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Howard's new best friend
Canada's PM Stephen Harper uses his Australian counterpart as a role model, writes David Nason
May 18, 2006
Mini me:
lol ) Canada's Stephen Harper came to office after a campaign straight from John Howard's handbook
JOHN Howard will take great comfort knowing that when he arrives in Canada today for an official state visit, he'll be meeting a like-minded Prime Minister who has already demonstrated his new friendship.
Despite damning evidence of AWB's illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein under the UN's former oil-for-food program in Iraq, Stephen Harper's new Government hasn't uttered a word of criticism. This despite Canada being the first to sound a warning about the situation and missing out on valuable wheat contracts because it wouldn't pay the same bribes as Australia.
Howard has been to Canada only once in his 10 years as PM but will be the first foreign leader to visit Ottawa since Harper's Conservative Party won office in January. Notably, the visit comes in the same week Harper's Government, the first Tory administration in Canada for 13 years, passes 100 days in office.
Given that political lessons learned from Howard's four election victories in Australia played a big part in Harper's defeat of former Liberal Party prime minister Paul Martin, a love-in of rare ideological passion is expected when the new kid on the Tory block meets the old hand from down under.
At 46, Harper is 20 years younger than Howard, but it's about all that sets them apart. Both men entered parliament aged 34 and both are socially conservative free marketers who believe in family, individual enterprise and the US alliance. A strong Christian ethic underscores their beliefs.
An economics graduate, Harper has the same understated Howard confidence in his intellectual ability and shares the Australian's passion for sports and belief in the playing field (an ice-hockey rink for Harper as opposed to Howard's cricket field) as society's great leveller. Harper even has Howard's small-c charisma, the boring kind that comes not from any natural flair but from having been around for a long time.
Relations between Australia and Canada are likely to become much closer as a result of Howard's visit, given they are two highly urbanised but sparsely populated democracies that have been strangely distant despite being multicultural societies with a shared historical, cultural and legal heritage; both are also resource-rich commodity exporters and in the strong orbit of the US.
"Average Canadians might not know a lot about Australian politics but John Howard is very well known in Canada's conservative political community," says Gerry Nicholls from the National Citizens Coalition, the right-wing advocacy group Harper ran for five years before going into politics. "Howard has been held up as a model for what a Conservative Party leader here should be like, with tough, principled stands on issues, particularly in foreign affairs. He'll be very welcome here."
Harper came to power in January largely because of a corruption scandal similar to the AWB saga that erupted inside Canada's governing Liberal Party. A report by Justice John Gomery accused the Liberals, a centre-Left party that has been in power for 61 of the past 75 years, of taking kickbacks from mates awarded lucrative government advertising contracts. The money was used to buy political support and influence in Quebec.
Top Liberal officials were named, among them former prime minister Jean Chretien. It gave Harper the ammunition he needed to force an early election. After an eight-week mid-winter campaign, he won enough seats to form a minority government.
Harper's campaign was straight from Howard's Australian election handbook in almost every way: a steady drip of easy to understand policy; heavy focus on families; tax relief and bonuses for the working and middle classes; appeals to traditional forms of nationalism; and a sense, especially resonant among low-income earners, that social change was happening too fast. A standout Howard feature was Harper's key childcare reform initiative of a $1200 annual childcare bonus. Non-means-tested but taxable for the lower-income spouse, the bonus will be paid from July 1 in $100 monthly payments for each child aged six and under. It is worth most to families with a stay-at-home parent paying little or no income tax.
The trade-off was the Tory cancellation of payments to the provinces for new daycare spaces. In classic Howard fashion, Harper sold this as an issue of choice. Families would decide how the money would be spent, not governments.
But nothing has demonstrated Harper's commitment to middle Canada more than the 29 separate tax cuts he unveiled in the May2 budget. Worth $C20 billion ($23.4 billion) over two years, it was more tax relief than the Liberals had provided in four previous budgets combined (the last two handed down while Martin led a vulnerable minority government amid the sponsorship scandal).
How much all of this Howardism has been fed by people such as the Australian Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane, who was an adviser to Harper's campaign team in the election, is unclear. Loughnane refuses to discuss his role but he is known to be close to Patrick Muttart, Harper's whiz-kid policy adviser, who was in Australia when Howard won his fourth election.
Howard has a busy two-day schedule in Canada. He will address a joint session of parliament, speak at a business lunch sponsored by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, meet Canadian soldiers who have served alongside Australian Diggers in Afghanistan, and join Harper in the grandstand at an ice-hockey game.
