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Monday January 17, 2005 |
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Interview
with Stephen Harper
by Angelo Persichilli
(Versione italiana)
THE HILL TIMESConservative
Leader Stephen Harper says his party’s upcoming and first policy convention
since its inception “will be the largest gathering of Conservatives since
the 1980s,”and that “a bigger, more unified, more regionally balanced
party”will emerge that is “more diversified than ever before.” In a
wide-ranging interview with
The Hill Times
last week, Mr. Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.),who has kept a low profile
over
the last
month, also said he doesn’t expect the federal Liberals to call an election
this year.
Declared: “I don’t see any issue coming forward that’s going
to provoke one. For the opposition parties, we’ve all been in the wilderness
for a very long time. But we’re not in a hurry to pull the trigger.” Mr.
Harper also said he wants to put a lot of energy into the province of Quebec
over the next year, a province where he sees his party can do well in the
next federal election.
“It is a slow process, but it is moving forward.
Of course, I will be spending more time in Parliament on
Quebec issues. Neither the PC nor the Alliance really spent any time on
Quebec issues in the past decade, so we’ve started to do that, started to
get in the news, started to make contacts and spending a lot of time with
people in many areas, and in Montreal in particular,”said Mr. Harper.
But an Environics Research Group poll released last Thursday
indicated the Conservatives haven’t moved in the public opinion nationally,
however, did increase support in Quebec from seven per cent to 12 per cent.
The following is a Q&A with Mr. Harper
The year2005 will
be a very important year for your party.How are you going to face it?
“The
first thing is going to be the convention.
This is going to be the largest gathering of Conservatives
since the late 1980s.You will see an opposition party that is bigger,
unified, more regionally balanced, more diversified than ever before.
Beyond that, it is difficult for me to say.
Even as a large, official opposition party, the schedule for the year is
still in the hands of the government in terms of what they decide to do and
what will happen in the Parliament, as a consequence.”
Do you expect an
early election?
“I do not
anticipate an election for this year; I do not sense any public mood for
one. But it all depends on what the government does. If a government wants
to provoke an election, it can. I don’t see any evidence of it at the
moment. It looks to me that they want to stay out of trouble in the House by
doing nothing.You can’t be defeated in the House if you can’t make a
decision in the first place. Beyond that, a lot of what we will be doing is
a lot of planning and execution of plans for a long-term development.
Obviously getting this party more deeply rooted in Quebec and in cultural
communities is a major priority.
That lack of competitiveness in some of those areas continues to be a
serious handicap.We will continue to work on all kinds of personnel and
organizational issues to be ready for the next election, and, eventually,
for the government.”
What about your
policies?
“Of course, we will have policy announcements as the year
goes on, but I will not give any of those away in advance.”
Which is the
most important issue you anticipate we will be facing?
“The main thing
right now is the economy.
I see evidence that we had a pretty good economy for a
pretty long time now.
I see increasing evidence the economy is in the slow.The
impact of the higher dollar is being felt. Frankly, the impact of the
government to reduce taxes, the impact of its failure to build on free trade
is there. It isn’t just enough to sign a free trade agreement with the
United States and Mexico.
We’ve seen from Europe and other places that these agreements require
constant work to move forward. And this government, basically, has lost the
file for 10 years. And I think we started to see some of the impact of that
in terms of the border traffic. I believe that we could see some slowing of
the economy.”
Any suggestions for Mr. Martin?
“I think that the
government would be advised to use some of its significant surplus to get on
to reducing taxes to increase competitiveness. But those are not the
messages the government is sending these days.”
There are a lot of
discussions about the future of immigration in Canada.
“We’re in the process of developing a range of immigration policies and
queries. I think the priorities on immigration are twofold: on the positive
side, we obviously want to continue vigorous immigration.We want to do more
to deal with credential problems.There are too many people being let in to
the country who are well-qualified and are let in because of their
qualifications and then finding that they’re unable to use them and this is
the issue that has to be the highest priority in immigration.”
And the
negative?
“On the other extreme and the more negative side, we have to
deal with deportation orders.We just had a terrible incident in Ottawa this
week where somebody’s been under a deportation order for over a decade and
murdered somebody and these kinds of problems need to be fixed. It’s not in
anybody’s interest.This is the kind of thing we have to clean up on.”
Any
particular policy to get closer to cultural minorities?
“We’ve had
significant success in the past couple of years in the recruitment of
candidates from cultural communities.
Our caucus in Ottawa is certainly the most culturally diverse Conservative
caucus we’ve had in this country.We’ve made significant progress there and
there’s no reason why it can’t be made in every community.”
Why?
