It started innocently enough, I suppose. I realized a few years back that political leaders had taken the focus from their party to themselves, meaning that in campaigns one might see a giant poster of the leader, followed by the fine print for whatever party happened to be supporting the good old chap. It’s been done in the U.S. for years, where there it’s really all about the leader and less about the party policies. I have to admit that I first became aware of it when Paul Martin plastered his face all over the electoral signs of the Liberal party of Canada in 2004. Then others started following suit, with most recent memory being the Ontario election in which John Tory used his convenient surname to serve as a double entendre for the party. But even in some local ridings, John Tory’s name dwarfed the party, which meant if you really wanted to find out who Mark Beckles of the John Tory party was running for, you had to get up real close to the sign and see for yourself. Of course, the blue colour might be a clue.
Nevertheless, I’ve always felt the focus of the federal Conservative Party is rightly Stephen Harper. He did win the leadership of the party, and sent it in a very positive direction since the unification of the Progressives and the Reform/Alliance. The focus onto the leader had been so evident from the start, I must confess I hadn’t really noticed that Stephen Harper had, in fact, become the de facto Conservative Party. When Elizabeth May recently wrote an odd entry in her blog, it garnered little attention at first from Conservative bloggers. In it, she describes her visit to the government lobby…
The Government Lobby was a frequent work space when I was Senior Policy Advisor to the federal Minister of Environment back in the mid-1980s. And I frequented both lobbies when I was with Sierra Club of Canada from 1987-2006. It did not strike me until I walked into the Government Lobby to await my turn as Speaker that I had not been in there since Stephen Harper became Prime Minister.
It used to have some paintings on the wall. Past prime ministers, certainly a formal portrait of the Queen. Landscapes. I know there was the occasional photo of current Prime Ministers, but when I walked in this time, I felt chilled to the bone. Every available wall space had a large colour photo of Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper at Alert. Stephen Harper in fire fighter gear. Stephen Harper at his desk. Stephen Harper meeting the Dalai Lama. Even the photo of the Queen showed her in the company of Stephen Harper. None were great photos. None were more than enlarged snapshots in colour. They didn’t feel like art.
The next day this story was picked up by MacLean’s writer Kady O’Malley who, now that the cat was out of the bag, gave her own little confessional.
The government and opposition lobbies have been off limits for the press gallery for years, and I didn’t want to get anyone at QMP in trouble for bringing a journalist into the House, even during the parliamentary off-season. But now that someone else has spilled the beans on the Conservative decorating scheme, I’m lifting my self-imposed non-disclosure agreement long enough to confirm her report. And yes, it is a little disconcerting, although I did like the picture of the Prime Minister gazing thoughtfully at a polar bear. Make of that what you will.
Writing articles of a negative nature about the Conservative party or about Stephen Harper when you yourself run a Conservative blog which endorses Stephen Harper means it’s never an easy thing to share with readers something strange like this. It helps, though, when some others break the ice for you. Though Gerry Nicholls shared what was really only the absolute truth of a veritable odd piece of political trivia, he was shown some rather discourteous rejoinders. Others enjoyed in some light-hearted fun-poking:
“You and Garth Turner have quite a few things in common.”
“Maybe we should sneak in a replace the photos with pictures of Hayek, Friedman and Mises. Our economist PM could use a subtle reminder of the ideas he used to espouse.”
“Harper has never, ever EVER done or said anything that is not 100% absolutely factually correct.”
I didn’t pay much attention to it myself, even though the progressive blogosphere was all over the story like white on rice. And then, rather innocently, today I went to the Conservative web site to try to find a picture of Peter MacKay. Let’s head over there together, shall we?
What’s the first, most obvious thing you notice about the website? Well, the title for instance says Stephen Harper, and then in little tiny letters we note it’s Conservative. There’s two big pictures of Harper, followed by four pictures of Stephane Dion in exactly the same pose [which is a second kind of oddity]. So, despite this being conservative.ca, not stephenharper.ca, it looks an awful lot like the focus is Mr.Harper. So to continue to the point of this article, let’s head into the photo gallery to try and find a picture of Peter MacKay for my article [it's under multimedia, photo gallery].
Ok, let’s see, let’s see. Photo 1 is “PM unveils new community development trust”. Shucks. Moving on. Photo 2 has Harper making a GST cut. Photo 3 is… Harper announcing the Food and Consumer Safety Action Plan. 4 is Harper participating in Chanukah. Then Harper at a hockey game. Harper outlining a vision for Quebec. Harper at some Christmas lights. Harper announcing Bernard Lord. Harper meeting the Nautical Legacy. Then the following pictures [in order] consist of: Harper, Harper, Harper, Harper, Harper, Harper, and Harper. And we finish the Photo Gallery of the entire Conservative Party of Canada which consists of thousands of contributing members and M.P.’s with… Stephen Harper.
So anyone who is surprised by the Government Lobby shrine to Stephen Harper, only needed to visit the Conservative website once.
