmed in the multi-ethnic province by those who speak South Asian or Chinese dialects.

The opening show did spotlight French singer Garou and three of the eight Olympic flag-bearers were from Quebec. Celine Dion had been invited but didn’t attend. Games CEO John Furlong said only a handful words in French in his welcoming address. Given his appalling pronunciation we were thankful he stopped at that.

The opening couple days of the Games had enough misfortunes — the death of the luger, the glitches with the hydraulic lifts at the torch lighting, the spring-like weather. Organizers didn’t really need complaints about not enough French to rain further on the parade.

Such complaints may have some merit. But Canadians don’t want to hear them anymore. They have heard them for 40 years running.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

“Hello out there in Treasury Board Board land!” he wrote employees. “As your newly appointed president ... I don’t mind telling you I’m feeling a little bit overwhelmed.”

Yikes, he exclaimed, all these briefing books are so huge! So much to learn. His grandkids, he said, would be asking what do Treasury Board people do? “Do they take care of treasures?”

And Stock said that he would tell them, “Well, kind of.” And on he went in that chummy vein, closing with an invitation for all employees to contact him directly.

This is strange behaviour for a minister in Harperland. It’s the kind of reaching out rarely seen in a government that is so uptight. But it’s been Stock’s way all along. He is the tension defuser, relaxed as can be. It’s among the reasons he has been successful.

He is a remarkable story, a political Lazarus, a foremost example of the wisdom in the old adage — never give up, no matter how hard life is kicking you. Day, of course, is the former Alliance Party leader who imploded in the space of a year. He was derided as a lightweight, the guy who staged a dripping-wet press conference on an Okanagan beach. A party rebellion forced him out. It was thought he would never be heard from again.

But he quietly made strides, first as minister of public safety, then as trade minister. He’s seen as a straight shooter. While colleagues have turned the Commons question period into a hackneyed circus of partisan exhibitionism, he actually gives reasonable answers.

At Treasury Board he will be on the hot seat, charged with bringing down the spiralling federal deficit. His coolness under pressure will help. It’s about credibility. And Day, who had so little of it some years ago, now finds himself as being among the most trusted performers on the Conservative front bench.

The other big guns are hurting. Environment Minister Jim Prentice has been given little to do on the global warming file except gather fossil awards. Defence Minister Peter MacKay was doing well, but took a big hit on the Richard Colvin file. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s charges of the opposition being soft on crime ring hollow. His own government has done more to obstruct crime legislation through prorogrations than have the opposition parties. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is doing better, but his history in the portfolio is tarnished.

That leaves Stock Day. Who would have thunk it?

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

The people are speaking — in protests and in opinion polls. The story is not going away and the ramifications are many.

Firstly, it’s a sign — a damn good sign — that democracy is alive in this country. We hear so often that Canadians don’t care, that they’re apathetic, that what goes on in Parliament is off their radar. But it sure hasn’t looked that way.

Secondly, it’s a development that knocks the prime minister from his arrogant perch, that hallowed ground wherein he seems to think he can get away with almost anything. The people have told him they’re not going to put up with it. Here’s betting you won’t see Stephen Harper suspending Parliament for reasons of crass political gain ever again.

Thirdly, the story has revived Liberal party fortunes. Prior to the prorogation, the slumping Michael Ignatieff had almost been written off as another dead Grit walking. But as is so often the case in politics, it’s not what you do that counts, it’s what your opponent does. Sometimes, out of the blue — deus ex machina — a big break comes your way. Iggy finally got one.

Fourthly, the Governor General will now take note of how serious the shutting down of Parliament is. In future, it will likely take more than just a phone call from the PM. This was the third time, not just twice as many think, that Harper has shut down Parliament in the last year and a half. The first time was when he turned his back on his pledge of fixed election dates to force the 2008 election. Yes, there was an exception to the fixed-date law. An election could be called earlier if the government lost the confidence of the House. But in that instance the government had not lost the House’s confidence.

As for the latest prorogation, Canadians aren’t buying the Conservatives’ excuses. One of them is that other governments prorogued as well. But no other government has done it three times in 18 months for cynical political reasons.

