I'd be interested to hear what the Ontario folk who lurk here think about the prospect of Mike Harris leading a national party.
FWIW, IMO it would be a case of short-term gain for long-term pain. The gain is that Paul Martin would face what the pundits at least would consider a "credible" opponent. Harris has lead a party to success in two elections -- not many people have done that. Harper, McKay, Layton -- none of them have, and for that matter neither has Martin. So in that sense, at least, Harris is credible. Lord knows that the Liberals need something to make them at least glance over their shoulders.
As for the longer term? Since I left Ontario shortly after Bob Rae's putsch, I don't have first-hand experience of the "Common Sense Revolution". My impression, though, is that, like the "Klein Revolution", it didn't make any lasting difference. It wasn't really slash and burn, it was pruning, and any gardener knows that pruning makes the thing grow back bigger. That's certainly what happened in Alberta -- the government is spending more money than ever on stuff like health and education, and even so no one is happy with the output. I get the sense that Ontario is the same -- after two terms under the "Conservatives", government is bigger than it was under the socialist hordes.
So, in the longer run, have we made the country any different than it was 20 years ago? In 1983, the alternative to the Trudeau Liberals was a conservative party that, given the chance, demonstrated the same approach to governance as the Liberals. As much as I admired Mike Wilson, the proof of the pudding is in the eating -- he never managed to get the fiscal house in order, and left huge deficits. Socially, the Tories were just as Quebec-oriented, and every bit as "progressive," as the Liberals. IMHO, the proposed merger between the CA and the PCs is back to the future, back to the Mulroney Tory party, as if the last 16 years never happened. |