Behind the scenes, the US-led war on terror and international security, including uranium, are expected to dominate discussions. Howard's visit will help Harper shore up support for Canada's military role in Afghanistan, a commitment made by the previous Martin government but one Harper supports and is almost certain to extend, even though opinion polls say most Canadians want out.
In a move that would have won Howard's approval, and which played well in the polls, Harper's first overseas trip was a surprise visit in March to Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Here the new PM told 1000 Canadian troops he was not about to change course. "We don't make a commitment and then run away at the first sign of trouble," Harper said. Canada has no troops in Iraq.
In the budget he increased defence spending by $C5.3 billion over five years, the money to be spent on new transport planes, tactical helicopters, Arctic icebreakers and the recruitment of 23,000 more soldiers. Another $C700 million over five years was allocated for crime and anti-terrorism initiatives.
"Harper is like Howard in that he's very much in favour of helping the US in the war on terror," Nicholls says. "The previous government often played the anti-American card but Harper understands the importance of the US alliance."
Conservative author and philosopher Bill Gairdner says Harper has challenged those Canadians who don't like to admit they are "huddling together under the enormous military skirts of the US". But Gairdner says even those who don't like the sudden pro-US turn have respect for Harper because he is "walking the talk".
"People today want leaders who do what they say they are going to do," Gairdner says. "It's about trust and I think Harper has been pretty good at getting the trust of the people. In the election campaign he told people how he felt on issues like US relations, and now he's gone out and done it. He hasn't deviated or been slippery about it at all."
Harper has also been brutally pragmatic. In a move aimed at taking some heat out of Canada's anti-war sentiment, the Government decreed that official flags no longer fly at half mast when soldiers die in battle in Afghanistan. He also barred the media from covering moving ceremonies at Canadian air bases where the bodies of the fallen are officially returned to the grieving families.
As with Howard in his early years in the Lodge, Harper has been in regular combat with the media. In late March the Ottawa press corps was livid when Harper blocked their access to the third floor of the parliament's so-called Centre Block, where cabinet meetings are held.
While the Martin government was a loud advocate of the Kyoto accord and an equally loud critic of the poor US record on global warming, there is speculation Harper will use Howard's visit to sign on to the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. Regarded by many as a club for Kyoto sceptics, its members are Australia, the US, China, India, Japan and South Korea.
There is one key foreign issue where Harper may be in conflict with the US and Australia. During an official visit to Pakistan in March, Harper expressed Canada's strong opposition to nuclear proliferation and his desire for strict adherence to the UN's Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The message to Washington - and to Australia, which has not ruled out selling uranium to NPT non-signatory India - was that the treaty must remain inviolate, whatever the basis of changes to Indo-US nuclear arrangements. As the world's two largest suppliers of uranium, Canada and Australia are competitors with shared interests and increasingly influential positions as high oil prices force a global rethink on energy needs.
Australia has reportedly told the US it wants to be kept informed of the Bush administration's global nuclear energy plan, which permits the leasing of radioactive fuels to nations such as India and Israel.
The Harper Government's views are so far unclear, but more may be known after Howard's trip. However, after almost 30 non-stop years of progressive Liberal Party rule in Canada, it will be no easy task convincing Canadians they should give up their international leadership in nuclear non-proliferation and supply uranium to nuclear weapons states that won't sign the NPT.
Non-proliferation is one area where Canada, Australia and New Zealand have worked together at the UN as part of the CANZ co-operation. The arrangements allow the three middle powers to share resources on issues of common ground and wield an influence they lack as individual nations.
"CANZ tends to work best on non-controversial issues like UN reform and human rights where we have common cause to put pressure on countries that have flouted international conventions," says Rick Nimmo of the Australian UN mission in New York. "We've never taken CANZ into areas where we'll be beating our heads against a brick wall trying to get agreement. Kyoto and the Middle East are examples of issues that don't come on to the CANZ agenda."
On the Middle East, Australia and Canada are much closer after Harper told the Hamas Government in Palestine to renounce violence and recognise Israel. When Hamas declined, Harper became the first Western leader to withdraw funding.
However, the fragile minority Government he heads - one that may well be forced to the polls within two years - demands Harper make domestic issues his focus. So far he has refused to let the Gomery report gather dust, declaring that all legal avenues to recover the taxpayers' money will be explored.
Looking for a cheap way out, the Liberals came good with a cheque for $C1.1 million, but Harper declared it inadequate, saying the amount owing may be as high as $C40million. A $C40 million tab would just about put the Liberals out of business.