Then there’s the latest rationale, a most revealing one. We can get more work done, Conservatives say, when Parliament isn’t in session. That, in fact, is true enough. When the opposition isn’t around, it does make life a lot easier. It’s tantamount to running a dictatorship.

That’s why Canadians are reacting the way they are. They’re saying, “Sorry Mr. Harper, you can’t have one.”

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

In response to their personal attack ads against Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, the Liberals have been absent from the battlefield, standing next to the forest. In the Dion case, they didn’t have the money to afford counterblasts. With Iggy, they’ve been cautious, not wanting to be accused of joining Stephen Harper on the political low road.

That is changing. Liberal ads released this week on the closing down of Parliament hit the prime minister  where it stings — with a cover-up charge. Team  Ignatieff is aware that it’s not the alleged torture of Afghan detainees that’s got the public worked up. It’s the autocratic arrogance of the PM in thinking he can repeatedly manipulate the democratic system for partisan gain.

Given the heady response they’ve been getting on the prorogue issue, the Grits feel they’ve got momentum on their side. That they may be right was indicated by Harper’s response. In obvious damage-control mode, he’s come forward, volunteering many a media interview. That’s something he doesn’t do often.

He tried to excuse the shutdown of Parliament by saying the government needed more time to prepare for a new budget. But as it stood, the government had a five-week Christmas break even without a prorogue. In any case, the PM was contradicted on the point by Finance  Minister Jim Flaherty, who said yesterday budget consultations weren’t affected by prorogation.

The other Conservative defence line is the rationale that the Liberals once did this kind of thing, so it’s OK for us to do it. It never seems to bother team Harper that anyone with a measure of self-respect doesn’t seek to excuse their own inadequacies by constantly dredging up the inadequacies of others.

In the abuse-of-power sweepstakes, the Liberals of Jean Chretien did indeed run up quite a tally, not the least of which was the closing down of an inquiry into alleged brutality by Canadian soldiers in Somalia. The move was dictatorial and inexcusable. But Ignatieff had nothing to do with any of the malfeasance in the Chretien days. In any case, the Conservatives promised a new era of accountability and transparency. The promise has become a standing joke.

On one level, the lack of civility in our politics, it’s unfortunate the Liberals are resorting to attack ads. But to compete against the Harper goon squad,  they didn’t have much choice. They could continue to get run over. Or they could finally start giving this prime minister some of his own medicine.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

Don’t bet on that one. We won’t know for sure until some polls come in, but there are indications the prorogue gambit is backfiring on him. The reaction has been demonstrably negative. Media comment boards have lit up in protest. The Globe and Mail went to the unusual extent of running a front page editorial. Conservative newspapers, normally in the prime minister’s stable, have condemned the move. The Facebook group, Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, already has 15,000 signed up.

It’s become a question of how many times the people will let a leader bend a democratic system to his will before they fight back. If the prime minister doesn’t take a hit in the polls on this, he will feel the sting in other ways. The opposition to his methods is hardening. People are angry. When they get angry, they mobilize.

This prorogation story, which comes on top of his defying the will of Parliament by refusing to turn over documents on the Afghan detainees affair, is  different from some of the other abuse-of-power stories. This one has legs. Every day the Parliament’s doors remain closed will serve as a reminder of what the supreme ruler did.

In such circumstances it’s hard to see his support numbers going up enough in the next couple months for him to risk an election. Despite facing weak opposition leaders, Harper has been unable to move his support level above the 40 per cent mark. Pollsters will tell you one of the reasons for the failure is his manipulative ruling style — the cold dictatorial edge. Progrogation has only served to reinforce that negative.

Harper didn’t even bother to visit the Governor General to ask for prorogation this time. He simply phoned over, then had his press secretary announce it the day before New Year’s Eve when the Olympic hockey team was being named and the PM’s team felt that few would be paying attention.

The arrogance, the chutzpah is remarkable. Having dismissed Parliament in a hugely controversial move last year and having gotten away with it, Harper clearly feels he will get away with it again this time. Arrogant, autocratic leaders tend to be like that. They think they can get away with anything.

Eventually they get caught.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

These people are old, intellectually worn out, shorn of idealism and duller than the Manitoba tundra.

