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The Harper Shift – From Prime Minister to Vengeful Dictator.

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I hope everyone in Canada marked their calendars with a big black X yesterday.

June 25th was a day that we would all do well to remember. It was the day Prime Minister Stephen Harper hit a new all time low, even for him, in his dealings with the Provinces.

While in New Brunswick to announce hundreds of millions of dollars in highway funding, Harper decided to send a clear message to Canadians in general and Atlantic Canadians specifically.

The message was, “keep quiet and do as you’re told or else”.

There’s nothing new about Ottawa cost sharing highway improvements with the provinces. It’s done all the time and has been for decades. What’s different this time around is the choice of words used by Harper during the New Brunswick announcement and the underlying threat he delivered.

At a time when Nova Scotia and Newfoundland & Labrador are battling Ottawa over the Atlantic Accords and equalization and while the Atlantic Premiers are all together for meetings in PEI, Harper used the announcement to clearly get his future intentions across. He did this by noting that the federal funding provided to New Brunswick for road improvements was an example of what can happen when the Provinces and Ottawa work together.

The statement in any other context might not sound like much but make no mistake about it, his words were intended as a clear shot across the bows of the SS MacDonald and the SS Williams and were meant to send a message to all the Atlantic Provinces that they had better stay in line or face dire consequences.

We all know of course that infrastructure funding is not tied to equalization, nor should it be. We’ve also heard the federal finance minister say time and time again that there will be “no more side deals”. Fair enough, though in reality the Atlantic Accords are not side deals but economic development deals similar to those heaped on the auto and aerospace industries of Ontario and Quebec.

Harper’s statement was a threat if there ever was one and by tying the ability to access road funding to the larger issue of federal/provincial relations, Stephen Harper has, in essence, taken that funding out of the standard cost sharing pot and made it a side deal of its own, contingent on keeping him happy.

It’s always been the practice of federal and provincial governments to work together on road projects and for Harper to use the New Brunswick announcement as a hammer against Nova Scotia and Newfoundland & Labrador is nothing more than a deplorable attempt to pit province against province, an effort to keep Atlantic Canada firmly under his thumb and a move meant to make sure Atlantic Canadians know that to access federal funds from here on in they’ll have to stay on the good side of Adolf Harper.

Those who win his favour will be rewarded. Those who displease him will be punished severely. What a way to run a Country.

How unbecoming of a Prime Minister to resort to threats and back door politics against his own people.

As I said folks, mark June 25th on your calendars. It’s the day that saw a violent shift in Canadian politics. It’s a day that saw Stephen Harper begin his move away from that of a democratically elected Prime Minister to that of a vengeful dictator.

By Myles Higgins

@ June 26, 2007