Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper responds to questions after making an announcement at the Yukon college in Whitehorse, Thursday August 21, 2014. Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld WHITEHORSE — He came to the north, as it were, loaded for bear.
In response to a journalist’s question about his government’s growing list of long-promised, as-yet unfulfilled big-ticket commitments to Canada’s far north, Prime Minister Stephen Harper wasn’t having any of it.
In an answer that ran to five minutes-plus — an uncharacteristically long statement from a man whose lack of enthusiasm for news conferences is legendary — Harper rhymed off a selection of items from a list of his own, which includes $40 million for investments in northern economic development in 2014-15; $27 million for adult education between 2011 and 2016; $6.4 million for infrastructure across the three northern territories, over two years, announced in 2012; $5.4 million for Yukon College’s Centre for Northern Innovation in Mining, between 2013 and 2017; and on, and on, and on it went. He may have been reading, or he may know this list by heart. Either way, he clearly anticipated the question, and he worked his way through the answer with apparent enthusiasm.
Some big-ticket delays, Harper told his audience of Yukon College supporters and media, were unavoidable, given the size and complexity of the projects. According to a briefing note issued by PMO staff, these include the building of Arctic offshore patrol ships (projected completion by 2023, cost $3.1 billion; the polar-icebreaker John G. Diefenbaker (projected completion by 2021, cost $1.3 billion); the rebuilding of the Canadian Coast Guard (projected completion by 2023, cost $1.3 billion) the planned deepwater port at Nanisivik, in Nunavut (projected completion by 2018, cost $146 million) and the planned all-season highway linking Inuvik with Tuktoyaktuk (projected completion 2018, cost $200 million).
Construction of the government’s long-promised High Arctic Research Station at Cambridge Bay is now going ahead, the prime minister said, sounding rather proud; and the Canadian Rangers, the Inuit-manned Arctic unit of the Canadian Forces, had their numbers expanded by 20 per cent to 5,000 as of last year, he noted.
The message was crystal-clear, and driven home with the bludgeoning force of repetition; when it comes to a personal commitment to the north, Harper won’t take dictation from anyone, nor make apologies for the slow pace of development. Extended time frames are simply a cost of major procurements and of doing business in the north, he suggested, which is why nothing less than a long-term commitment will do. It was, in all, a sensible, assured response, from a leader who has taken his share of knocks lately for offering too little that is constructive.
Whether by coincidence or design, this Arctic tour began with a markedly different tone than last year’s. Harper’s first event in 2013 was a highly partisan, scrappy torching of the opposition Liberals and New Democrats. This tour, by contrast, began with the launch Thursday morning of a National Research Council Arctic program. So, a positive note, rather than negative.
More interesting still was the Prime Minister’s news conference, in which he appeared to sketch the frame of a 2015 re-election strategy. In addition to the constructive development theme, he spoke at length about the threat to Canada posed by the Islamic State; and he articulated, more clearly than I have heard any member of his government do in the past, the thinking behind his refusal to convene an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women. Agree or disagree, it is all internally consistent conservatism.
On the subject of the Islamic State, Harper appeared genuine in his revulsion towards the horrifying tactics on display in the beheading of journalist James Foley. Harper tends to be at his best when discussing foreign policy in stark, moral terms; he has done so with increasing frankness in the past year, particularly with respect to Israel’s war with Hamas, and the aggressions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Clearly, we should expect him to strike such themes repeatedly as election 2015 approaches.
On the subject of missing and murdered aboriginal women, a discussion renewed in the aftermath of the murder of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, Harper said he views the question as one of crime, not sociology. In other words: Find the guilty, punish the guilty, prevent further violence, against aboriginal women but also all other Canadian women. But do not “appear to be doing something” by convening expensive, exhaustive inquiries during which people talk a lot, but do not solve problems. That will be disagreeable to many, but it is consistent with a philosophically conservative approach to governance.
So the emerging strategy may be three-pronged. Push hard on economic growth, economic development, innovation, pragmatic job training; Denounce and punish crime; speak passionately and with moral clarity about the growing chaos in the world, particularly as this highlights the tenuous nature of the peace and security we enjoy in Canada. And then, as the closer, throw in tax cuts.
It is not a half-bad approach, all things considered. Whether it will be sustained, is another question.
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