Harper gives Liberals an opening
Justin Trudeau has been working assiduously to invoke the ghost of Stephen Harper, but this week the ghost himself appeared, no Liberal conjuring needed.
There was the former prime minister, in a full-page ad in the New York Times, offering a full-throated endorsement of Donald Trump, specifically the U.S. president’s widely-condemned decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and to reimpose sanctions.
“Mr. President, You Are Right About Iran,” says the top half of the page, paid for Rafael Bardaji, a former chief of staff to Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar.
“Mr. President, we the undersigned, stand in complete support of your leadership on Iran.”
Harper’s name tops the list of 12 signatories, with former Conservative foreign affairs minister John Baird not far behind.
In March, Harper and Aznar made the same argument in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, arguing that the 2015 deal provides a road map for Iran to realize its nuclear ambitions.
Leaving aside the obvious reticence of any Canadian leader to cheerlead for Trump on any decision, Harper has been consistent in his views on Iran.
They manifested themselves most notably in his ill-advised 2012 move to shutter the Canadian embassy in Tehran.
He has also been consistent in using U.S. media to further a message, in or out of government, most notably in using the same Wall Street Journal to condemn Jean Chrétien for not joining George W. Bush’s 2003 misadventure in Iraq.
Harper is not expressing a view different than the position staked out by the party under Andrew Scheer, if public statements by his foreign affairs critic, Erin O’Toole, are any indication. But the party has not officially taken a position and Harper’s intervention makes the former prime minister the story and it allows the Liberals to highlight its support for the deal by taking on Harper.
Just the way they want it and just what Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland did Thursday, taking the opportunity to tell reporters that her government “regrets” the U.S. decision to pull out of an important and useful agreement.
She said she discussed ways to move forward without the U.S. participation with her British counterpart Boris Johnson.
Painting Scheer as Harper redux, leading the Harper party, has been a preoccupation with Trudeau, a strategy unveiled at the party’s Halifax convention last month.
Last week, my colleague Susan Delacourt counted seven Harper references from Trudeau in a single question period, but that appears to have been merely a warm-up. Wednesday, Trudeau mentioned Harper an even dozen times.
He invoked Harper to criticize him on his performance on the environment, his changes to the Canada Elections Act, his treatment of seniors, his record on the economy and his cuts to the security budget.
Outside the House, he told reporters that Canadian policy on Iran would be crafted in Ottawa, not Washington.
Playing the bogeyman card from the past is a tried-andtrue tactic.
Conservatives used Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program to keep Alberta a largely Liberal-free zone for years.
Provincially, think of the references to the “Harris Tories,” a frightening image successfully deployed by Ontario Liberals.
Bob Rae is in the bogeyman hall of fame. Harper used memories of his tenure as NDP premier to push back against Jack Layton’s orange wave at the Ontario border in 2011, and we’ll know that provincial NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is a real threat to take power in the current election when Rae’s name starts popping up again.
Rae even used his own bogeyman status in weighing his decision whether to run for the federal Liberal leadership.
That Rae was elected almost 28 years ago does not seem to matter because there is no statute of limitation on invoking the ghosts of leaders past. One keeps invoking the bogeyman until it no longer works.
The strategy of painting Scheer as Harper with a smile may bear fruit because Scheer is still largely unknown and Trudeau is taking the opportunity to brand his opponent ahead of the 2019 election.
But the Conservative leader is hardly as toxic as Harper had become after almost a decade in power, even if the party has not yet moved beyond the Harper era on policy and Scheer’s front bench is dotted with Harper cabinet veterans.
Harper would likely be quite content to have the 2019 vote feature the Liberals taking on his legacy. It remains to be seen how comfortable the current Conservative team would be heading into a battle framed that way.