The Longer I'm Prime Minister: Stephen Harper and Canada, 2006- by Wells Paul

Author:Wells, Paul [Wells, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780307361349
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2013-10-22T04:00:00+00:00

The Conservatives could not have predicted that the economic update would produce something very close to jubilation among their opponents. Glen Pearson was a Liberal MP from London, Ontario, who kept a blog. His account of the atmosphere in the House after Flaherty spoke remains striking. “No sooner was the speech ended than the Prime Minister and his Finance Minister left the House, along with half of the Conservative caucus,” Pearson wrote. “The faces on those that remained told the story in vivid detail. Listening to the response from the three opposition parties, you could tell from their countenance some kind of line had been crossed.

“In the Opposition Lobby, I saw things I had never witnessed in my two years here. Bloc members were ‘high-fiving’ NDP caucus members, and some women from the Bloc were embracing their counterparts in the Liberal caucus. It was incredible to watch.”

CTV reporter Rosemary Thompson had asked Dion whether he had talked about a coalition with the other opposition parties. “Well, the option now is for the prime minister,” Dion said, as he launched into a long answer that didn’t answer. The correct answer, if he had cared to give it, was yes. He had already talked to Layton by telephone that morning. “I intend to meet him tonight to start the process,” Layton wrote in an e-mail to his chief of staff, Anne McGrath, and Topp.

Indeed, meetings were happening all over Ottawa. One line of communication was between two party veterans, Ed Broadbent and Jean Chrétien. Brad Lavigne, a senior Layton advisor, explained the rationale: “We’re not really sure who the Liberal leader is right now.” Dion had announced his resignation, effective after a successor could be chosen. Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae and New Brunswick MP Dominic LeBlanc planned to run to replace him. “Chrétien’s almost the only guy whose calls get returned by every Liberal faction,” Lavigne said. “So we asked Ed to reach out to him.”

The reaction of the opposition was obviously huge trouble for the government. But another surprise awaited Harper. The very substance of the economic update was coming under fire from ordinary Canadians. “We were getting the shit kicked out of us in our ridings,” one Ontario Conservative MP recalls. “I had hardcore Conservatives calling, screaming and hollering at me, and e-mails. These are Plus 14s, Plus 12s. That means they’d donated, taken lawn signs.” The MP was referring to the internal Conservative system for identifying supportive voters in a riding and ranking the level of their fervour.

“They weren’t angry because they wanted to preserve this sacred cow called the political subsidy. Most people hadn’t even been aware it existed. It was that the world was going to hell, Bush was bailing out financial institutions, Lehman Brothers had collapsed, the auto industry was in free fall, people were watching their stock portfolios tumble by 30, 40 percent. It looked like economic Armageddon out there. And folks just wanted us to do something. Now, they weren’t even sure what something was.

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