“If you
look at what Conservatives stand for and that probably is closer to the
views and desires of new immigrants and new Canadians than any of the other
parties.”
Can you give us some examples?
“We strongly
support traditional values.
We want to give some practical examples of that when it
comes to childcare issues.We want to give money directly to families whether
they work in the home or outside the home.We don’t play favourites on that.
We want to see tax reductions for working Canadians.We
obviously want to clean up the immigration system. I think it’s increasingly
obvious, particularly with the immigration minister that immigration is
descending into favouritism and rules aren’t being followed not only by
illegal but by the minister herself and I think to clean that up is in
everybody’s interest. Crime: we’re a party that’s been concerned,
particularly, in Toronto where I grew up. I have seen the rise of crime in
my lifetime significantly in the city. Its often immigrants and new
Canadians that are closest to being affected by these trends. Our party has
long called for measures to deal with this.That doesn’t mean spending
$2-billion registering duck hunters. It’s putting police on the streets,
it’s actually dealing with people engaging in criminal behaviour. If you
look at the range of social and economic issues, if I can raise it, the
marriage issue – our party’s view on that, to preserve the traditional
definition of marriage is also closer to most immigrants’and new Canadians’.
On
a range of issues, our views are much closer already, but it’s a matter of
making sure people in those communities understand we exist and that we’re
open and we’re here.”
Going back to the
unity of your party. It seems to be united in the rest of Canada, but in
Quebec, the split is still alive.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in Quebec.When we put the party together, the new
party, in all fairness, in Quebec, we were starting from zero. Both previous
parties, the Alliance and PC had very little in Quebec.
They did have PCs at some time, but we did quite badly.We
did pick up some support in the last election; it was not what we were
hoping for, still, it is bigger than we had before.We have got some good
candidates, I continue to tour around the province and recruit candidates
and build up the organization.
It
is a slow process, but it is moving forward. Of course, I will be spending
more time in Parliament on Quebec issues. Neither the PC nor the Alliance
really spent any time on Quebec issues in the past decade, so we’ve started
to do that, started to get in the news, started to make contacts and
spending a lot of time with people in many areas, and in Montreal in
particular.”
Do you think this is enough?
“It’s not easy.We
have to take advantage of the fact that the Liberal Party is very unpopular,
that a lot of Quebecers will not vote for the Liberals. However, at the same
time, I am not interested in attracting separatists. After all, we have to
build a federalist alternative in Quebec.
I’m convinced that the vast majority of Quebecers want to
change the government, not to change the country.That’s the option that we
have. If you talk to the pollsters about the last election, what’s really
interesting is that almost no Quebecers voted for anybody.The Liberal vote
was a vote to stop the separatists, the BQ vote was a vote against the
corruption.
Hardly anyone voted for either of these parties. Somehow, sometimes, we have
to break that polarization and convince people to vote for a positive.”
How is the cooperation with this minority government?
“The government
has made very little effort to consult the other parties.That’s where the
risk of an election exists, but I don’t see any issue coming forward that’s
going to provoke one. For the opposition parties, we’ve all been in the
wilderness for a very long time. But we’re not in a hurry to pull the
trigger.”
Sponsorship scandal: do you believe that the Gomery inquiry
will bring everything out?
“It’s our best
chance to get to the truth.
It
seems to me that Justice Gomery is determined to get to the truth.This is
not going to be easy. A lot of documents have been destroyed. A lot of
people have done things that they didn’t keep paper trails on. It’s
important we uncover the facts of what is, by far, the largest scandal in
Canadian history.We need to get to the bottom of what happened and make sure
it can’t be repeated.”
Are you happy with
the reaction of our government to the disaster in Asia?
“Very slow off the
mark and I think now they’re trying to make up for that by throwing as much
money to it as possible, but I’ve got to react with some skepticism.
We
have to watch this over the weeks and months to see what actually occurs and
how effective we are.”
We are waiting now
for the next budget.
Mr. Goodale says that the situation is tight.
“Every time they have a budget they claim things are tight.Then those
numbers turn out to be totally false, it turns out they have a huge surplus
and they start throwing their money around without any plans which is why we
get scandals, mismanagement and incompetence to the tune of billions of
dollars every year. Look at this humanitarian crisis for a second.
The Prime Minister came out and said, out of the blue,‘I can give you $400
million more.’ I’m not criticizing him for that, but the question is, where
that money is coming from? This government should take the opportunity and
stop giving us the annual dishonest report about having no money.”
Have you
ever been called e “Western Separatist”? Sinclair Stevens just did.
“I’ve been called everything. Stevens was kicked out of the Mulroney
government 20 years ago; so, if I’m going to be called names, well, that’s a
great person for me to be called names by.”
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