Excerptcize

Something that I’ve tended to think about the current tenure of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is that although his government has pushed through (or tried to push through) much legislation that I personally disagree with (cuts to the CBC, cuts to arts funding, “tough on crime” legislation), by and large the government has been competent (there have been exceptions to this though too.) Being one who has never had much love for the media, Harper had made no public comments on his recent prorogation of the Canadian parliament until he recently deigned to sit down with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge for an interview:

At 5:24 into the piece, Mansbridge asks the PM about his decision to prorogue the current parliamentary session; in a very casual manner, and apparently doing his best to dissuade me of my belief in his government’s competency, Harper says “coming off an extraordinary year [2009][...]we want to take some time to recalibrate the government’s agenda, both on the economy and on some other matters.” What kind of government is not capable of evaluating what you’ve done in the past, realign goals for the future and govern at the same time? Not one worthy of governing in my opinion. Unfortunately this video clip cuts off without showing Harper’s comment that since the controversy about the transfer of Afghan detainee’s isn’t on Canadian’s radar at large it’s not something that his government is going to be concerned with. To see that as well as Mansbridge’s logical followup question “Just because it’s not an issue in polls, does that not make it important?” you can view the full clip here.

Something I find rather interesting is to compare our PM’s assertion that the government needs two months to ‘recalibrate’ and that they are focused on the economy, not silly little things like the rule of law and how we adhere to international treaties, with the constant criticism that President Obama faces in the US that he is not ‘focused’ enough for his decision to deal with the terrible legacies Bush left in the GWOT, healthcare, the economy, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan/Pakistan and whatever other issues an effective executive needs to deal with. The blogosphere in the States makes the easy analogy that one can walk and chew gum at the same time to illustrate that good governments needs to be multifaceted, as we are a multifaceted society. It’s a shame our PM either feels that is not the case, or crassly makes that case to defend his current politicking.

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