The preposterousness of the Cadman "bribe"
In the spring of 2005, the social conservatives desperately wanted an election over marriage. Back then, marriage was the "understory" while corruption was the overstory. Just as freedom of speech is the "understory" today but corruption is the overstory.
But some pragmatists within the Conservative Party did not think the party was as ready as it could be to go to the polls then. I recall them quietly sighing with relief that Cadman's vote spared them an election at the time. They knew they would be even more prepared come the fall.
Tom Flanagan is not a social conservative. In fact, I see him as someone who has strategically tried to distance Harper and the Conservative Party from those "scary," pesky so-cons. I guess the assumption is that so-cons have nowhere else to go. (News flash, they could stay home, or go back to voting for pro-life Liberal candidates, or plain old Liberals because socons are not necessarily fiscal conservatives.)
From what I know about Flanagan and Finley, the idea that they would bribe Chuck Cadman with a million dollar insurance policy is utterly preposterous. As Ezra Levant points out even members of the insurance industry say such policies don't even exist. Ezra has several posts on this and will be keeping up with new developments.
First of all, Flanagan is a strategist who, like Harper, thinks many chess moves ahead. He is also someone who studies human nature, like Harper. Both these men knew, for instance, that any person who followed Preston Manning as leader of the Canadian Alliance would experience an internal rebellion as Stockwell Day did.
They would have known that Chuck Cadman could not have been bribed, and they are too cautious, and probably too principled, to do anything remotely illegal. And, because they are not social conservatives, marriage would not have been the hill they wanted to die on. It would not have been blinding passion for them. These men know how to bide their time.
These are the guys who have helped Harper navigate to the center of the political spectrum, the stylists of his cautious, incremental, pragmatic leadership approach.
Nah, the idea they might have risked everything they had worked for with something stupid and illegal is nuts.
The Liberals, even freedom of speech favorite Keith Martin, are all excited about this Chuck Cadman controversy. While last week, one Liberal MP told me he was losing sleep over the uncertainty of a possible election, feeling demoralized and exhausted, now the Liberal caucus seems energized and ready to bring down the government after caving on the budget, the Afghanistan motion and the Crime Bill that passed the Senate in record time last week.
I sure wish the Tories, who do not have the internal divisions on the freedom of speech issue that the Liberal Party has (i.e. they do not have people like Hedy "crosses are burning as we speak" Fry in their caucus ), would shed their risk averse course in this instance and hold the banner high to restore our rapidly eroding civil liberties.
Instead, the Justice Minister--Mr. Caution personified, is busy appointing new commissioners to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Which is not to say Rob Nicholson opposes civil liberties. I doubt that very much, despite his caution. I don't know him, he's from the Progressive Conservative wing, and in my experience, even off the record he stays with the talking points. I would imagine his picks would not be saying under oath that they think freedom of speech is an American concept. At least I hope not.
To sum up, the same risk averseness among Tory leaders that made the pragmatists unwilling to make marriage their hill to die on, that made it totally unlikely that anyone bribed Cadman, may now disappoint those of us who want to see the Tories publicly fight to make human rights commission abuses go the way of the Berlin Wall.
But Harper does sometimes surprise people with the force of his conviction and his deft leadership. I have been told the freedom of speech issue has come up in caucus, so he's aware of it. Maybe he'll surprise us with something brilliant, like he surprised people with the establishment of the Manley Commission to look at the Afghanistan mission. By setting up a bi-partisan commission to examine the issue, he avoided the political landmines of the war and brought the Liberals on board.
Imagine if he set up a new commission to study human rights legislation? Imagine some of the great, impartial legal minds he could bring to study this from top to bottom--people from the left and the right--and come up with some bullet-proof recommendations that could earn the respect of all parties. That would be real statesmanship.
But some pragmatists within the Conservative Party did not think the party was as ready as it could be to go to the polls then. I recall them quietly sighing with relief that Cadman's vote spared them an election at the time. They knew they would be even more prepared come the fall.
Tom Flanagan is not a social conservative. In fact, I see him as someone who has strategically tried to distance Harper and the Conservative Party from those "scary," pesky so-cons. I guess the assumption is that so-cons have nowhere else to go. (News flash, they could stay home, or go back to voting for pro-life Liberal candidates, or plain old Liberals because socons are not necessarily fiscal conservatives.)
From what I know about Flanagan and Finley, the idea that they would bribe Chuck Cadman with a million dollar insurance policy is utterly preposterous. As Ezra Levant points out even members of the insurance industry say such policies don't even exist. Ezra has several posts on this and will be keeping up with new developments.
First of all, Flanagan is a strategist who, like Harper, thinks many chess moves ahead. He is also someone who studies human nature, like Harper. Both these men knew, for instance, that any person who followed Preston Manning as leader of the Canadian Alliance would experience an internal rebellion as Stockwell Day did.
They would have known that Chuck Cadman could not have been bribed, and they are too cautious, and probably too principled, to do anything remotely illegal. And, because they are not social conservatives, marriage would not have been the hill they wanted to die on. It would not have been blinding passion for them. These men know how to bide their time.
These are the guys who have helped Harper navigate to the center of the political spectrum, the stylists of his cautious, incremental, pragmatic leadership approach.
Nah, the idea they might have risked everything they had worked for with something stupid and illegal is nuts.
The Liberals, even freedom of speech favorite Keith Martin, are all excited about this Chuck Cadman controversy. While last week, one Liberal MP told me he was losing sleep over the uncertainty of a possible election, feeling demoralized and exhausted, now the Liberal caucus seems energized and ready to bring down the government after caving on the budget, the Afghanistan motion and the Crime Bill that passed the Senate in record time last week.
I sure wish the Tories, who do not have the internal divisions on the freedom of speech issue that the Liberal Party has (i.e. they do not have people like Hedy "crosses are burning as we speak" Fry in their caucus ), would shed their risk averse course in this instance and hold the banner high to restore our rapidly eroding civil liberties.
Instead, the Justice Minister--Mr. Caution personified, is busy appointing new commissioners to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Which is not to say Rob Nicholson opposes civil liberties. I doubt that very much, despite his caution. I don't know him, he's from the Progressive Conservative wing, and in my experience, even off the record he stays with the talking points. I would imagine his picks would not be saying under oath that they think freedom of speech is an American concept. At least I hope not.
To sum up, the same risk averseness among Tory leaders that made the pragmatists unwilling to make marriage their hill to die on, that made it totally unlikely that anyone bribed Cadman, may now disappoint those of us who want to see the Tories publicly fight to make human rights commission abuses go the way of the Berlin Wall.
But Harper does sometimes surprise people with the force of his conviction and his deft leadership. I have been told the freedom of speech issue has come up in caucus, so he's aware of it. Maybe he'll surprise us with something brilliant, like he surprised people with the establishment of the Manley Commission to look at the Afghanistan mission. By setting up a bi-partisan commission to examine the issue, he avoided the political landmines of the war and brought the Liberals on board.
Imagine if he set up a new commission to study human rights legislation? Imagine some of the great, impartial legal minds he could bring to study this from top to bottom--people from the left and the right--and come up with some bullet-proof recommendations that could earn the respect of all parties. That would be real statesmanship.
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