John Crosbie, your long sojourn away from the Liberal Party will soon be over.
Keep up the excellent work. You have managed to work for decades pretending to be a Tory.
Next to Stephen Harper, Crosbie is the strongest factor working in favour of a Liberal majority government next time.
Crosbie on Harper not pretty
The Daily News (Nanaimo)
Thu 01 Sep 2005, Page: A6
Section: Opinion
Byline: Don Martin
Source: CanWest News Service
ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. - As Stephen Harper's warm-and-fuzzy barbeque tour winds down with the defining image being that photo-op disaster of him squeezed into a comical cowboy outfit, the last thing the Conservative leader needs is a deadly burst of friendly fire.
But sniper shots are coming from the top floor of St. John's tallest office building where Conservative father figure John Crosbie looks out at the The Rock's political landscape ... and cringes at what he sees happening.
A "pessimistic'' Crosbie is predicting hard times in the next election for his party, warning that Harper is scaring voters by linking his leadership to the campaign against same-sex marriages while heeding lousy advice from his inner circle.
OK, you're probably saying, so what? John Crosbie's a 74-year-old political curiosity, best known as the former Conservative finance minister whose 1979 budget torpedoed Joe Clark's minority government a few lifetimes ago to the average voter.
But Crosbie still commands attention and respect in the reunited Conservative party, where only 15 months ago he was a huge Harper booster who flirted briefly with the bizarre notion of running against Liberal cabinet minister John Efford before his long-suffering spouse vetoed such silliness.
I am in the middle of a national research project which has put me in contact with business leaders, academics and grassroots Canadians in five provinces.
So let the tape roll on the wit and wisdom of a candid Crosbie, who tells it like it is even though it will give a morale boost to his besieged enemies in the Liberal party.
On the Conservative party's campaign against same-sex marriage: Crosbie believes in the traditional definition of marriage, but argues the time has come to give up the fight to preserve it or risk having it inflict irreversible political damage on the party. "Same-sex marriages have been accepted by the establishment in Toronto and in the courts and in the metropolitan areas, so there's no point in continuing to oppose them. It's very dangerous for the Conservatives to continue opposing same-sex marriage because it reinforces this feeling in people's mind that we're dangerous and that if we get in, you don't know what kind of stupid thing we might do next that would harm people."
On the party's electoral prospects next spring: "The signs are all that we're in danger of not having much of a chance in the next election. It's because the public doesn't think we're a safe alternative. Surely if they thought we were a safe alternative, the polls would have us 20 points ahead, not 20 points behind."
On Stephen Harper: "I supported him as leader and continue to support him, but at the moment he's a politically endangered species which makes us all politically endangered."
On Harper's personal charm: "Among our friends, the women think he's scary. Christ Almighty, Paul Martin is 10 times as scary. But they believe Harper's cold. And he IS cold. He doesn't have human warmth. He's not able to even work a room. He doesn't want to meet people. The thing that saved the Pope (John Paul II), who had some pretty reactionary policies, was that he genuinely wanted to meet people. Unfortunately, Harper needs that, but he hasn't got that at the moment."
On the Conservative party backroom: "I've never come across the likes of those little dictators. Most of them have no experience and try to tell us what we must do. They force us to have nomination meetings before we have suitable candidates lined up to be nominated. This is not the way you do it. He's ill-served by the organizers and paid people who are behind him."
On the future of Canada: "I'm very disappointed and anti-Paul Martin. I believe the system is out of balance and uncompetitive. If we can't get a more competitive system, where the governing parties change from time to time, Canada is in real difficulty."
Well, there you have it. The gospel according to John Crosbie. Unfortunately for Stephen Harper, these harsh observations and this painful analysis comes from Newfoundland. And that makes them Rock-solid.