No dog whistle anymore. It's propaganda and sophistry, pure and simple.

And the US hardly has a monopoly on that, it's a widespread disease that's worrying about the future of western democracies.

We have our own version of that same discourse, here it's accusing anyone who disagree with Harper's visions of "moral relativism". You were against the war in Irak? You were a supporter of dictatorship and terrorism. You have huge reservations about the hardliners in Israel? You're a supporter of terrorism. There's still a lot of nuances of grey in Canada, but according to government, there's no place for nuances. Either you say white with them, or you say black. It's very Orwellian.



He's worse in some ways. His ideology isn't "all black" for sure, in many ways he's very competent and coherent. He's done to Canadian economy what Obama has completely failed to do, for instance. He's in the wrong country, however. The US constitution and system are built to withstand guys like Harper, and Americans are too well educated in the workings of the system for a president to abuse it nearly as much as Harper is doing here. You'll tell me, but my guess is that if Harper had tried to do what he's doing in the US, a lot of shit would have happened to him. The British parliamentary system isn't made to withstand that, it all rests on the government adhering to the rules, agreeing to play the democratic game. The Tea Party can only dream of doing to the US what Harper was able to achieve here. It's not so much that Harper is "of the right" - Canadians have long favoured conservatism, and up to Nixon our PCC had tons in common with the Republicans, and a majority of Canadians support fiscal conservatism at this juncture (even the liberals) - Harper's most dangerous side is that he's seriously undermined the counter-powers in the british system one by one to get his way, and he's lifted too many of the barriers between the executive, the legislative and the judiciary. Harper is determined to re engineer Canada from top to bottom, and he's willing to sidestep democracy whenever necessary to achieve that. He's not even hiding it, it's written in books by his intellectual mentors, it's all there in conferences he gave to Civitas (a libertarian group with very strong Republican ties) back in 2003. The left virtually laughed at some of the things Harper presented during that conference, thinking it was preposterous that Canadians would ever support that. They don't laugh anymore as we watch Harper implement everything he's announced at that conference, retreating strategically whenever he met too strong opposition, only to find a new mean to get it passed later, with success.

Imagine if a president facing the prospect of a destitution suspending Congress! Harper has done the equivalent of that, using a measure which exists for grave emergencies - e.g. to suspend parliament for a few days or weeks if a war was declared on the territory. Harper used that measure, which he made lasts for months, because the opposition was determined to make his (back then, minority) government fall over his budget, because he knew the opposition couldn't possibly maintain a united front for more than weeks. It's grievious act, in a system where the people's voice is carried by the opposition, it silenced completely the over 60% of people who had voted against him. He's used the measure again later, again for a few months, that time because reports had surfaced of war crimes in Afghanistan, which would have meant debates in parliament, where the opposition MPs under the protection of parliamentary immunity could raise anything, could ask any question which would have hurt his party very badly in a population more and more against the war (they couldn't say much outside parliament, they would have been sued! It worked to push everything under the carpet, Harper found new things to divide the opposition over when parliament was recalled). The first of those crisis sparked the Economist (not really alarmist.. nor leftist) to worry that Harper's use of the british system was seriously wrong and closer to a dictatorship than democracy, commenting that if a UK PM had tried that, the UK would have been thrown into a constitutional and political crisis (and the monarchy as well, as Harper's measures required the complicity of the head-of-state). Harper has since realized this means (prorogating parliament) of by-passing democracy is too visible, and that he could achieve much the same by shutting down parliamentary commissions and commitees instead, and by cutting short the chamber debates with censorship measures which doesn't cause nearly as much ripples in a population that don't really understand their purposes. To avoid doing it too often, he's using omnibus law bills with so much in them opposition and media simply don't have enough time before the vote to raise everything wrong or debate them.

It got worse since then. Harper turned the Senate (which largest role is to revise the law projects and send them back to the lower chamber with amendments) into an organ that merely approves the government's laws as is, thanks to the largest number of partisan nominations in our history (while publicly claiming Senate is undemocratic and Senators ought to be elected!). The Supreme Court can hardly play its full role anymore, as Harper has nominated enough judges who supports his distorted vision (in comparison to the classic British vision) that it's not the role of judges to substitute themselves to government, even if it or its laws violate the constitution! And he's made the independent statistical organ, which provides all the data to the population and the MPs, unable to fully play its role anymore - in a few years no one will have reliable data to use to oppose or even challenge Harper's affirmations (which is extremely worrying when you consider Harper has the habit of denying statistical evidence when statistics challenge his vision, eg: the need for more prisons and a stronger law and order agenda despite hard evidence crime in decline in Canada for the last 3 decades!). As for the "moral right", Harper is walking the fine line with much success. His achievement is to have convinced it in 2003 that Canada wasn't yet ready for this, that they would have to be extremely patient before he could "realign" the institutions, that they musn't alarm the left/center left until then. Still, extremely worrying measures have been implemented already... abroad. E.g.: abortions are legal in Canada, and this has the majority popular support. Most Canadians consider the debate is over, and the same for other moral issues like gay marriages. Harper however decided unilaterally that Canada would no longer help any woman abroad to get an abortion, no exception (our programs helped women in war zones who've been raped to get a safe abortion). At home, he's claiming to have no anti-gay agenda, but under the guise of "rationalization" of state transfers (thus under the umbrella of fiscal conservative measures for which his support extends quite beyond his base), he's steadily cut the subventions to feminist groups (during Harper's rule so far, and without anything too visible happening as it's all been done with discreet small steps, Canada has gone from 5th rank worlwide in women's right matters to 30th!), to gay rights groups, gay events etc. He's done the same to our equivalent of the BBC, to scientists, which is even more worrying, and to any group who support the classic vision of Canadian diplomacy (reservations toward Israel, reliance on UN etc.) To achieve his goals, Harper divides to rule. There are tons and tons of criticisms for nearly all his moves, but he manages to keep everyone divided, concerned only or mostly to their little issues, and he's got a genius to introduce wedge issues. The situation isn't irreversible yet, but Canadians are still fairly apathetic over it all (it baffles other countries with the British system, it's clear Canadians have too little interest and in consequence knowledge of the workings of the system), thinking we are after all a democracy and we will simply vote him out of office in 2015. Most don't realize what Harper has so far achieved will make it nearly impossible for another party to govern in any other way than Harper, or to undo what he's done or to shift policies back to center, because all the counter-powers that right now don't play their roles and don't stand in his way are full of Reformists who will tie the hands of the post-Harper governement. It would take at least two majority mandates of the left post 2015 to get rid of those people, and Harper has cut the public fundings to political parties, so if they fail to win in 2015, the Canadian center left is all but gone.

Canada has been turned into a social and economical laboratory, a sandbox for extremists Republican theorists with strong libertarian tendencies to experiment with a new model for an oil monarchy. We're your next Saudi Arabia, at your doorstep and without any of the risks of the Middle-east.