Harper offending Francophones---and others!

Conservatives go offside on language
The Conservatives seemed to making progress in Quebec especially when they transferred more funds to the province keeping part of their promise to rectify the fiscal imbalance. Their actions on the court challenge issue and blocking witnesses from testifying whom they do not like will wipe away any political gains they have made in Quebec.
The Afghanistan mission is not only expensive in money terms and in loss of life it is basically a gift to Bush and company. Perhaps Harper should ask Bush for a handout to help pay for his trip expenses.



It is standard Canadian political lore that French-language voters are a significant force in about 100 ridings. Until they lost Quebec to the Bloc, the Liberals owned all these ridings.



>by Duncan Cameron
May 23, 2007

The Conservatives have managed to offend the French language community in Canada. Along with Canada-U.S. relations, and federal-provincial relations, the French language-English language split constitutes one of the great dividing lines of Canadian politics.

In fact, Stephen Harper, who prides himself on being a great political strategist, is well on his way to offending voters on all three of these great issues. Is he feeling sorry for Stéphane Dion because of the sneak attacks on his leadership by his rivals? Does he want to encourage Jack Layton, who continues to have high approval ratings in the polls? Or does the Prime Minister just want to help Gilles Duceppe find his feet again in Ottawa?

Afghanistan is really about NATO coming to the aid of the U.S. invaders, and Canada's role is more closely tied to Canada-U.S. politics than it is to bringing assistance to the unfortunate Afghans. Harper is in trouble on this issue in Quebec, and too close to the U.S. for many Canadians. His trip to Kandahar will not change public opinion on the issue. The some $6 billion in military expenditures for the war, and another $11 billion in heavy equipment will have an impact on voters when it becomes better known how the government is spending their money in Afghanistan, rather than meeting needs in Canada.

The Conservative idea of giving more power and authority to the provinces, while at the same time allowing the U.S. to direct Canadian foreign policy, could even turn off Conservative voters. Many voted for Harper in the last election when he called on the nation “to stand up for Canada.” Why would old Tory nationalists bother to vote for a Canadian government that is determined to weaken the powers of the central government?

It is standard Canadian political lore that French-language voters are a significant force in about 100 ridings. Until they lost Quebec to the Bloc, the Liberals owned all these ridings, which helps to explain why they were the dominant party in Canada throughout the last century.

Closing down the Court Challenges program is the issue that has Francophone communities across the country very angry. The Conservatives closed down a parliamentary committee, rather than hear a witness who had flown in from Winnipeg to testify about the program, so the opposition parties set up a alternative committee.

For many, it is a mystery as to why the Conservatives would allow the opposition parties to paint them as anti-French by eliminating funding for Court Challenges, and shutting down the official languages committee. The program was set up by Pierre Trudeau to help Francophones assert their new rights, enshrined in the newly created Charter of Rights. It helped fund interveners who were able to obtain schools for their children, and French language services.

You can read all about the program on-line, in papers written by Ian Brodie — the one published by the Fraser Institute for instance. That would be the same Ian Brodie who became president of the Conservative party after the merger with the Alliance, and who is now chief-of-staff to the Prime Minister.

Brodie does not much like the program his boss cancelled. He thinks it has reversed the traditional haves and have-nots, making the courts biased in favour of the new haves, the ones with government funding. The new haves for Brodie, include Gay and Lesbians, and feminists, as well as Francophones.

Now, no chief-of staff to a Prime Minister would abuse his power to assert his prejudices, would he?

Duncan Cameron is associate publisher of rabble.ca. He writes from Vancouver.