The Bruce Report

Is there no limit to Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s appetite for control? Must he now do Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s job as well as his own?

            The first duty of the Loyal Opposition is to shed light on their rivals’ various blunders and misdemeanours – the ones the government doesn’t want Canadians to see. But how can Ignatieff take full credit for performing his constitutionally mandated role when Harper makes it so easy?

            Specifically, I’d like the name of the knucklehead in the PMO who thought asking Parliament to “examine the original gender-neutral English wording of the national anthem” would be a splendid inclusion to Wednesday’s Throne Speech, only a week after the most dramatic display of Canadian patriotism in more than a generation. Was it the same individual who suggested proroguing the House and Senate not once, but twice in as many years, would cause nary a ripple for the ship of state?

            Or maybe it was the staffer who, back in 2004 when Harper was merely another political hopeful, sent a letter on behalf of his boss congratulating an Ontario First Nations organization for celebrating Republic Day, which was, in fact, an East Indian holiday. That gaffe inspired the group’s spokesperson to write back, “Mr. Harper, this is not 1492 – the last time a man got lost looking for India.”     

            Regardless, whomever believed raising the possibility of changing the O Canada lyric, “in all thy sons command” to something like, “thou dost in us command”, or, “in all of us command”, would sail by without comment or controversy doesn’t know much about Canadians.

            On this particular score, as on so many others, Facebook helpfully enlightens. Check out what people are saying at The Current Wording of Oh Canada, a new group which boasted, as of yesterday afternoon, 597 generally angry friends.

Wrote one agitated citizen: “Well, of all the things our government could think of to help our economic situation, our environmental situation and maybe even our health care and educational system. . .he thought of ‘let’s change the national anthem!!’ I am so proud to say Harper is leading our country.”

Added another: “So parliament has been prorogued twice because it was ‘essential to Canada’s economic plan’, and this is what we’re met with? Changing O Canada is essential to Canada’s economic plan?”

Declared still another: “The ‘anthem issue’ is a cynical Tory game to create a controversy to distract from the other more seriously bad things they are doing. Their plan is to cut taxes while increasing debt to manufacture a fiscal crisis that justifies a major gutting of our most important public services. Don’t be distracted by this nonsense and get out and vote against this cynical, calculating attack on our values and government at every opportunity you can.”

I’m partial to this last comment not merely because of its tincture of foreboding. (Who doesn’t like a good conspiracy theory?) It also alludes to the fundamentally blinkered approach this government has taken to solving the nation’s long-term fiscal problems. It has refused to consider raising taxes, of any sort. Meanwhile, apart from promising wage freezes in the public service, it has spoken only circuitously about spending cuts. (At this writing, the budget has not yet come down, so timing may once again make a fool of me).

Still, no government can afford its services without revenue. What, then, are the sources? Dwindling equity or spiralling debt? Should we Canadians realistically expect, and become accustomed to, a future of low, slow growth and a society increasingly bifurcated into the affluent and the impoverished?

Maybe, then – just maybe – this O Canada contretemps is a juicy little red herring accurately tossed into the political arena to keep the nation distracted from contemplating weightier, more intractable issues. If so, Ignatieff would be wise to give this ludicrous identity crisis a wide berth.

After all, why do Harper’s job for him? Why make it easy?

O Canada, indeed! O brother! True patriot love in all thy bums command.

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