Business As Usual With the New PM ~~ Right Hook JJ McCullough, OP Columnist Who exactly is Stephen Harper? Ever since he became leader of the Alliance Party back in 2002, this question has been asked endlessly by all manner of pundits, politicians, authors, and journalists. Is he a moderate? An evangelical rightist? A Tory traditionalist? A Reform populist? The man is now prime minister, yet if his first week in office is any indication, these questions remain as unclear as ever. Far from providing a coherent picture of his admin- istration’s prospective vision of Canada, the days since the election of January 23 have provided Canadians with an odd miss-mash of conflicting policies and dec- larations from the new Harper regime, none of which add up to anything worth getting particularly excited about. Especially if you are a small-c conservative. Consider the realm of foreign policy, for example. The Conservatives were supposed to bring a much- needed breath of fresh air to US-Canadian relations once in power, yet one of Harper’s first acts as Prime Minister-designate was to launch into a sanctimonious tirade against US violations of Canada’s famed “arctic sovereignty.” In a line that sounded like it could have been lifted from one of Carolyn Parish’s speeches, Harper dramatically stated at his first post-election press conference that “it is the Canadian people we get our mandate from, not the ambassador of the United States.” Now bear in mind, no reporters had even asked the PM about his opinions on the American ambassador in the first place. Harper just felt the need to spontaneous- ly declare ail this on his own. What’s more, the ambassa- dor himself had never said anything even remotely resembling claims that he believed the Canadian govern- ment was somehow indebted to his will. At best, he had just mused openly that the United States—and most other countries of relevance—do not recognize the grand claims of northern jurisdiction that the Canadian government tends to make from time to time. So, to summarize: by evoking the vague cause of arctic sovereignty, Harper essentially manufactured a phony crisis, attributed a phony opinion to the United States, answered a phony question about it, and then launched into phony outrage. If this is the Conservatives’ idea of embracing a new tone with Washington, we may as well have left Pierre Pettigrew in charge. Then there was last week’s cabinet kerfuffle. Not only did Harper pack his cabinet with a gang of Mulroney-era Progressive Conservatives—the very sort of politicians he has spent most of his career fighting against—he also took the thoroughly absurd measure of appointing a Liberal member of parliament as his new Minister of Trade and an unelected campaign staffer as Minister of Public Works. Now, a case can be made for appointing cabinet ministers from outside the legislature—a strong case in fact—but Harper chose to not even attempt to make that case, instead appointing his buddy to the senate to give some cloak of legality to the move. Needless to say, considering the Prime Minister’s previous statements on senate reform, this compromise pleased no one. There is still a lot to praise about Harper’s cabinet— it’s reduced size, among other things—but apparently the need to get Liberals and Montrealers into govern- ment was worth sacrificing any hope of positive conser- vative coverage. Prime Minister Harper has always been portrayed as this cold, analytical policy wonk who, although often dull and impersonal, was at the very least supposed to have been one of the most intellectually vigorous Canadian politicians in decades. Yet now the man of supposedly incorruptible moral clarity and conservative vision is already emerging as Canada’s foremost pragma- tist-in-chief, trying to simultaneously appease the mod- erates, the old-guard Ontario Tory elite, Quebec, the media, anti-Americans, the cities that didn’t vote for him, and, apparently, now the Liberals as well. He is being pulled in a million different directions by a million different groups, and Harper seems keen to do what he can to appease them all. Don't Diss Muhammat: Free speech and the miracie of common s Left Overs lain Reeve, OP Columnist Around these parts, if you happen to release a cartoon that causes a moral or spiritual outrage, usually all you have to deal with is angry letters to the editor, mean looks on the street, or, in the worst case, a letter from the boss encouraging you to seek other employment opportunities. After the events of this last week, when a series of extreme protests occurred to oppose cartoons negatively depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad, members of many European publications have been sent running for the hills. Beyond the death threats placed on those responsible, embassies have been burned to the ground in Syria, a dozen people have been killed in Afghanistan, and violent outburst has gripped the Muslim world. The first issue to address here is the violence. Now we’ve all had people draw pictures of our friends ot us that we didn’t like. Heck, try working in the same office as JJ “I’m a big fancy-pants cartoonist” McCullough and see how long you can feel good about yourself. The point is, when JJ draws comics of me where I’m missing hair or wearing a dress, I either laugh it off, hoping if I ignore him he’ll go away, or I write a strongly worded email telling him his conduct is unacceptable. I don’t shoot him in the kneecaps and burn down his house. I don’t care how offended you are, what a person depicted you as, or how badly they screwed up the shad- ing on your upper lip—violence is not a proper response. All violence does in this situation is perpetuate the kind of negative stereotyping and marginalizing that led to these cartoons in the first place. Thankfully, most Muslims are distancing themselves from the violence and most leaders are calling for calm. The violence is mostly being perpetu- ated by extremists and, some surmise, the governments of Syria and Iran. There is valid pretense for outrage here, though. The difference between my example of mean people making nasty doodles of me, and breaking a precious religious law by lampooning the primary religious symbol of millions is pares vast. There are many appeals being made by “ad¥o- cates” of free’speech, saying that we cannot allow the” moral outrage of a small section of the world’s < pepebs tion to stop us from expressing ourselves. Don’t get me wrong—TI enjoy my little spot of free public expression as much as the next guy. Our democratic society is essentially useless without this and other freedoms that allow for the useful exchange of ideas. But, like Spider Man always says, with great power comes great responsibility. Countries like ours and the European countries run- ning these cartoons are lucky to have such liberal institu- tions in place. They allow us the ability to both express ourselves intellectually and tell dirty jokes in mixed com- pany (cover grandma’s ears!). But, in our smug sense of superiority, we tend to forget that just because we can use these rights to their utmost, it does not mean we should. Allow me to demonstrate. I have the right to purchase and own property. Thus, if I was so inclined, I could go to the grocery store and buy every single box of delicious Buttermilk Eggo Waffles. I can do this, but, because it irri- tates and inconveniences other fans of the blend of soft- ness and crispness only these waffles can provide, I prob- ably shouldn’t. I can, with my right to mobility, walk down the sidewalk at varying speeds in a zigzag pattern, but that would piss off other pedestrians. Thus, sure these papers can publish offensive, inflammatory cartoons that border on hate-speech, but knowing the consequences, they probably shouldn't. I may have been willing to stand up for these guys if their cartoons were saying something significant, enlight- ening, or even halfway intelligent. They are, however, sim- ply ignorant, stereotypical drawings better left on rarely visited websites. Free speech, yes; ignorant, anger-inducing hate-toons, no. That’s my free speech fulfillment for this week folks, and no one got hurt.