David Nason is The Australian's New York correspondent.
LIKE STATE OF MIND
Common ground between Canada and Australia
* Commonwealth countries that retain the Queen of England as head of state.
* Legal systems based on British common law.
* Operate collectively at the UN through CANZ (Canada-Australia-New Zealand).
* Mineral-rich and geographically large. Canada, with 9.9 million sq km, is the world's second largest country after Russia. Australia with 7.7 million sq km, is the smallest continent and sixth largest country.
* Sparsely populated. Most of Canada's 33 million people live close to the US border; most of Australia's 20 million live on the eastern and southeastern coastal fringe.
* Sports-mad countries that perform above their weight in international contests. Australia's winter Olympic gold medallist Dale Begg-Smith is Canadian.
* Canada provides consular services for Australia in 22 countries; Australia provides consular services for Canada in 20 countries.
* At $5.5 billion, Canada is Australia's 10th largest investment destination. At $8.4billion, Canada is Australia's 12th largest source of foreign investment. Australian investment in Canada is about $275 for every Australian; Canadian investment in Australia is about $255 for each Canadian.
* Median age in Canada is 38.9 years; in Australia it is 36.9.
Harper-Howard similarities
* First elected to parliament at 34.
* Moral and political conservatives devoted to the US alliance and a free-market economy.
* Pro-family, anti-union, believe in God.
* Married with children (Howard three, Harper two). Never a breath of scandal.
* Strong on policy, weak on charisma and humour; tendency to be ponderous.
* Strongly opposed to gay marriage.
* Agree with the US invasion of Iraq.
* Harper believes in a society that combines US enterprise and individualism with British traditions of order and co-operation. Howard believes the same, with a splash of Australian egalitarianism.
_______________________
ooh a love in at both levels of government now. All the Canadian premiers have been invited to Australian equivalent of the Council of Federation (SA and VIC premiers were in Montreal recently - afaik, the SA premier is spearheading an equivalent here - i.e just regional governments getting together and not involving the federal level) in two years in Adelaide and now Howard and Harper connected at the arse, who'd have thunk it?
well, it's not really surprising, but given the smoozing from dubbya down south, I'm keen to see these two new best friend's play in public.
Howard's new best friend
Canada's PM Stephen Harper uses his Australian counterpart as a role model, writes David Nason
May 18, 2006
Mini me:
lol ) Canada's Stephen Harper came to office after a campaign straight from John Howard's handbookJOHN Howard will take great comfort knowing that when he arrives in Canada today for an official state visit, he'll be meeting a like-minded Prime Minister who has already demonstrated his new friendship.
Despite damning evidence of AWB's illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein under the UN's former oil-for-food program in Iraq, Stephen Harper's new Government hasn't uttered a word of criticism. This despite Canada being the first to sound a warning about the situation and missing out on valuable wheat contracts because it wouldn't pay the same bribes as Australia.
Howard has been to Canada only once in his 10 years as PM but will be the first foreign leader to visit Ottawa since Harper's Conservative Party won office in January. Notably, the visit comes in the same week Harper's Government, the first Tory administration in Canada for 13 years, passes 100 days in office.
Given that political lessons learned from Howard's four election victories in Australia played a big part in Harper's defeat of former Liberal Party prime minister Paul Martin, a love-in of rare ideological passion is expected when the new kid on the Tory block meets the old hand from down under.
At 46, Harper is 20 years younger than Howard, but it's about all that sets them apart. Both men entered parliament aged 34 and both are socially conservative free marketers who believe in family, individual enterprise and the US alliance. A strong Christian ethic underscores their beliefs.
An economics graduate, Harper has the same understated Howard confidence in his intellectual ability and shares the Australian's passion for sports and belief in the playing field (an ice-hockey rink for Harper as opposed to Howard's cricket field) as society's great leveller. Harper even has Howard's small-c charisma, the boring kind that comes not from any natural flair but from having been around for a long time.
Relations between Australia and Canada are likely to become much closer as a result of Howard's visit, given they are two highly urbanised but sparsely populated democracies that have been strangely distant despite being multicultural societies with a shared historical, cultural and legal heritage; both are also resource-rich commodity exporters and in the strong orbit of the US.
"Average Canadians might not know a lot about Australian politics but John Howard is very well known in Canada's conservative political community," says Gerry Nicholls from the National Citizens Coalition, the right-wing advocacy group Harper ran for five years before going into politics. "Howard has been held up as a model for what a Conservative Party leader here should be like, with tough, principled stands on issues, particularly in foreign affairs. He'll be very welcome here."
