Harperism: How Stephen Harper and His Think Tank Colleagues Have Transformed Canada

摘要

It is a mystery why the Left has never thought to seize the vacant high ground of conservatism-as in conserving Canadian traditions of peace, community, social conscience and civility-and to frame the neo-cons as what they are: ultra-right wing radicals. It's a case that has been begging to be made for years, and, in Harperism: How Stephen Harper and His Think Tank Colleagues Have Transformed Canada, Donald Gutstein does it about as well as anybody could. "Harper's neo-liberal program... cannot be considered conservative by any stretch of the imagination," Gutstein writes. "His efforts to bring in free-market environmental-ism and a new land-ownership regime for First Nations are radical, not conservative. The agenda is to create and enforce markets, often where they didn't exist before" (p. 245).