Monte Solberg served as a Canadian Member of Parliament from Alberta for 15 years. During this time, he also served as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. Monte retired from politics in 2008 and is now a columnist and TV commentator for SUN Media, a popular speaker and a Senior Advisor at Fleishman Hillard Canada.
On Monday Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, won his third straight federal election. Those of us in Canada who tilt to the right are still in a state of happy shock at how it all came down.
The Conservative Party had already been in government for a little over five years but until Monday their ability to control the agenda had been continually frustrated. In 2006 and again in 2008 Canadians had seen fit to give the Conservatives the most seats in the House of Commons, but never enough seats for a majority. This meant that the center-left to hard-left opposition parties would often band together to water down, delay or outright thwart Conservative Party initiatives.
But Monday night changed everything as the Canadian people elected enough Conservative Members of Parliament to give Prime Minister Harper a majority government. At the same time the once mighty and historically dominant Liberal Party suffered its worst defeat since Canada was founded 144 years ago. Meanwhile Canada’s soft-socialists, the New Democratic Party (NDP), made a major breakthrough winning most of the seats in Quebec while replacing the Liberals as the party with the second most seats in the House of Commons.
Most importantly, the preposterous NDP surge helped destroy Quebec’s leftish separatist party, the Bloc Quebecois. The almost total annihilation of the Bloc at the hands of a wave of absurdly inexperienced NDP candidates looks more like criminal negligence causing death then premeditated murder, but the Bloc is gone either way.
Overall this is heartening news for Canadian conservatives, but our American friends should be pleased too.
Canadians understand that Americans seldom think about their northern neighbors. To the degree that we do come up in the conversation there’s a pretty good chance that it will have to with hockey, cold weather or an aunt in Toronto. What Americans may not realize is that Canada continues to be the biggest trading partner of most US states, America’s largest supplier of oil and one of America’s most invested and determined allies in the war on terror.
Prime Minister Harper’s majority government election victory ensures Canada will recommit to strengthen those relationships and address those priorities. It also means that files that were previously ignored on the grounds that they were impossible to advance in a minority parliament may finally get the attention they deserve.
While Canada and the US enjoy the world’s largest trade relationship concern has increased that red tape at the border is making the movement of goods and people unnecessarily difficult. After all, invasive pat downs of grandmothers are not just an American concern.
In February Prime Minister Harper and President Obama agreed to look for ways to reduce regulatory barriers to trade while increasing cooperation on security matters in the Declaration of a Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness. Boiled to its essence this would achieve two things. First it would lay out steps to make the border experience less bureaucratic. Secondly it would strengthen ties between Canadian and US security agencies so that criminal and terrorist threats could be identified far before they entered North American waters and air space.
When this was first proposed Canada’s opposition parties warned darkly that working with the Americans would require us to surrender our sovereignty. For the most part Canadians shrugged off the conspiracy theories, and now the new Conservative majority will help propel this initiative to the top of the Canada-US trade and security file.
Meanwhile the commitment to buy new F 35 fighter jets, a major issue leading up the campaign, should be seen as a strong signal that the Conservative government shares the American view that the world is still a very dangerous place. Monday’s new mandate gives them the ability to continue the process of rebuilding the Canadian Armed Forces.
In the past the Conservative government has also mused about permitting more foreign investment in previously government-protected and capital starved industries such as airlines and telecommunications. While not a campaign commitment it seems likely that the new government will be open to decreasing or even eliminating foreign ownership restrictions, an important opportunity for US companies.
In short, on trade and security issues Monday’s election means the US will have an even more reliable friend and ally north of the border. That said, the greatest significance of Canada’s new majority Conservative government may be political.
Stephen Harper’s slow, steady and famously incremental approach to moving Canada to the right may point the way forward for American conservatives too. It’s never as simple as just putting forward winning ideas, however important that may be. Prime Minister Harper’s insistence on understandable priorities, focused messaging and continually moving forward in the face of withering opposition and media criticism have already made him one of the most successful Conservative Prime Ministers in Canada’s history. It might be that in tough times people everywhere come to trust and favor leaders who are hard-nosed and even somber realists. So far it has worked for Stephen Harper.
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