The long delayed resignation of Canada’s Foreign Minister, Maxime Bernier clearly shows the pathetically small talent pool Prime Minister Stephen Harper has to choose from inside his party. It also shows that the PM would rather fight to protect the job of a mediocre, or totally incompetent, Minister rather than relinquish the sort of totalitarian control he exerts over the government of Canada.
Bernier left his position this week after it came to light that he had left classified government documents at the home of a former girlfriend who has been reported to have direct ties with organized crime.
The incident came to light after several previous gaffes by the minister that included a public demand of the sovereign government in Afghanistan to remove the governor of Kandahar province from office and announcing his intention to use a Canadian military aircraft for foreign relief efforts but discovered there wasn’t one available.
Although it will doubtlessly get the lion’s share of media attention, the resignation of Minister Bernier is not the real story that needs to be reported. The real story in this is the reason why the resignation of this Minister was not asked for far earlier. On the surface it appears to be a story of ministerial incompetence but it is also a story of an incompetence that is only surpassed by the clear lack of judgment and blind ambition of Canada’s Prime Minister.
For months the opposition parties have pummeled Stephen Harper with questions related to Bernier’s ability to do his job and the security concerns he posed in the sensitive foreign affairs role. For just as long Stephen Harper brushed those concerns aside and went on the attack against the opposition members who asked questions on the issue.
In taking this dismissive approach to such a serious situation Stephen Harper inadvertently exposed his true motives for keeping Bernier in the role. Harper exhibited a level of poor judgment that should never be tolerated in a Prime Minister and proved that his political aspirations in Quebec, Bernier’s home province, and his burning need to completely control every aspect of governing Canada are the driving force behind his actions.
Canada’s Prime Minister sees himself as being more like a U.S. president than a Canadian PM. In reality the PM is simply the top minister within the nation. The entire cabinet is supposed to manage the interests of the Country, not one man. Stephen Harper does not see it that way.
Instead of elected officials leading Canada, as the system intends, Mr. Harper has surrounded himself with a hand full of cronies inside his office who are actually running Canada without ever being elected or ever being answerable in any way to the Canadian public.
The government of Canada today has very little to differentiate it from the leadership of the former Soviet Union. Closed door decisions, tight control of press coverage, elected officials turned into impotent figureheads, bureaucrats fired for doing their jobs and the public kept in the dark while being led in a direction that is at the sole discretion of one man, whether they like it or not.
In Canada, democracy appears dead and the smoking gun rests in the hands of one man, Stephen Harper.
Over the coming days the opposition parties in Ottawa and the press corps will no doubt want to know exactly which sort of documents were left exposed by the former minister and whether national security was ever at risk. Based on what we've seen of Stephen Harper to this point in his regime I'm willing to bet he'll claim he can't discuss the documents because they're classified.
Only in Canada you say.
