{"id":16164,"date":"2012-07-23T10:53:26","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T15:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=16164"},"modified":"2012-07-23T10:53:26","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T15:53:26","slug":"the-eternal-prime-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/07\/23\/the-eternal-prime-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"The eternal Prime Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/commentary\/columnists\/like-energizer-bunny-pm-could-go-on-and-on\/article4435022\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Globe and Mail<\/em><\/a> is not usually so positive about Prime Minister Stephen Harper:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In Stephen Harper\u2019s first cabinet, a rookie prime minister who had never run anything of any significance relied on powerful cabinet ministers in key portfolios: Stockwell Day at Public Safety, David Emerson at International Trade, Jim Flaherty at Finance, Chuck Strahl at Agriculture and Jim Prentice at Indian and Northern Affairs.<\/p>\n<p>Apart from Mr. Flaherty, they\u2019re all gone now. Mr. Harper\u2019s critics are correct when they accuse him of running virtually a one-man government.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s not easy. Mr. Harper is the hardest-working prime minister in living memory. Those who have watched him say he reads everything; he has a better grasp of the files than most of the ministers responsible for them. He involves himself intimately in the budget; Mr. Flaherty is already one of Canada\u2019s longest-serving finance ministers, but he is far from sovereign in his portfolio.<\/p>\n<p>The Prime Minister has gone from being an inexperienced newcomer in foreign affairs to one of the developed world\u2019s longest-serving heads of government. He takes a personal interest in aboriginal affairs issues, in natural resources, in trade, in \u2013 well, you name it.<\/p>\n<p>In short, Mr. Harper exercises near-total control over his government because it\u2019s in his nature and because he can.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Globe and Mail is not usually so positive about Prime Minister Stephen Harper: In Stephen Harper\u2019s first cabinet, a rookie prime minister who had never run anything of any significance relied on powerful cabinet ministers in key portfolios: Stockwell Day at Public Safety, David Emerson at International Trade, Jim Flaherty at Finance, Chuck Strahl [&hellip;]<\/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],"tags":[258],"class_list":["post-16164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-government","tag-stephenharper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-4cI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16164","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=16164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16165,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16164\/revisions\/16165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}