July 01, 2004
by Brian Goodman

Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have risen from the ashes to give Canadians a strong, united alternative to the corruption and petty politics of the ruling Liberal Party!!!

Well, maybe that’s going a bit far. But I do think that Stephen Harper has done all Canadians a great service. I don’t believe that I am out of line to say that his efforts over the last few months have made the Conservatives a national force again.

Many of you may be saying that this isn’t true. That the Conservatives are not yet a national force. They won no seats in Quebec, only a few in the Maritimes and did not achieve the breakthrough that they were hoping for in Ontario.

But I would have to say that even considering these failures, the Conservatives have indeed become a national party. They were just, unfortunately (for them and for many Canadians), led by a man who is not and never will be a legitimate national candidate.

It became clear towards the end of the campaign what Harper’s real intentions were in making the Conservatives a force in Parliament. This was the advancement of the West, in particular of his home Province of Alberta.

But I don’t hold this against him. This is his priority. But it can not be the top priority of a Prime Minister.

I believe that Stephen Harper will one day be a very important man on Parliament Hill. He knows policy, he has original ideas, and he can express them well. He’s been at this game a long time and his experience can only be an asset to the party.

He is and will continue to be an extremely valuable asset to the Conservative Party, but in a different role. Likely as a high-ranking and influential cabinet minister. He can defend the rights of Western Canadians. He can bring some new ideas for economic policy and inter-provincial relations to cabinet. Or maybe he’ll be able to save the Alberta provincial party from Ralph Klein’s falling popularity and become premier.

But this man is not a Prime Minister. He has alienated too many regions of the country. He doesn’t exactly have a dynamic personality. And he did not have the ability to defend himself against ‘hidden agenda’ accusations from the desperate Liberals who somehow managed to recover from the (I believe) still-growing anger and frustration of the Canadian public towards the Liberal government.

Ironically, I think that even Mr. Harper himself realized that he was not destined to lead our great country. (He took off the Monday one week before the election, for God’s sake!!!) He did not have the personal strength to fight through the fatigue that one could only imagine must accompany a month of non-stop campaigning. While Paul Martin and Jack Layton sprinted toward the finish line, Stephen Harper limped.

But did we not see him out in Ontario and Quebec? Did he not at least attempt to bring people of these two pivotal provinces over to the Conservative fold? Did he not raise the profile of the party and set up the next leader to make substantial gains?

And for this, I think that the Conservative Party and the whole country owe Stephen Harper a debt of gratitude. He couldn’t defeat the Liberals in spite of the negativity many Canadians felt towards the Liberal government. But he has put the new party in a position to finally become the alternative that Canadians are looking for. We can only hope that they find a leader (are you listening, Bernard Lord?) who can appeal to the rest of the country, keep the party’s Western base, and give a greater voice to the moderates within the party (instead of some of the fools that we heard from this time around). Because if and when they do, the Liberals are in big, big trouble.

So Stephen Harper, I thank you. You may not be the one to lead this party when its time comes, but you have given Canadians a way out of the Liberal stranglehold on power and I look forward to seeing you on the front benches of the other side of the House of Commons.