Take, for example, our federal party leaders. They are all very smart, erudite men. But if you’re looking for an inspiration deficit, look no further. Stephen Harper is only 50, but he’s about as hip as a Toyota Corolla. Bookworm Michael Ignatieff looks like he hasn’t seen a ray of sunshine since the ’60s. Jack Layton has a demeanour that conjures up Russia in the throes of Bolshevism. And Gilles Duceppe? Well, go back a bit further. The pre-Cambrian era might do.

The youth of the nation look on and, understandably, look away, especially on voting day. But it can’t stay like this. It’s their country. They have to make a move.

Among our elected representatives, in the cobwebbed chamber that is the House of Commons, there is one guy with the potential to light a fuse.

Justin Trudeau, 38, is the politician who can change things. He is young, articulate in both languages, dashing, magnetic. Wherever he goes he draws a crowd. Charisma is a rare political gift. About one in 1,000 have it. He has it.

Trudeau initially had the reputation of being a bit flaky. But he hasn’t come across that way since arriving in Ottawa. He’s shown a sense of discipline and a willingness to be patient and learn. At the same time he has a sense of humour while coming across as an independent thinker.

Others who come to politics at a young age lose their freshness. Given the pressures of the game, they get turned into party hacks. James Moore, the talented young Tory heritage minister, runs that risk. Trudeau, on the other hand, comes across as a breed apart.

The Liberals should do all they can to showcase him. The youth vote is up for grabs in this country and the party that gets it will be the party on the move. It’s how Barack Obama won. As his campaign manager, David Plouffe, relates in his book, The Audacity To Win, what the Obama campaign did was change the electorate. It reached down below the boring baby boomers to the emerging younger cohort and awakened it.

That’s what has to happen here.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

But the year couldn’t compare to the hurly-burly of 2008, which featured the re-election of the Conservatives and their subsequent brush with death when a coalition almost ousted them. In 2009, we had lots of noise, lots of election threats, but no big change in the political standings.

There was some expectation that the ideological transition in the United States would trigger a liberal trend north of the border, but the Obama effect never came to pass. The young in this country stayed turned off and tuned out of politics, which depressingly has become a game for only the middle-aged and old folk.

The year began auspiciously for Michael Ignatieff, who replaced the wobbly Stéphane Dion. For the first half of 2009 he appeared capable of unseating Stephen Harper. But the tide began to turn against him when he put in a listless summer. He then made the disastrous mistake of trying to force an election without giving the voter any compelling reason, in terms of new policy initiatives, for doing so. His support level collapsed to levels Dion had not even reached.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, became heavy-spending Keynesians, combatting the recession with old-time liberal religion. Recessions usually give life to the political left, but the Greens were unable to increase their support while the NDP made few gains.

Harper maintained his image as a shrewd and crude political strategist, using every trick to smear his rivals and block them from legitimate avenues of inquiry. He then turned the tables on his image as a cold, calculating leader by taking to the stage to perform a piano-and-song rendition of a Beatles number. It was a media sensation.

By year’s end, problems were accumulating for the Conservatives. Their inaction on global warming was denounced at home and abroad. The Af­ghanistan detainees affair saw them trying to fight off charges of a coverup. And having promised no deficits 13 months earlier, their books were now forecasting a whopping deficit of $60 billion.

Nevertheless, with the Opposition Liberals still appearing rather hapless, the Conservatives were well in command to begin their fifth year as a minority government. Minorities aren’t supposed to last so long. Stephen Harper was defying the odds.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

It’s far from ideal. There is no public option, for example. But it’s a major step forward after decades of repeated failed attempts.

This, along with the steadying of the American economy after its near collapse, will mark the most significant achievement of the first year in office for Obama.  Many anticipated more from him. Following the years of regressiveness under former U.S. president George W. Bush,  his expectations were enormous. But he has shown himself to be more of a middle-of-the-road compromiser than a reformer.

This was particularly evident in his decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan. In the election campaign he had spoken of moving America away from the post 9-11 fear mentality. The idea was that the most powerful military nation in the world would no longer be held hostage to little bands of terrorists hiding away in mountains. Yet, though no one has laid a glove on the United States in eight years, the fear of what extremists might do was at the heart of the Afghan escalation.

