{"id":12931,"date":"2012-01-06T11:13:50","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T16:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=12931"},"modified":"2012-01-06T11:13:50","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T16:13:50","slug":"paul-wells-harper-has-big-plans-for-2012-maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/01\/06\/paul-wells-harper-has-big-plans-for-2012-maybe\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Wells: Harper has big plans for 2012 … maybe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes, it’s the constantly threatening hidden agenda!<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

What does Stephen Harper want to do with his parliamentary majority? \u201cI want to make sure that we use it,\u201d he told CTV\u2019s Lisa LaFlamme in a year-end interview. \u201cYou know, I\u2019ve seen too many majority governments, the bureaucracy talks them into going to sleep for three years, and then they all of a sudden realize they\u2019re close to an election.\u201d<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to like this list. I\u2019m not saying Harper\u2019s predecessors were heroes. I am saying they were not sleeping. If the Prime Minister\u2019s comments have any meaning, he must have something up his sleeve at least as big as those accomplishments. If he doesn\u2019t, he won\u2019t be the first politician to congratulate himself for his achievements before he fails to achieve them.<\/p>\n

His interviews suggest Harper plans something big. Four times during his CTV interview, and once with the Chinese-language Fairchild network, he used the adjective \u201cmajor\u201d to describe his plans for 2012.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

It\u2019s striking how rarely Harper sounds bold when any discussion descends from slogans to details. Take foreign policy. On Syria, he pleads the lack of a Security Council resolution. On Egypt: \u201cWe\u2019ll try and do what we can do to encourage stability and encourage the forces of democracy, but we don\u2019t go into these things blind. There are some very real risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

A policy of bold action only where success is assured is a policy of offering help where none is needed. It is a bold decision to join others\u2019 victory parades. There is nothing major about it.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, the bureaucrats I talk to aren\u2019t plotting to put Harper to sleep. On the contrary. Many wonder whether this government will wake up. One of Ottawa\u2019s most experienced civil servants tells me the widespread belief is that Harper\u2019s government is so obsessed with each morning\u2019s headlines that it cannot plan. This official predicts a year of high-level early retirements from the civil service if Harper does not start using his majority.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, it’s the constantly threatening hidden agenda! What does Stephen Harper want to do with his parliamentary majority? \u201cI want to make sure that we use it,\u201d he told CTV\u2019s Lisa LaFlamme in a year-end interview. \u201cYou know, I\u2019ve seen too many majority governments, the bureaucracy talks them into going to sleep for three years, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,84,7,28],"tags":[509,432,258,101],"class_list":["post-12931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-government","category-history","category-media","tag-civilservice","tag-diplomacy","tag-stephenharper","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3mz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12932,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12931\/revisions\/12932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}