what was essentially a secret society of wealthy, hard-right Republicans, it was odd for a few reasons. After all, the members of the CNP are in the business of scrutinizing potential Republican leadership candidates. For example, after listening to Senator John McCain of Arizona speak, they decided that he wasn’t conservative enough. The group also vowed to run a third-party candidate if the Republican Party chose Rudy Giuliani as its leader because of his pro-choice position on abortion. Stephen Harper wasn’t even a politician anymore and he also happened to be a Canadian. So what was behind the invitation? Whatever the reason, there was no mystery about why he jumped at a chance to speak to them. The CNP had enormous influence on the US government.
In 2003, Alberta’s economic development minister, Mark Norris, attended a three-day session of the CNP in a Virginia suburb close to Washington. Norris went to promote the tar sands, but also, as the Calgary Herald reported at the time, to mend fences because Canada had not participated in the Iraq War. Donald Rumsfeld was the keynote speaker at the event.
Beyond the appeal of the CNP’s great power, the council also shared Stephen Harper’s values. For one thing, Harper disliked thegovernance model in Canada, preferring Congress over Parliament. As he would later tell The Globe and Mail , the difference between the calibre and experience of the Bush cabinet and any Canadian equivalent was embarrassing to Canada. President Bush got to recruit “top people” from private industry into his inner political circle, while Canadian prime ministers were stuck with a cabinet stocked from the relatively feeble pool of elected MPs.
Like Harper, the CNP was highly secretive. Its membership and donor list are private. Its events are closed to the public. It has been alleged that members are told not to use the name of the organization in emails to protect against leaks. For Harper, one of the most attractive aspects of speaking to the council was that the event would remain secret. CNP by-laws both blocked the media from attending and prevented the release of a transcript of what had been said unless all speakers agreed. Thinking that he could say whatever he wanted without media coverage, Harper gave quite a speech that June night in 1997. 5
His American audience must have felt as though they were in Utah listening to a well-scrubbed Republican candidate for the US Senate. The speech was a perfect blend of neo-con and theo-con, which was predictable enough. But what was unexpected was how Harper derided his own country to a foreign audience as “a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the word.” By comparison, Harper was effusive in his praise of the United States and its Republican politics: “Your country and, particularly, your conservative movement, is a light and inspiration to people in this country and across the world.”
He then gave a shorthand civics lesson about governance in Canada, in which his disdain for parliamentary institutions was stunning: “Our executive is the Queen, who doesn’t live here. Her representative is the Governor-General, who is an appointed buddy of the Prime Minister. Of our two legislative houses, theSenate, our upper House, is also appointed, also by the Prime Minister, where he puts his buddies, fundraisers and the like. So the Senate is not very important in our political system. And we have a Supreme Court, like yours, which, since we put a Charter of Rights in our Constitution in 1982, is becoming increasingly arbitrary and important. It is also appointed by the Prime Minister. Unlike your Supreme Court, we have no ratification process.” Stephen Harper was essentially describing the Canadian system of government as a dictatorship run by the Prime Minister of Canada: “So if you sort of remove three of the four elements, what you see is a system that’s described as unpaid checks and political imbalances. The
In 2003, Alberta’s economic development minister, Mark Norris, attended a three-day session of the CNP in a Virginia suburb close to Washington. Norris went to promote the tar sands, but also, as the Calgary Herald reported at the time, to mend fences because Canada had not participated in the Iraq War. Donald Rumsfeld was the keynote speaker at the event.
Beyond the appeal of the CNP’s great power, the council also shared Stephen Harper’s values. For one thing, Harper disliked thegovernance model in Canada, preferring Congress over Parliament. As he would later tell The Globe and Mail , the difference between the calibre and experience of the Bush cabinet and any Canadian equivalent was embarrassing to Canada. President Bush got to recruit “top people” from private industry into his inner political circle, while Canadian prime ministers were stuck with a cabinet stocked from the relatively feeble pool of elected MPs.
Like Harper, the CNP was highly secretive. Its membership and donor list are private. Its events are closed to the public. It has been alleged that members are told not to use the name of the organization in emails to protect against leaks. For Harper, one of the most attractive aspects of speaking to the council was that the event would remain secret. CNP by-laws both blocked the media from attending and prevented the release of a transcript of what had been said unless all speakers agreed. Thinking that he could say whatever he wanted without media coverage, Harper gave quite a speech that June night in 1997. 5
His American audience must have felt as though they were in Utah listening to a well-scrubbed Republican candidate for the US Senate. The speech was a perfect blend of neo-con and theo-con, which was predictable enough. But what was unexpected was how Harper derided his own country to a foreign audience as “a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the word.” By comparison, Harper was effusive in his praise of the United States and its Republican politics: “Your country and, particularly, your conservative movement, is a light and inspiration to people in this country and across the world.”
He then gave a shorthand civics lesson about governance in Canada, in which his disdain for parliamentary institutions was stunning: “Our executive is the Queen, who doesn’t live here. Her representative is the Governor-General, who is an appointed buddy of the Prime Minister. Of our two legislative houses, theSenate, our upper House, is also appointed, also by the Prime Minister, where he puts his buddies, fundraisers and the like. So the Senate is not very important in our political system. And we have a Supreme Court, like yours, which, since we put a Charter of Rights in our Constitution in 1982, is becoming increasingly arbitrary and important. It is also appointed by the Prime Minister. Unlike your Supreme Court, we have no ratification process.” Stephen Harper was essentially describing the Canadian system of government as a dictatorship run by the Prime Minister of Canada: “So if you sort of remove three of the four elements, what you see is a system that’s described as unpaid checks and political imbalances. The
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