This is Why the Guy Creeps Me Out

Last month the Ottawa bureau chief of the Toronto Star set out to analyze Stephen Harper's truly irritating style of governing. See if you agree with this:

"Eight months into his tenure as Prime Minister, and now, as the fall political season is grinding into gear after the Labour Day weekend, it is possible to identify some of the defining characteristics of Harper's leadership style — beyond the spare descriptions of "bold" or "decisive" management.

Here are some other techniques from the Harper playbook, which may prove a useful guide to understanding his public strategies in the weeks and months ahead:

Declare victory, even if the problem isn't solved.

Harper has yet to implement one concrete solution to resolve the so-called "fiscal imbalance" between Ottawa and the provinces. He's not even planning to hold a meeting on the issue before the end of the year. But, somehow, it is now being called the "fiscal balance." Problem solved.
The same is true with the long-running softwood dispute with the United States. As far back as March, when Harper sat down with U.S. President George W. Bush, he was starting to refer to the dispute in the past tense. The deal with the United States was announced before it was complete; the victory was repeatedly being hailed even as Ottawa was still negotiating with the lumber industry over whether the terms would be accepted.

Harper, as a student of history, knows that prime ministers often get caught up in long-running, intractable disputes, national unity being chief among them. He seems to have decided it's better to just declare the problem solved and label the leftover, outstanding issues as mere housekeeping.

It's not clear if this could work with the Quebec separatism drama, but Harper may try the approach.


Surround yourself with symbols and props.

Harper pays more attention to the staging of his events than any other prime minister in recent memory. He needs flags, podiums, the backdrop of the Commons doors, even cabinet ministers, whom he often forgets to introduce.

In the world of professional speechmaking, these are called "visual aids" and they are used to reinforce his authority. Leesa Barnes, the award-winning president of Toronto's Business Toastmasters club, which helps business leaders with public speaking, says: "I think he uses those props in order to feel comfortable on that stage."

The props, in other words, serve the purpose of distracting from Harper's body language, which is generally neither comfortable nor friendly. Barnes finds Harper actually a very good public speaker, with no "uhs" or "ums" punctuating his message. "He comes across as very honest," and also seems to know what he's talking about, she says.

Slogans are also part of the prop-filled mix. This is not simply the government, but "Canada's New Government," and that phrase is plastered over almost every issuance from Harper's PMO.


Keep the opposition divided.

By now, Harper's fixation on the Liberals is well established. He wastes no opportunity to present the Liberals as divided and, when he can, drive further wedges into their caucus, as he did with last spring's vote in the Commons on extending the mission in Afghanistan.
This is, in part, a lesson Harper learned from his own time in opposition, when prime minister Jean Chrétien reaped enormous political benefit from an opposition fractured among four parties.

The presence of 10 candidates in the Liberal leadership race also serves Harper's interests, as does any squabbling between the Liberals and New Democrats. If there is any way he can feed those divisions, he will.


It is not a lie if you tell it to the media.

Believe it or not, a senior Ottawa journalist was told this several years ago by one of Harper's chief advisers and confidants.

He hasn't said outright whether he shares this sentiment, but Harper evidently does not believe reporters can or will hold him accountable for shifting stories and positions.

One of his first blatant mistruths concerned the subject of his plans for a trip to Afghanistan — his first foreign foray. Some reporters in Kandahar had seen prime ministerial advance officials in late February, scouting out the terrain for a Harper trip. Some defence officials as well had inadvertently discussed the prospect in a briefing with Canadian Press journalists around the same time.

But Harper, talking to the media on March 1 after these reports surfaced, actually went out of his way to lead the media astray. Asked a general question about Afghanistan, he began his remarks this way: "Let me just say I do actually occasionally read the papers and, according to those papers, I've been to and from Afghanistan several times in the last couple of weeks. I don't have any plans to go there."

In fact, he did have plans to go there — plans he was making in February, as he subsequently told reporters who travelled with him to Afghanistan less than two weeks after that press conference. (There are times when for national security reasons, the media are indeed kept in the dark.)


Retreat, but never admit retreat.

This was a classic Chrétien strategy, which Harper has obviously borrowed. Its corollary is: "Learn from your mistakes but don't publicly acknowledge them."

His decision to ban media coverage of fallen soldiers returning to Canada sparked huge controversy, for example, so Harper subsequently declared that the ban was instituted at the request of families. When some of the families said they hadn't been consulted, Harper then said the ban didn't exist. At no point did he acknowledge that he'd reversed his position.

The disappearance of the medical wait-times guarantee from Harper's five-priorities list is another reversal that hasn't been spun that way. Now Health Minister Tony Clement is calling the guarantee a "process," not an end in itself.


Speak French first.

It was only a matter of weeks into Harper's prime ministership when everyone started to notice he always begins his public statements in French.

Harper has subsequently been asked about his French-first policy. He told La Presse and an Alberta radio interviewer that there are a number of reasons: French is Canada's first national language, he says, but the discipline of speaking it first helps him collect his thoughts.

"I have to think much more carefully, in a much more structured sense about what I'm going to say and how I'm going to answer questions. It actually helps me in a press conference, to do it that way," he explained to Dave Rutherford.

It doesn't hurt politically either in his continuing bid to woo Quebec.


If you want to avoid a course of action, challenge your opponents to provoke it.

Harper has only a minority government. On average, minorities don't last much longer than a year and a half in Canada. Earlier this year, Harper declared that he wouldn't call an election until October of 2009 — a full three years from now; basically, a majority-length term in office.
In declaring this, Harper was laying the groundwork to shame the Liberals and other opposition parties into postponing defeat of his government. He is banking on the Liberals wanting to avoid any negative media they might receive for provoking an election earlier than anticipated.

Former prime minister Paul Martin recently believed the same thing, however — that Canadians would punish any political parties who provoked a snap, winter election late in 2005. Martin is not prime minister any more.


Don't look to be liked, seek respect.

Harper is one of the most unsocial prime ministers since Pierre Trudeau. He doesn't try to radiate warmth or charm or likeability. At a recent 60th birthday party for his former communications director, the well-liked Tory consultant Geoff Norquay, video tributes were sent by former prime ministers Martin, Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark, as well as Quebec Premier Jean Charest. Harper refused repeated offers to send any message at all to the large Tory gathering.

As the once-Liberal, now-Conservative cabinet minister David Emerson observed to an ex-staffer earlier this year, Harper's interpersonal style is best described as "hard ass." His approach is disciplined and disciplinary, as is evident from the extreme fear that he's generated among potentially talkative cabinet ministers.

Short-term, this strategy has worked.

All of his signature traits, in fact, have had some significant short-term effectiveness. The question is whether they can work over the long term and help him secure the majority government he's bent on obtaining."