Ex-Tory MPs book offers a glimpse into the tightly controlled caucus – The Globe and Mail

Two contrasting views of the Harper government approach, starting with Brent Rathgaber, the former Tory backbencher who became an independent MP over the degree of control exercised by the PM and PMO:

The book raises questions of backbench independence that have simmered over the past year and comes as one Conservative MP, Michael Chong, pushes through a bill that would rein in the power of party leaders. Mr. Rathgeber supports the bill but, in the book, predicts it won’t pass.

The book makes specific recommendations for improving the function of the House of Commons, including disallowing backbench softballs; breaking up omnibus bills; bringing in MP recall rights, allowing voters to turf a representative between elections; and giving the Speaker, not government, say over when to limit debate on a bill.

The final straw for Mr. Rathgeber was the gutting of his own private member’s bill last spring – one that would have required government to disclose the salaries of senior bureaucrats. In the book, he said the PMO saw too many “landmines” in the notion, and eventually derailed the bill. Mr. Rathgeber quit caucus that day.

He expects the book to have few fans within government. Opposition MPs may like it, he said. “But if and when they become the government they will summarily dismiss all those concepts,” he said in an interview, saying there’s no silver-bullet for reversing the long, steady decline of Canada’s democratic institutions. “This is about the long game. This is about contributing to the debate to try to fix things.”

Ex-Tory MPs book offers a glimpse into the tightly controlled caucus – The Globe and Mail.

Michael den Tandt on why the PM’s tight control will not change in the context of his relationship with the media:

Harper personally, meantime, is simply not comfortable in informal engagements with reporters, both because he’s afraid of having an idle remark blow up in his face and because casual banter is not his forte. His recent Arctic tour was  a case in point; the informal portion of the agenda was restricted to five minutes on the aft deck of a Canadian navy ship, on one day. Had Harper felt able to do more, without risk, one has to believe he would have.

With respect to the environment, as I wrote during the tour, the Harper Tories are  behaving in the Arctic as a government would if it believed carbon emissions were warming the planet. But they may not be in a position politically to say so out of deference to their donor base, which is sharply right-of-centre and, probably, climate-skeptical. By the same token, every seemingly pointless battle between Conservatives and the media, or academics, or democratic institutions, is fodder for a fundraising mail-out. Populist politics, or more precisely populist, small-sum, broad-based fundraising such as we now have in Canada, feeds on partisan brush wars.

The upshot? Observers, including pundits, editorial boards and former Conservative prime ministers, can say all they like that Harper should change his ways. Did Mulroney change, in year nine? Did Jean Chretien, or Pierre Trudeau? There are reasons why they don’t. The most important may be that they can’t.

Den Tandt: Harper’s relationship with the media won’t change