{"id":1615,"date":"2011-02-21T12:14:11","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T16:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=1615"},"modified":"2011-02-21T12:14:11","modified_gmt":"2011-02-21T16:14:11","slug":"the-economist-and-its-review-of-the-canadian-prime-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=1615","title":{"rendered":"The Economist and its review of the Canadian Prime Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A recent issue of The Economist<\/em> marked Prime Minister Stephen Harper\u2019s five-year anniversary in power by asking some very provoking questions for Canadian conservatives as well as\u00a0the general public. In the article entitled, \u201cThe circumspect and circumscribed Conservative,\u201d<\/em> the question is put: \u201cStephen Harper has proved remarkably durable by curbing his instincts. Can he now remake his country?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the crux of the analysis:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 STARTING a conservative revolution in Canada was never going to be easy. It is a socially liberal place, proud of its welfare state and ruled for 79 of the past 115 years by the centre-left Liberal party. The first time Stephen Harper led the Conservative Party in a general election, in 2004, it finished a distant second to the Liberals, who saw themselves as Canada\u2019s \u201cnatural governing party\u201d. Two years later, with the Liberals crippled by a kickback scandal, the Conservatives did well enough for Mr Harper to form a minority government. An evangelical Christian and economic libertarian, he vowed to turn a would-be \u201csecond-tier socialistic country\u201d into one that \u201cthe Liberals wouldn\u2019t even recognise\u201d.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Five years on, Mr Harper has pulled off two surprises. The biggest is that he is still prime minister, despite failing to win a majority in a subsequent election in 2008, making his the longest-serving minority government in Canada\u2019s history. The second follows in part from the first: Canada remains a country that the Liberals can recognise perfectly well, with big government and social liberalism largely intact. \u201cHe emerged from the movement. He was going to be our Ronald Reagan,\u201d says Gerry Nicholls, a former colleague of Mr Harper\u2019s. \u201cBut he\u2019s become what he\u2019s always opposed. If he destroys the Liberal party by becoming it, what\u2019s the point?\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read the full article here:<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.economist.com\/node\/18114679?story_id=18114679<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 A recent issue of The Economist marked Prime Minister Stephen Harper\u2019s five-year anniversary in power by asking some very provoking questions for Canadian conservatives as well as\u00a0the general public. In the article entitled, \u201cThe circumspect and circumscribed Conservative,\u201d the question is put: \u201cStephen Harper has proved remarkably durable by curbing his instincts. Can he…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[44,30,32],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1615"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1619,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1615\/revisions\/1619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}