Questions Abound over Harper's 2012 Plans

Beyond releasing a book on hockey, your guess is as good as ours when it comes to handicapping what the prime minister has planned for this year.

As sure as the NFL playoffs and a slew of terrible movies released at the local cineplex, prognostications over what the new year will bring to Canadian politics are a dime a dozen each January. Some, such as the National Post's Jon Ivison, envision the Conservative government reforming public-sector pensions to save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Various insiders tell Ivison that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is looking at raising the "minimum pensionable age" to 65 to put an end to the yearly parade of civil servants retiring in their late 50s; others say that the government should move away from basing pensions on employees' highest-earning five years, instead basing the pensions on their average salaries over their careers. Of course, if the Tories do go ahead and consider paring down public service pensions, they will no doubt face a huge hurdle in getting public sector unions onside. Considering how the Tories have handled labour issues so far (essentially, driving a steamroller emblazoned with a giant "X" over the words "collective bargaining"), that might prove to be a rather acrimonious means of shaving a couple hundred million off the government's budget.

Elizabeth Thompson of iPolitics.ca reports that her anonymous government sources are telling her that the much-maligned Indian Act is set squarely in Stephen Harper's sights for 2012. Between the shooting of Ethan Yellowbird on a reserve in Hobbema, Alta., and the housing crisis in Attawapiskat at the end of the year, 2011 brought aboriginal issues to the forefront of public concern for the first time in years. And with a summit planned for the end of the month between Harper and Shawn Atleo, the Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, reforming the Indian Act could very well be one of the Harper government's key policy manoeuvres this year.

As we've argued before, the Tories' majority and broad, cross-party support for reform provide Harper the political capital to change the Act, which was drawn up in 1876. Of course, this is a complex proposition that, as one source tells Thompson, involves reconciling both "bright young leaders who say their communities are doing well economically and don’t need the Indian Act anymore," and others "who will defend to their dying breath the sanctity of the Indian Act and the federal fiduciary responsibility and want first world conditions on reserves that have absolutely and utterly no economic viability." Nuance and sensitivity are probably the last words that anyone would have used to describe the Tories' handling of the Attawapiskat crisis, but both of those qualities will be needed in spades if the Tories want to facilitate and consolidate long-term stability (and dignity) for Canada's First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people.

Then there's Paul Wells at Maclean's, who refuses to offer any predictions as to what the Tories will do in 2012, because as far as he can tell, the government looks like it's planning on sleep-walking through the year. Having settled 15 years' worth of legislative scores against the Liberals in the first six months of the 41st Parliament (the gun registry, Wheat Board, omnibus crime bill, to name but a handful), there isn't much left that the Tories promised to do that they haven't done already, beyond the deficit-reduction plan. All of this leads Wells to wonder why Harper was so hellbent on a majority if he was only going to use it, for better or for worse, for an eighth of his term. Compared to the majority governments of Trudeau (who "introduced official bilingualism and multiculturalism during his first mandate, and invoked the War Measures Act to stop the October Crisis in Quebec,") Mulroney (who "negotiated Meech Lake accord and the free trade agreement with the United States. He led the world in opposing South African apartheid and responding to famine in Ethiopia,") and Chretien (who "ended a generation of deficit spending and fought a second Quebec secession referendum,") Harper's plans look awfully, well, small-c conservative. Of course, after a year as unprecedented as 2011, perhaps quieting things down in 2012 might not be such a terrible idea – if only the rest of the world could follow suit.