Exploring Harperland

No it's not a new amusement park where sweater vests are mandatory, but a controversial just-released biography about Canada's control freak leader.

Last week Canadian politicos were abuzz about the impending release of Harperland, a biography on the PM by Globe and Mail writer Lawrence Martin. A flurry of op-ed pages opined about its ramifications, and the prime minister’s spokesman accused Martin of being a “big-L Liberal sympathizer.” This was all before the thing had even been published. Here’s what the pundits have to say now that they’ve actually read the book.

For the Globe’s Jeffrey Simpson, it’s inspired comparisons between Harper and Richard Nixon. The two leaders share “wellsprings of resentment, a desire for absolute control of events and surroundings, a deep distrust of spontaneity, a fierce partisanship, a wariness about others, a temper, and a stubbornness that can be both admirable and self-defeating.” That partisanship is probably the largest similarity between Nixon and Harper, says Simpson, noting that Harper “is not only a partisan, as all prime ministers must be, but he viscerally hates Liberals. His objective is not just to defeat but to obliterate the Liberal Party of Canada.” That sound you hear is the Liberals making sure their hotel rooms are locked tight.

The book won’t make enjoyable bedtime reading for Harper, but he should flip through it to get some tips on how to win that elusive majority he’s been after, writes the National Post’s Don Martin. “Mr. Harper’s problem is not the big picture; it’s the small pixels that distort Mr. Harper’s features into the angry face of a man who lies awake at night dreaming up ways to kill Liberals … Some lightened-up personality tweaks, a serious softening of partisan rhetoric and a strict veto on policy containing extraneous ideology” could go a long way towards winning over most of the country.

The Toronto Star’s Chantal Hebert isn’t too impressed with the book, saying “Martin mostly connects a lot of familiar dots to arrive at the picture of a prime minister who has elevated message control to dissent-crushing heights.” It might not paint a pretty picture of the PM, but “the book is ultimately free of the kind of explosive material” you might expect.