A funny thing happened at a
recent social event attended by more than 100 Conservative Party members. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was discussed with open derision. He was even the butt of a sarcastic joke from the podium.

Harper may have been able to lead his party out of the political wilderness it was in less than a year ago. He has also been able to brand his government as one that tends to do a lot by delivering on most of the promises made in the last election campaign. But the prime minister is not getting the respect you would normally expect from a party that has a chance to form a majority government in the next election.

Certainly, no one would call Harper warm and cuddly, but he doesn’t appear to care how many enemies he makes within his own ranks.

The recent Conservative event was a 60th birthday celebration for Geoff Norquay, one of Harper’s many former communications directors. Brian Mulroney, Joe Clark and Jean Charest all sent videos to convey their best wishes and regrets at not being present. Norquay had worked for all three former Conservative leaders.

Even Paul Martin — yes, that Paul Martin — sent a video to express best wishes to a man who had worked to end his term in office. Organizers of the event had tried to arrange something from Harper, but his office wouldn’t even send a telegram of greetings.

Like Norquay, most of the crowd had been members of the pre-merger Progressive Conservatives. Considering that it was the moderates in the present-day Conservative Party that got Harper elected in January, one would think Harper and his office would have been a little more civil.

In the spring, Harper’s government was attacked by long-time Conservative advisor Derek Burney. Burney had headed up, on Harper’s behalf, the transition team that supervised the handover of power from the Liberals after the Jan. 21 election. Burney was angry about retroactive features in the Accountability Act, the Conservatives’ ethics package now before the Senate.

Burney and Harper had trouble being civil to each other during the transition period. Still, one would think the head of a minority government would make sure that a former chief of staff to Brian Mulroney did not feel the need to go public with his grievances.

Again, no one in the Prime Minister’s Office seems to care, just as no one seemed to care about the controversy over Harper’s avoidance of the International Aids Conference in Toronto in August.

As long as there is a chance that Harper will lead the Conservatives to a majority government in the next election, most of the internal sniping will stay in the family. But if the leader can’t deliver a majority, the party knives will be out.

Regardless of what happens, nobody can accuse this government of coddling its friends.

This fall, long-time Tory strategist Elizabeth Roscoe will be testifying in the Liberal-controlled Senate against the Accountability Act, which would ban public-office holders from taking jobs in the lobbying industry for five years.

Roscoe was a member of Burney’s transition team, and took a job as a lobbyist with the Canadian Association of Broadcasters shortly after finishing up her volunteer work at the PMO.

When news of her job hit the media, the Harper government quickly amended its ethics package to make the five-year ban retroactive to affect the transition team.

Roscoe claims she never would have agreed to serve on the transition team had she known there was a possibility she would be affected by the five-year rule. In fact, friends say, she will produce correspondence from the PMO informing her that she would not be affected by the ban.

All the acrimony toward Harper prompts the question of how long a prime minister can stay in office with so many enemies in his own ranks.

The public may be wondering about the prime minister’s governing style as well. The Conservatives find themselves slipping in the public opinion polls even though the Liberals aren’t adjusting well to the Opposition benches. Perhaps our new prime minister wants to be remembered as the Pierre Trudeau of the Right.

In his first years in office, Trudeau didn’t much care about being perceived as arrogant or indifferent to his own party’s rank and file. But Harper might want to think ahead to the next election. After all, Trudeau morphed into a retail politician who eagerly bestowed patronage to party members shortly after he almost lost the 1972 election.

@page_break@Harper’s manners might improve after the next election. He may also become a different prime minister if he hangs on to power. In the meantime, it is fascinating to watch a prime minister break so many rules of realpolitik in Ottawa. Either Harper will eventually change, or the system will. Predictions, anyone? IE