Autumn Brings Out True Tory Colours

Unseasonable weather in southern Ontario has meant leaves are taking a little bit longer to fall from the trees this autumn.

Everywhere you look there are blotches of orange and yellow where there would normally be shades of brown and grey at this time of year. You would think having more of that cheerful, sunny yellow in a month where the days get visibly shorter would be a good thing. But yellow has also been shown to be associated with anger: people are more apt to lose their tempers, and babies are more likely to cry in rooms painted yellow.

Could this prolonged exposure to yellow be the reason for all the rage and arrogance to come out of Ottawa this month?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper set the tone at the beginning of November. In response to calls from the opposition for a public inquiry into the Mulroney/Schreiber affair, he said it would be extremely dangerous for him, as prime minister, to have a free hand in launching inquiries against his predecessors. He threatened rhetorically to look more closely into former prime minister Paul Martin’s relationship with his shipping company and even brought up the already dealt-with matter of Jean Chretien’s involvement in the sale of a golf course in his riding. Talk about small-town cheap, and I’m not referring to golf balls.

Last week, House Leader Peter Van Loan called Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty the “small man of Confederation” because McGuinty demanded fair treatment for Ontario in the upcoming redistribution of federal seats. The premier of the country’s most populous province and economic powerhouse had the nerve to ask for fair representation in a democracy. He wasn’t even asking for more money, just to respect the principle of representation by population, a basic tenet of democracy.

Then we have Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. In response to a report from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities warning of the “coming collapse of Canada’s municipal infrastructure,” he told cities to quit “whining” and do a better job of collecting taxes and building reserve funds. This is particularly rich coming from Flaherty, considering his role as a cabinet minister in the Ontario Conservative government that forced amalgamation on the City of Toronto in 1998 – and in the process forced the city to pillage its cash reserves just to keep the lights on, let alone pay for provincially mandated programs.

This government and its ministers have shown a lot of arrogance and anger since assuming power almost two years ago. Environment Minister John Baird’s feasts of fury are legendary. But what is sparking all this rage right now? The answer might be in the leaves.

Let’s step outside again for a closer look at those brilliant orange and yellow hues that colour the canopy over our city. These are their “true colours” that only reveal themselves in the fall when the green chlorophyll drains from the leaves.

In a similar way, our federal cabinet is showing its true colours through these latest outbursts: Harper showed that he values partisanship more than the integrity inherent in the office of prime minister; Van Loan demonstrated his party’s disdain for Ontario voters who continue to rebuke the federal Tories; and Flaherty reinforced the Conservative party’s contempt for urban voters.

One of the dangers of leaves lingering too long in the fall is the extra stress this places on tree limbs. One good snowfall or ice storm, and branches begin to snap under the weight of the leaves and the extra ice/snow they collect. Similarly, this minority government has lingered longer than anybody expected and with each contemptuous outburst, is showing signs of stress. Rather than sticking to the merits of their position on key issues, our senior ministers attack their critics and threaten their opponents. Instead of talking and listening, they shout and insult and bully their way through to the next issue.

Either these guys are getting advice from the King Juan Carlos school of public relations – the Spanish monarch told Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to “shut up” after Chavez called a former Spanish prime minister a fascist at a recent summit in Chile – or they just don’t get it. I’m inclined to believe the latter.