Kelly McParland - It’s not often we invoke the name of Pierre Trudeau with any degree of approval at the National Post, but the former prime minister unquestionably casts the current Conservative government in a poor light when it comes to treatment of noisy separatists.
Mr. Trudeau famously refused to be driven from a reviewing stand during a St-Jean-Baptiste parade that was disrupted by separatist hooligans in 1968. The new prime minister stood his ground, unconcerned by the possibility he might offend the rabble or anyone else. Not so the government of Stephen Harper, which has embarrassed itself and Canada by backing down to an even smaller and less consequential band of separatist zealots opposed to the recreation of the historic battle on the Plains of Abraham in 1759.
Perhaps “backing down” is not the correct term. From all available evidence, Mr. Harper and James Moore, the Heritage Minister, simply hid from the issue. They refused to make any decisions, refused to provide any guidance, refused even to accept that there might be some responsibility on their part to address the issue. Instead they dumped it all on the shoulders of André Juneau, the chairman of the National Battlefields Commission, which administers the park where the battle took place.
Mr. Juneau, faced with a ludicrous campaign by a noisy little group of separatists intent on seeing the historical reenactment as a “humiliation”, told the National Post’s Graeme Hamilton he heard nothing from Mr. Moore’s office other than the assurance that “It’s your own business and he trusts you.”
Mr. Harper was similarly absent without leave, telling reporters in Montreal last week that the decision on the fate of the event rested with Mr. Juneau.
“That’s for the commission to decide what is appropriate,” he said, a sudden and unexpected show of confidence from a Prime Minister who rarely has anything good to say about the public service. Mr. Harper usually has little time for hired help who dare make controversial decisions without consulting their political masters. One of the few who tried, the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, was informed late one night last January that she no longer had a job.
But suddenly Mr. Harper is all in favour of bureaucrats showing initiative. After absolving himself of all responsibility for the battlefield issue, he delivered a nice little homily: “Most Canadians have moved beyond this. We’re not fighting battles across the country in workplaces like this. English- and French-Canadians work together and we’re going to continue to keep this country together forever.”
Mr. Harper was in Montreal at the time to announce a $329 million contract for CAE Inc. to make flight simulators, which is far more likely to reflect well on his government than an ugly dust-up with separatists. Having shamelessly courted Quebec during his first minority, Mr. Harper threw it all away during last year’s election campaign when he inexplicably chose to pick a fight over arts funding. That cost him seats and credibility, and now he has apparently resorted to winning it back the old fashioned way, buying up votes one goodie at a time.
It’s not very impressive, and it has to be added to the various retreats Mr. Harper has engineered on other Tory positions, which have left many a supporter wondering what happened to the Stephen harper they thought they elected. In several of those situations Mr. Harper had little choice -- he could stuff the Senate with Tories or risk Liberals stuffing it with Liberals later on; he could let the economy collapse or agree to a deficit -- but on the battlefield issue he did have a choice, and he shrugged it off.
The shrug may have been Trudeau-like. The refusal to face down a crew of overheated zealots was anything but.
National Post
Photo: Pierre Trudeau and Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau remain seated during St-Jean-Baptiste day riot in 1968.