XPost: can.politics, bc.politics, ont.politics   
   XPost: ab.politics   
   From: {~_~}@nyet.ca   
      
   Special to The Globe and Mail   
   Published Tuesday, Mar. 25 2014   
      
   While the Prime Minister travelled Ottawa burned   
      
      
   It’s time that the Prime Minister of Canada realized the pressing need   
   to spend more time at home tending the Canadian garden.  His tendency to   
   neglect key domestic files while being often out of the country is   
   obviously hurting his government and the Conservative Party.   
      
   It was perfectly symbolic that the Supreme Court’s bombshell ruling on   
   the Marc Nadon appointment should have come when Stephen Harper was on a   
   flight to Ukraine.  At key stages in the developing Senate scandal,   
   reporters have had to pester him in New York and Peru for comment. The   
   Prime Minister always looks happier abroad than in Ottawa.  Whether or   
   not Mr. Harper is travelling more than his predecessors, it is rapidly   
   becoming clear that he is too inattentive to business in Canada.   
      
   The image of Stephen Harper as a control freak pulling every political   
   string in his government has never been particularly accurate. As any   
   leader must, Mr. Harper delegates. His problem is that he is delegating   
   important domestic political issues to a fault, leaving matters to   
   staffers and ministers who are not up to their jobs.   
      
   That proved spectacularly true with the staff of the Prime Minister’s   
   Office in its handling of the Senate mess. Mr. Harper compounded this   
   failure of competence and integrity by not cleaning house or offering a   
   serious explanation to Canadians.  Instead he forced a hapless   
   parliamentary secretary to virtually destroy a career with comical   
   evasion and repetition.   
      
   In recent weeks it’s also become clear – but it has been no surprise –   
   that the government’s attempt to reform our electoral legislation has   
   been bungled in both drafting and defence by the Minister of State for   
   Democratic Reform, Pierre Poilievre, a political lightweight with no   
   credibility outside of the most extreme partisan circles.  So far, our   
   too-often-absent Prime Minister has given Mr. Poilievre neither back-up   
   nor the back of his hand, even as the government’s reputation for   
   electoral integrity continues to erode.   
      
   Now we have an enormously serious blow to the government because of an   
   unprecedented botching of the Prime Minister’s latest Supreme Court   
   appointment.  There will be an intense postmortem of this mess, but it   
   is striking that once again the man who made the appointment is not   
   present to explain himself and show us the future.   
      
   Of course all leaders are occasionally victimized by bad timing.  But   
   Mr. Harper’s foreign travel seems to represent a deliberate agenda.   
      
   He may particularly enjoy the company of global movers and shakers; he   
   may feel he is playing an important role on the world stage; he may   
   think his foreign policies play well with voters at home.  His penchant   
   for globetrotting is reminiscent of his great Conservative predecessor,   
   Sir Robert Borden, who was often abroad in 1917-1919 working on issues   
   of war and peace. Borden had never much liked the muck of domestic politics.   
      
   But Borden had much more justification for being at, say, the Paris   
   Peace Conference, than Mr. Harper has for grandstanding in Ukraine,   
   junketing in Israel, or hobnobbing at pointless G8 meetings.  And   
   notwithstanding Borden’s real statesmanship abroad, his government and   
   his party eventually paid a huge price in Canada when incompetent   
   lieutenants, such as the arch-partisan Arthur Meighen, alienated one   
   domestic constituency after another.   
      
   It took about a third of a century for Canadian conservatism to recover   
   from Borden’s inattention in his final years as leader.  As the   
   Conservative Party continues to trail in the polls, it’s surely time to   
   wonder whether the verdict of history on Stephen Harper may be that   
   after 2011 he was too often wandering around the world – courting   
   foreign glory Canada does not have – when he should have been at home   
   minding his business, and ours.   
      
      
   [ Michael Bliss is a historian, author and professor emeritus at the   
   University of Toronto. ]   
      
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