Terrorism will be around forever. If they’re not in Afghanistan or Pakistan, you’ll find them in North Africa or somewhere else. Until the American attitude changes, there will be no end to wars. Politicians will always be able to concoct a terrorist attack scenario, as they do now. Obama was under heavy pressure from the legions on the American right, now led by hillbilly Sarah Palin, who makes even Bush sound erudite. Had he not opted for more war, they would have pilloried him.

While the results of his first year have been mixed,  it is still enormously comforting to have Barack Obama in place as the world’s most powerful man. Watching him, you can see a calm, balanced and enlightened mind at work, a president with a global perspective who views the world without prejudice.

What a beautiful contrast this represents as compared to the narrow-minded confrontationalism of his predecessors. Unlike so many other leaders whose smaller minds are steeped in combat-politics, Barack Obama is one who is on the high road and who will stay there.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

If, in fact, he had a free hand and chose the stealth route, then yes, MacKay should resign. If his line of defence was dictated from above, then it becomes a tougher call. As he made clear yesterday, he will not step down. But in the rumoured cabinet shuffle, he should be moved out of defence.

MacKay is one of several holders of big portfolios who has stumbled. He is part of a starless cabinet, an unlit galaxy except for the one and only, the prime minister himself.

Environment Minister Jim Prentice has been beaten up for his inactivity on global warming, inactivity that sees this country collecting fossil-of-the-year awards. But has the foot-dragging been his doing? Apparently, it’s the PM who has prevented him from taking swifter action.

Before environment, Prentice held the thankless Indian affairs portfolio, where his main task was to ditch the Kelowna accord. Considered a future leadership contender, he has hardly been able to burnish his credentials.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has had a better year than ones previous. But he has been dragging around a lot of chains — the income trust flip-flop, the disastrous fiscal update of last year and his repeated underestimating of the federal deficit. Again the question needs to be asked — how many of the calls were his own?

The prime minister has some breathing room on the political calendar and could move one, all or none of the above. Strong performers like Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Trade Minister Stockwell Day could be promoted. Long-serving Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, who is to the right of Sarah Palin, could be moved as well as Transport Minister John Baird, the Commons court jester who specializes in drubbing opponents. Taking him on is like arguing with a brass band.

One likely move will see Maxime Bernier, the former foreign minister who resigned after getting caught up in the biker-girl, lost-documents scandal, brought back to cabinet because he is popular in Quebec.

But no one is too excited about any pending changes. Usually, cabinet shuffles are a big deal. Not in Harperland. In his cabinets no one gets to be a heavyweight. They all bob around, waiting for the word from on high.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

On two of the biggest trendlines of our time — global warming and the rise of China — they are among the last to the table.

In South Korea yesterday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated what has been obvious for many years — that Canada must increasingly look to the Asia-Pacific region for opportunities because it is the world’s big growth area. He had come from China where he was scolded by the leadership for taking almost four years to visit.

Soon he will be off to Copenhagen for the UN climate change summit. A week ago, he was at a Commonwealth meeting in Trinidad, where Ottawa’s foot-dragging on that issue was singled out by the UN Secretary General, as well as other leaders.

In Denmark he may surprise us and signal, as he did on trade with China, a new seriousness about the global warming issue. But even if he does, opposition critics have a right to wonder what took so long.

One explanation is Harper was a neophyte in foreign affairs when he became prime minister. His experience had been insular. He faced a steep learning curve. Another was his strong ties to his conservative roots. Conservatives believed Canada’s economic future lay in an ever-closer economic partnership with the United States. As for global warming, they were longtime non-believers, as exemplified by the PM once labelling the Kyoto accord a socialist scheme.

For him and his party to get beyond the old-time religion has been a tough challenge. It was evident, too, in the Tories’ handling of the economy. We recall little more than a year ago when the PM and his finance minister were among the last of the Western leaders to recognize the oncoming recession. They were holding to the view that there would be balanced budgets for years to come, that no great spurt of stimulus funding was necessary. They were then smart enough to abruptly switch course and bring in Keynesian-styled economic strategies that ran against party dogma.

