With another federal election looming it is a good time to take a close look at the lead player, Prime Minister Stephen Harper. A number of good books have been written about Harper but Globe & Mail columnist Lawrence Martin’s 2010 release Harperland: The Politics of Control is particularly interesting because it contains so many Conservative insiders commenting on Harper’s character and governing style.

The title of Martin’s book speaks volumes and reaffirms the belief held by many Canadians that Harper is a control-freak who keeps his party, caucus and cabinet on a very short leash. The manner in which he does so and the personality traits and life experience that moulded Harper’s determination to govern in this way are examined in depth. Most of the book is written in a style that makes you feel like you are right in the midst of Harper’s office (PMO).

Harper has held a variety of political positions in federal politics over the last quarter century. He has worked in a staff role, as an MP, as leader of two parties and for the last five years as Canada’s 22nd prime minister. He has shown little loyalty to those he has worked with on the way to the top job. For example, in 1984 he worked in Ottawa for Calgary West MP Jim Hawkes whom he then challenged for the nomination in 1988. Harper lost to Hawkes the first time but beat him in a second challenge in 1993. That victory sent him off to Ottawa as a Reform Party MP in Preston Manning’s caucus. Harper worked closely with Manning over the years but when their views began to differ Harper turned on Manning and embarrassed him publicly. Martin reveals that much of the time Harper worked in Manning’s inner circle he was leaking information to Calgary political scientist Tom Flanagan who used the material for his book on Manning Waiting for the Wave.

Flanagan went on to manage two of Harper’s campaigns and was his chief of staff when Harper headed the Alliance Party. Ironically their relationship ended when Flanagan wrote a book about Harper’s rise to power. Lawrence Martin notes: “He found it interesting that it was okay for Harper to provide insider information for a book on Manning, but when it came to a positive book on himself written by a close colleague, he would react with such hostility. Still, Flanagan might have known beforehand from his experiences with Harper that he could react this way. Harper, Flanagan had noticed, was very unusual in respect to secrecy and information control. He was practically manic.”

With the Conservative victory in 2006 Harper announced that “the West was finally in”. That sense of western alienation, a visceral hatred for his Liberal opponents and Harper’s personality traits have been the defining elements for his government according to Martin. The degree of his hatred of Liberals as it is outlined in the book took me a bit by surprise. However, together with a fear of messing up and being defeated in a minority parliament, it is a useful lens to use when examining Harper’s approach to governing.

Martin interviewed two MPs who have dual perspectives of Harper. David Emerson and Keith Martin have both worked with him and against him in the House of Commons. Vancouver Kingsway MP David Emerson had served in Paul Martin’s Liberal government and then controversially jumped the Liberal ship to sit in Harper’s first cabinet. Lawrence Martin reports of Emerson that “he couldn’t fathom the intense level of acrimony. He had never seen this kind of thing with the Liberals. But with Harper and his men, it was woven deep. Emerson spoke of them as “viscerally hating their political opposition. Sometimes it was just startling to me.””

Gerry Nicholls who worked with Harper in the National Citizens Coalition in the 1990s describes his approach as “Genghis Khan politics”. Nicholls’ description of Harper is summarized thusly: “The staff admired his breadth of knowledge and the surgeon-like clarity of his thinking. Yet there was a frightening side to him, a vindictive streak, as Nicholls saw it, a pressing need to confront and destroy adversaries.”

When the Conservatives took power in January 2006 Harper and his team believed that they were surrounded by Liberal adversaries in the media and in the federal public service. The chapter “Enemies Everywhere” provides many examples of Harper’s paranoia and helps the reader put context to the aggressive nature of the Harper government. Targeting is an all-encompassing descriptor of Harper’s approach as Martin explains: “His plan was to identify potential Conservative growth areas and target them, while undermining the Liberal Party at every opportunity.” There are few months in the last five years when Conservative attack ads have not been running. The pursuit of new supporters is generally more subtle but was revealed in its worst form last year through the long gun registry issue.

Martin quotes PMO strategists who explain how stressful it was to come to power with a minority government and a completely rookie team. The potential for mistakes was very high. Martin claims that Harper and his team were particularly influenced by the short and disastrous history of the Joe Clark Conservative government as chronicled in Jeffrey Simpson’s book Discipline of Power. Thus they developed a plan to “control the message and stifle dissent.” Having finally gained power, not many in the caucus were willing to rock the boat if the tactics used would keep them in power. The control mechanisms include limiting media access to the government, limiting the effectiveness of access to information requests, quickly removing those who are off-script, daily Question Period rehearsals for the full cabinet and the requirement that everything must be submitted for approval by the PMO through a Message Event Proposal (MEP). The latter system leaves nothing to the imagination and is credited with causing ministers to delay announcements because they have not received the approved MEP.

Parliament itself has been impacted by Harper’s style of governing. The dirty tricks manual for parliamentary committee chairs, prorogation and the lack of decorum in the House are all testaments to the Harper way. Martin credits William Johnson for sounding the alarm in this respect in his 2005 biography Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada: “He constantly displays an excess of partisanship. … There is harshness, a lack of humour, humanity and moderation that disregards the traditions of Parliament where all members have a right to be treated as honourable.”

This quote brought to mind a question of privilege debate I stumbled upon on TV in mid December where Liberal MP Gerard Kennedy was complaining that cabinet ministers were unduly maligning MPs in the House. They do, mercilessly. That’s the way things are done in Harperland. I highly recommend the book as an election primer.

Jane E. Burton is a freelance writer who operates her company Memorable Lines from her home in Fanny Bay. For more information on the services offered please visit her website at www.memorablelines.com.