Conservative Party

Steven Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada are in many ways one and the same.  The Conservative party of Canada is one of two of the country’s oldest and most venerated political party’s.  The present Conservative party is the product of the surrender and acquisition of the party brand by an extremist right wing party from Canada’s western provinces, the Alliance and the Reform parties.

In order to understand the present power dynamic and to under the stand the leader, it is necessary to recall Mr. Harper’s ascendancy as a political operative.    Mr. Harper as a university student because early on interested in Conservative politics and worked for that party. When he saw little future for himself he joined a right wing movement and after a time in the lower echelons replace the leader of the party. Having solidified a leader ship position, Mr. Harper was unable to achieve more than 30 or so parliamentary seats, nearly all from his western base. Recognizing that the Reform movement could never gain national acceptance, Mr. Harper convinced a weak Conservative leader to merge the traditional conservative party with the Reform party, with Mr. Harper and his right wing group taking control. Disguised in the brand of a legitimate national party, Harper than went on to hide and or quieten the more extreme voices in his own group in order to distance himself and the newly acquired Conservative party from its Reform and Alliance roots.

Subsequent national elections have seen Harper’s strategy come to power based partially on the success of Harper’s own design combined with a series of weak and incompetent Liberal party leaders.  However even with the most incompetent Liberal leadership, that of the clownish Stephan Dion, Harper was unable to gain a controlling majority in Canada. Undaunted, Harper has continued to advance a right wing agenda, one small step at a time, helped in part by the lack of spine on the part of Jack Layton, and frankly stupid leadership choices by the Liberal party.