Another breaking-with-dogma test will be on the subject of taxation. To date, the government is holding to the line that, despite a deficit bordering on $60 billion, no new taxes need be introduced to address it and avoid what many economists foresee as a structural deficit.

Conservatives understandably loathe the idea of new taxes but, as on other matters, old beliefs have to be adjusted to fit new circumstance.

Hopefully, the gang that shoots late has learned by now that the adjustments shouldn’t take years to come.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

American Republicans have been especially good at this tactic. Most notably on the subject of the military, they have often played the patriot card effectively. Ronald Reagan, who owned more horses than books and who loved simple flag-waving messages, made a career out of it.

This may help explain why the Harper Conservatives have been going that route on the Afghan detainee file. Their pitch? If you believe diplomat Richard Colvin on detainee torture, you’re either a Taliban supporter or guilty of not supporting our troops.

This line of reasoning, they must know, is intellectually infantile. The Tories have no monopoly on patriotism. Opposition MPs are vocal supporters of the military. In any case, no one is above criticism, not even people in uniform. That kind of immunity is fine for dictatorships, not for this country. Military men and women are human, make mistakes like everybody else and should be subject to questions like everyone else.

But this didn’t stop Stephen Harper from telling naval officers in Port of Spain on Sunday that some in the political arena have been “throwing the most serious of allegations at our men and women in uniform based on the most flimsy of evidence.” Despite these ingrates, he said, Canadians “are proud of you and stand behind you and I am proud of you and I stand behind you.”

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff was quick, as he should have been, to hit back, saying the innuendo suggesting Liberals were not behind the Forces was beneath the office of the prime minister. The PM didn’t show up in the Commons to answer questions yesterday. But stand-in John Baird was full of rage because Liberal MP Ujall Dosanjh had dared to criticize a former Canadian general’s testimony on the Afghan matter.

What the Tories are doing with their militarization of the country, said Keith Martin, the Liberal MP who used to sit with the Alliance Party, is build the military men into heroes and then demolish anyone who dares breathe an unfavourable word.

On the detainees’ question we don’t know which side is correct. The Conservatives are hunkering down. They are not releasing results of Canadian military police investigations in Afghanistan. They’ve stonewalled the Canadian Military Police Complaints Commission on the issue. They declare important correspondence off limits because of national security.
This gives the impression that they have something to hide on this file. It may well be the reason why they are playing their demagogic patriot game. It’s the best card they’ve got.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

If that is done on the question of diplomat Richard Colvin’s testimony on the Afghan detainees, the Harper government’s side of the story doesn’t make it to the dance floor.

The Conservatives have a long history of trying to shield embarrassing truths from the public and of smearing anyone who challenges them. It’s one of the reasons critics were quick to pounce on Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s attempt to undermine Colvin last week.

In the same week, the Tories were distributing flyers to various ridings trying to paint the Liberals as anti-Jewish. The charge is ludicrous. Michael Ignatieff, one of the most right-wing leaders on foreign policy the Liberals have ever had, is decidedly pro-Israel. But that’s the way the Tories operate.

We recall how they went after Linda Keen, the former president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and how they slandered Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour, calling her a “national disgrace.” They smeared NDP members as being pro Taliban. As for their  record of secrecy and concealment, they may well exceed any Canadian government before them. They’ve muzzled their own ministers, shut down a giant government information registry, and made a mockery of access to information regulations.

No one should be surprised, therefore, if in fact they tried to cover up the Afghan prisoner abuse and are now forced into trying to discredit the whistleblower.

The Conservatives keep using smear tactics for a good reason. They work. Take the personal attack ads they launched against Liberal leaders Stéphane Dion and Ignatieff. Those leaders, who came out of the soft ivory tower of academia, had no response. Dion didn’t have the money to run counterattack ads. The party was broke. Iggy’s team had the money. But what did he do? After being belted by Conservative commercials labelling him a just-visiting, power-hungry, carpetbagger, he turned the other cheek. In a series of commercials he stood in front of a forest mouthing platitudes and bromides. Looking on, Stephen Harper was probably laughing his butt off.

The Grits, hovering at historic low levels of 23 per cent in the polls, desperately need a new strategy. They’ve got to throw out the kid gloves and start responding to the Tories in kind. Ignatieff hasn’t wished to be front and centre on the Afghan allegations because of his past controversial remarks on the use of torture.