Harper came to power in January largely because of a corruption scandal similar to the AWB saga that erupted inside Canada's governing Liberal Party. A report by Justice John Gomery accused the Liberals, a centre-Left party that has been in power for 61 of the past 75 years, of taking kickbacks from mates awarded lucrative government advertising contracts. The money was used to buy political support and influence in Quebec.
Top Liberal officials were named, among them former prime minister Jean Chretien. It gave Harper the ammunition he needed to force an early election. After an eight-week mid-winter campaign, he won enough seats to form a minority government.
Harper's campaign was straight from Howard's Australian election handbook in almost every way: a steady drip of easy to understand policy; heavy focus on families; tax relief and bonuses for the working and middle classes; appeals to traditional forms of nationalism; and a sense, especially resonant among low-income earners, that social change was happening too fast. A standout Howard feature was Harper's key childcare reform initiative of a $1200 annual childcare bonus. Non-means-tested but taxable for the lower-income spouse, the bonus will be paid from July 1 in $100 monthly payments for each child aged six and under. It is worth most to families with a stay-at-home parent paying little or no income tax.
The trade-off was the Tory cancellation of payments to the provinces for new daycare spaces. In classic Howard fashion, Harper sold this as an issue of choice. Families would decide how the money would be spent, not governments.
But nothing has demonstrated Harper's commitment to middle Canada more than the 29 separate tax cuts he unveiled in the May2 budget. Worth $C20 billion ($23.4 billion) over two years, it was more tax relief than the Liberals had provided in four previous budgets combined (the last two handed down while Martin led a vulnerable minority government amid the sponsorship scandal).
How much all of this Howardism has been fed by people such as the Australian Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane, who was an adviser to Harper's campaign team in the election, is unclear. Loughnane refuses to discuss his role but he is known to be close to Patrick Muttart, Harper's whiz-kid policy adviser, who was in Australia when Howard won his fourth election.
Howard has a busy two-day schedule in Canada. He will address a joint session of parliament, speak at a business lunch sponsored by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, meet Canadian soldiers who have served alongside Australian Diggers in Afghanistan, and join Harper in the grandstand at an ice-hockey game.
Behind the scenes, the US-led war on terror and international security, including uranium, are expected to dominate discussions. Howard's visit will help Harper shore up support for Canada's military role in Afghanistan, a commitment made by the previous Martin government but one Harper supports and is almost certain to extend, even though opinion polls say most Canadians want out.
In a move that would have won Howard's approval, and which played well in the polls, Harper's first overseas trip was a surprise visit in March to Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Here the new PM told 1000 Canadian troops he was not about to change course. "We don't make a commitment and then run away at the first sign of trouble," Harper said. Canada has no troops in Iraq.
In the budget he increased defence spending by $C5.3 billion over five years, the money to be spent on new transport planes, tactical helicopters, Arctic icebreakers and the recruitment of 23,000 more soldiers. Another $C700 million over five years was allocated for crime and anti-terrorism initiatives.
"Harper is like Howard in that he's very much in favour of helping the US in the war on terror," Nicholls says. "The previous government often played the anti-American card but Harper understands the importance of the US alliance."
Conservative author and philosopher Bill Gairdner says Harper has challenged those Canadians who don't like to admit they are "huddling together under the enormous military skirts of the US". But Gairdner says even those who don't like the sudden pro-US turn have respect for Harper because he is "walking the talk".
"People today want leaders who do what they say they are going to do," Gairdner says. "It's about trust and I think Harper has been pretty good at getting the trust of the people. In the election campaign he told people how he felt on issues like US relations, and now he's gone out and done it. He hasn't deviated or been slippery about it at all."
Harper has also been brutally pragmatic. In a move aimed at taking some heat out of Canada's anti-war sentiment, the Government decreed that official flags no longer fly at half mast when soldiers die in battle in Afghanistan. He also barred the media from covering moving ceremonies at Canadian air bases where the bodies of the fallen are officially returned to the grieving families.
As with Howard in his early years in the Lodge, Harper has been in regular combat with the media. In late March the Ottawa press corps was livid when Harper blocked their access to the third floor of the parliament's so-called Centre Block, where cabinet meetings are held.
While the Martin government was a loud advocate of the Kyoto accord and an equally loud critic of the poor US record on global warming, there is speculation Harper will use Howard's visit to sign on to the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. Regarded by many as a club for Kyoto sceptics, its members are Australia, the US, China, India, Japan and South Korea.
