COLUMN: NATION OF SHEEP
Date: Jun 13, 2006 7:30 AM
PUBLICATION: The Calgary Sun
DATE: 2006.06.13
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Editorial/Opinion
PAGE: 15
BYLINE: PAUL JACKSON
WORD COUNT: 538

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NATION OF SHEEP
IF HARPER CAN’T TURN IT AROUND THERE’S LITTLE HOPE FOR CANADA

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I asked author and commentator Mark Milke whether he believes Canada is
truly a dysfunctional nation.

The question followed a reading of his compelling new book A Nation of
Serfs: How Canada’s Political Culture Corrupts Canadian Values (Wiley,
$22.99) and a chat in which he repeatedly used the word “absurd” to
describe much of our nation’s political, economic and social culture.

It’s a masterful historical and analytical work, taking us back to the
ramifications of the War of 1812, right up to the election of Stephen
Harper as prime minister.

Now, Milke, a former director of the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, is
a perceptive fellow, and every patriotic Conservative should read this
work.

Scandal after scandal is outlined in its 284 pages, as are missed
opportunity on missed opportunity, and how Lib-Left pressure groups
nefariously easing our nation in the wrong direction, courtesy of
weak-kneed governments lacking true principles.

With chapter headings containing such words as the “plucked Canadian
goose,” “business pork,” and how a “garrison culture reinforces
inept
government,” you can be pretty sure this work is not an accolade to
visionary leaders or challenges conquered.

Far from it, my friends.

It’s an infuriating read, not because of any fault of Milke, but because
of what he unfolds.

We’re over-taxed, over-governed, pretty much without direction, and
don’t realize just who our true friends are. A pretty passive lot, as
some of my puzzled American friends attest.

I was always amazed that when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his band
of cohorts blew $12 billion of the Canadian taxpayers’ money setting up
Petro-Canada — which didn’t find a single barrel of oil any of the
established energy companies would have found for free — it hardly
caused a stir.

It wasn’t really until Human Resources Minister Jane Stewart blew $1
billion on a bogus job-creation scheme that Canadians outside the
Reform/Canadian Alliance sphere started to wake-up and realize the
political and bureaucratic elite in Ottawa were out of control.

Then, amidst 101 other scandals that began to seep through, and 1001
scandals likely yet to seep through, came the $332 million flag-waving
sponsorship charade.

That $40 million of this amount has disappeared somewhere even our
relentless auditor-general Sheila Fraser can’t fathom — although my
suspicion is likely to Liberal coffers — should make every taxpayer
livid.

Then there’s that $1 billion-plus into the gun registry.

We really are a nation not of bears or beavers, but sheep.

Yet, as Milke notes, New Democrat leader Jack Layton set the tone that
politics is supposedly a far better calling than the business world when
he assessed: “If the headlines show us anything, it is that the greed
and cooked books of the corporate world are no substitute for public
services.”

What a laugh.

Anyway, Milke doesn’t believe Canada is entirely dysfunctional, partly
because, pushed by the likes of President Ronald Reagan and Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose new directions influenced the entire
world, including the Soviet Union, and in our own country Reform party
founder Preston Manning, even the Jean Chretien/Paul Martin Liberals had
to face some economic truths.

Despite a dismal, disjointed and dispiriting performance going back
generations, Milke has hopes for our nation’s future if Harper can win
two majority governments, which he likely will.

Milke sees Harper as being “intellectually brilliant,” “a strategic
thinker” and a man who “doesn’t suffer dimwits.”

He views Harper as a leader such as Reagan and Thatcher — and curiously
Trudeau — who were always thinking 20 steps ahead and so forced those
opponents to fight on ground unfavourable to them.

Basically, the opponents were always in a defensive position.

Reagan, Thatcher and Trudeau were on the offensive.

Milke contends there is now a “tectonic shift” under way in our country
in which, paradoxically, discontent in Alberta and Quebec, Ontario and
British Columbia, will create the “perfect storm” that will realign our
nation.

Let’s hope Milke is right in that assessment.

If he isn’t, we’re lost.