But the torture allegations are only one element of this story. There’s a bigger one. It’s the alleged cover-up. Iggy should smear the Conservatives with that. Unlike most Tory charges, it might even be true.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

A year ago, it looked that given his stumblings, given the oncoming recession, given the arrival of a new Liberal leader, this prime minister might be on his way out.

But here he is today with a big lead in the polls, a good showing in last week’s byelections, his Liberal opposition reeling. He is defining the agenda to suit his conservative values. He is even scoring some points — who could have imagined his Beatles’ song rendition? — in terms of personal appeal.

His conservative agenda — Stephen Harper’s Canada — was stamped out in the revamped citizenship guide his government issued last week. It was heavy on pride in the Armed Forces, law and order, the monarchy, limits to cultural tolerance. It was light on gay marriage, the environment, health care and socially progressive content. It was met with much applause.

It is remarkable Harper has been able to brand Canada to suit his purposes. The skill of the political leader lies in making the people feel good about what’s going on.

On the face of it, Canadians don’t have much to cheer about. They are not better off than they were four years ago. There’s the recession and Ottawa’s progress in fighting it is coming at a heavy cost — a huge looming deficit. There’s the war in Afghanistan, which is going badly. There’s the environment file on which the government’s performance has been laggard.

On content, the Conservatives lack big achievements. On style, they have been repeatedly criticized for their secrecy, heavy-handedness, one-man rule, all very much in contrast to its promise of a new era of transparency.

Their success is all the more surprising in that it bucks the trend to the south. In the United States, George W. Bush and Sarah Palin have tarnished the conservative brand. Barack Obama leads a liberal resurgence.

There’s no such trend resurgence here. Here, Harper’s conservatism is making Canadians feel good, or at least not dismayed, about what’s going on. He’s been lucky, helped along by the ineptitude of the Liberals. But in part, it’s been the prime minister’s craftiness that has made them appear that way.

Those of us who thought he would be on his way out by now were way off. He’s on his way in. He may just be getting started.

Lawrence Martin is a journalist and author of 10 books who writes about national affairs from Ottawa.

In his book, A Soldier First, which is jumping off the shelves, retired Gen. Rick Hillier tries to distance himself as the prime mover. The decision had already been made to go into Kandahar, he said, when he became head of the Armed Forces five years ago. That doesn’t quite square with the picture put forward in The Unexpected War, the award-winning book by Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang.

Lang, who served as top adviser to former defence minister Bill Graham, said yesterday he stands by his story.

“My account is accurate. My account is based on research, not memory. I was at the table for many of the decisions and I subsequently interviewed many of the principals, including Hillier,” Lang said.

He said the decision that had been made was to send only a provincial reconstruction team of a couple hundred troops to Kandahar, not the full-fledged combat force that came about under Hillier.

The question is an important one. Hillier has elevated the reputation and stature of the Canadian military and deserves a lot of credit, as Lang points out, for doing so. There is uneasiness, however, over Hillier’s larger vision. He has a simplistic notion of the world as being divided into good guys and bad and saw the Canadian role as being to get out there to kill those “scumbags,” as he called them. The approach marked a wholesale shift from peacekeeping and the advocacy of soft power.

Hillier, who has described himself as being to the right of Attila the Hun, refers to soft power in his book as “sheer lunacy.”

How the war pans out will impact heavily on his reputation and how his redefinition sits with Canadians. He does say in his book, which is full of praise for former prime minister Paul Martin, that Canadian troops could have served in far more safer areas in Afghanistan, like Herat. But there wouldn’t have been “the visibility, credibility or impact internationally.”

The country has never had a military boss with the punch and public relations power of Hillier. He is Fort Hood (Texas), where he served, come north. But while we needed some of that mentality, his dismissive attitude toward soft power and civilian oversight is worrisome to say the least.

If he read more history, he would know what happens or might have happened when too much power is left in the hands of generals. He could start with the Cuban missile crisis and the hot-button ravings of Gen. Curtis E. LeMay. If he had not been overruled by civilians at the Kennedy White House, Hillier wouldn’t even be here. Neither would the rest of us.