There is one key foreign issue where Harper may be in conflict with the US and Australia. During an official visit to Pakistan in March, Harper expressed Canada's strong opposition to nuclear proliferation and his desire for strict adherence to the UN's Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The message to Washington - and to Australia, which has not ruled out selling uranium to NPT non-signatory India - was that the treaty must remain inviolate, whatever the basis of changes to Indo-US nuclear arrangements. As the world's two largest suppliers of uranium, Canada and Australia are competitors with shared interests and increasingly influential positions as high oil prices force a global rethink on energy needs.
Australia has reportedly told the US it wants to be kept informed of the Bush administration's global nuclear energy plan, which permits the leasing of radioactive fuels to nations such as India and Israel.
The Harper Government's views are so far unclear, but more may be known after Howard's trip. However, after almost 30 non-stop years of progressive Liberal Party rule in Canada, it will be no easy task convincing Canadians they should give up their international leadership in nuclear non-proliferation and supply uranium to nuclear weapons states that won't sign the NPT.
Non-proliferation is one area where Canada, Australia and New Zealand have worked together at the UN as part of the CANZ co-operation. The arrangements allow the three middle powers to share resources on issues of common ground and wield an influence they lack as individual nations.
"CANZ tends to work best on non-controversial issues like UN reform and human rights where we have common cause to put pressure on countries that have flouted international conventions," says Rick Nimmo of the Australian UN mission in New York. "We've never taken CANZ into areas where we'll be beating our heads against a brick wall trying to get agreement. Kyoto and the Middle East are examples of issues that don't come on to the CANZ agenda."
On the Middle East, Australia and Canada are much closer after Harper told the Hamas Government in Palestine to renounce violence and recognise Israel. When Hamas declined, Harper became the first Western leader to withdraw funding.
However, the fragile minority Government he heads - one that may well be forced to the polls within two years - demands Harper make domestic issues his focus. So far he has refused to let the Gomery report gather dust, declaring that all legal avenues to recover the taxpayers' money will be explored.
Looking for a cheap way out, the Liberals came good with a cheque for $C1.1 million, but Harper declared it inadequate, saying the amount owing may be as high as $C40million. A $C40 million tab would just about put the Liberals out of business.
David Nason is The Australian's New York correspondent.
LIKE STATE OF MIND
Common ground between Canada and Australia
* Commonwealth countries that retain the Queen of England as head of state.
* Legal systems based on British common law.
* Operate collectively at the UN through CANZ (Canada-Australia-New Zealand).
* Mineral-rich and geographically large. Canada, with 9.9 million sq km, is the world's second largest country after Russia. Australia with 7.7 million sq km, is the smallest continent and sixth largest country.
* Sparsely populated. Most of Canada's 33 million people live close to the US border; most of Australia's 20 million live on the eastern and southeastern coastal fringe.
* Sports-mad countries that perform above their weight in international contests. Australia's winter Olympic gold medallist Dale Begg-Smith is Canadian.
* Canada provides consular services for Australia in 22 countries; Australia provides consular services for Canada in 20 countries.
* At $5.5 billion, Canada is Australia's 10th largest investment destination. At $8.4billion, Canada is Australia's 12th largest source of foreign investment. Australian investment in Canada is about $275 for every Australian; Canadian investment in Australia is about $255 for each Canadian.
* Median age in Canada is 38.9 years; in Australia it is 36.9.
Harper-Howard similarities
* First elected to parliament at 34.
* Moral and political conservatives devoted to the US alliance and a free-market economy.
* Pro-family, anti-union, believe in God.
* Married with children (Howard three, Harper two). Never a breath of scandal.
* Strong on policy, weak on charisma and humour; tendency to be ponderous.
* Strongly opposed to gay marriage.
* Agree with the US invasion of Iraq.
* Harper believes in a society that combines US enterprise and individualism with British traditions of order and co-operation. Howard believes the same, with a splash of Australian egalitarianism.
_______________________
ooh a love in at both levels of government now. All the Canadian premiers have been invited to Australian equivalent of the Council of Federation (SA and VIC premiers were in Montreal recently - afaik, the SA premier is spearheading an equivalent here - i.e just regional governments getting together and not involving the federal level) in two years in Adelaide and now Howard and Harper connected at the arse, who'd have thunk it?
well, it's not really surprising, but given the smoozing from dubbya down south, I'm keen to see these two new best friend's play in public.
