Stephen Harper’s ‘Strategic’ Path to Ruin [View all]

[arikara]

The federal government, that is Stephen Harper, is expected to announce its long anticipated decision on Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline sometime in June. The decision could well determine whether or not the Conservatives can win the 2015 election.

The momentum of opposition to the pipeline — and perhaps more importantly to the hundreds of supertankers that would move tar sands bitumen to Asia — is clearly growing in both B.C. and the rest of Canada. This makes Harper’s absolute dedication to the oil industry, and his dogged commitment to the pipeline in particular, tantamount to a suicide pact. This is a pipeline that will never be built. It is already dead. But don’t assume Harper sees that. His decision, as many of them are, will be a war between his highly touted strategic genius and his narcissistic impulses — revealed by a pattern of rejecting defeat until reality can no longer be denied.

Harper’s advantage over his political opponents is also his disadvantage. He is far bolder than any opponent he has ever faced. He is a huge risk taker. But risk taking is not in itself a virtue. Indeed, some of the biggest risk takers are psychopaths, and you certainly wouldn’t want one of those running your country. A recent study out of Vanderbilt University “shows that people with psychopathic tendencies (like aggression, lack of empathy, lack of fear) are more prone to take excessive risk without considering the consequences,” reports Business Insider, “It’s not just that they don’t appreciate the potential threat, but that the anticipation or motivation for reward overwhelms those concerns.”

What motivates Stephen Harper’s risk taking? The rewards for some of Harper’s most excessive actions would seem as much personal as political. Consider the long list of attacks on high profile, credible government and agency figures. As Susan Delacourt helpfully documents in the Toronto Star, these include “Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand, vilified for getting in the way of Fair Elections Act and former auditor-general Sheila Fraser, for the same offense. Then there’s the former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page; former chief statistician Munir Sheikh; former nuclear safety commissioner Linda Keen; former RCMP public complaints commissioner Paul Kennedy; former veterans’ ombudsman Pat Stogran; as well as Marty Cheliak, ex-head of the gun registry; Remy Beauregard, the late head of Rights and Democracy; Adrian Measner, former head of the Canadian Wheat Board; and Richard Colvin, the former Canadian diplomat who spoke out on Afghan detainees.”

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Quite long, but Murray is always worth a read.