Prime Minister Stephen Harper used the occasion of his eighth annual Arctic summer tour to deliver a blistering, highly partisan and combative speech in which he defended his record across the board and hammered the opposition relentlessly.
“What I’m telling you is that with the NDP and the Liberals, what you see is what you get,” Harper told a crowd of party loyalists in this northwestern Canadian capital of 23,000. “Dangerous ideas and vacuous thinking, that would reverse the progress we have made.”
The speech sounded like one he might have delivered to the Conservative party’s convention in Calgary in June, had that event not been postponed due to the Great Flood. It was a return to Harper’s style of the last federal election – giving no quarter and, clearly, expecting none.
By turns lauding his government’s achievements in all policy areas, and slamming his critics, Harper sounded more like a campaigner than a mid-term prime minister on a relaxed visit to one of his favourite regions. “You have trusted us, and we have delivered, despite the Opposition,” he said. Indeed, Harper claimed, the government has delivered on 84 of “more than 100 specific pledges” made in the last election.
Hitting all the hottest-button themes on which he campaigned in 2011 — harsher treatment for criminals, greater personal freedoms, lower taxes — Harper accused Tom Mulcair’s New Democrats of having policies “so far outside the Canadian mainstream, they don’t want to talk about them.” He slammed Mulcair for having travelled to Washington, “where he lobbied against Canadian energy exports and jobs in private.”
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian WyldNDP leader Thomas Mulcair speaks with the media following a party caucus meeting on Parliament Hill Wednesday May 8.
Harper launched into the Liberals as well, saying they “don’t talk about their alternatives, because they don’t have any.” In a dig aimed at Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, who has promised to legalize pot, Harper cracked that “I guess I don’t count legalizing the marijuana trade as a serious economic policy.”
There was no mention of the Senate spending scandal, which has dogged the Conservatives for months, or the internal dissent the prime minister has faced over social issues such as abortion, or the so-called Backbench Spring, which saw one member of his caucus resign. Instead Harper doubled down on the rhetoric of past election fights.
“Their instincts are all bad,” he charged of the Liberals and New Democrats. “Tax and spend proposals so extreme they would make the worst European budget look solid in comparison… big government bias that would build bureaucracy at the expense of families and communities. And would put the welfare of the criminal ahead of the interests of law-abiding citizens.”
The Canadian Press / Kelowna Daily Courier-Gary NylanderJustin Trudeau speaks in Kelowna on Tuesday July 23, 2103. The Liberal leader drew criticism from both the Conservatives and NDP after declaring his support for legalizing marijuana.
It remained unclear, at this writing, to which tax-and-spend proposals Harper referred. Mulcair recently came under attack from critics on the Left for ruling out tax increases. Trudeau has hitched his wagon to a classically liberal economic plan — conservative in all but name.
Harper even found time to lambaste Chretien-era Liberal foreign policy, citing “a so-called soft power approach that would again strip down the military and make Canada’s role in the world about nothing more than pleasing foreign governments.”
The PM opened the speech with more customary paeans to doughty Yukoners, lauding their hard work and frontier grit. “It’s about miners, pioneers, adventurers… hardy industrious people from all over the world who, digging for gold, ended up digging the foundations of an increasingly powerful northern economy.” As he has in the past, Harper cited the northern inspiration of his hero, John Diefenbaker, “the first prime minister to come north himself.”
Related
Laureen Harper kicks off PM’s northern tour with nostalgic blog post
Stephen Harper north of 60: Are the PM’s yearly trips all talk?
Harper government gets slap on wrist for 'misleading' ad touting job grant program that may never exist
Thomas Mulcair demands Conservatives pay $127,000 bill for audit of Pamela Wallin's expenses
Likewise, there was some of the poetic, myth-building narrative that Harper has employed on past visits here. “We believe that, as Canadians, our greatest dreams are to be found in our highest latitudes.”
There were also a few references to the theme that has been billed as the main focus of this excursion – northern economic development. Harper listed a number of developments that he said have moved ahead on his government’s watch – including new hydro-electric power generation to reduce the Yukon’s reliance on diesel fuel, a new visitors’ centre at Kluane National Park, a new biomass plant, and the extension of the Dempster Highway to Tuktoyaktuk.
You trusted us, and we delivered, despite the Opposition
The body of the speech, however, was a battle cry. Sounding not at all like someone who has any intention of stepping down before the next election – there has been speculation to that effect – Harper said that “when the next election comes we will be ready to keep this country moving forward.” He wound down with a soaring exhortation to the party faithful, to work harder and sacrifice more, for cause and country – then wrapped with a religious closer that harkened back to his earliest days. “God bless you – and God bless Canada.”
The message of the evening, for anyone who still hadn’t received it, was clear as a Yukon summer sky at dusk: Stephen Harper, like Britain’s Margaret Thatcher a generation ago, is not for turning.