Apr 25, 2011

Henry Mintzberg: Harper majority? Think twice

mintzberg,harper

On the surface at least, you would think McGill's Henry Mintzberg - one of Canada's leading business scholars - would be happy with the prospect of a Harper majority. Harper is about business after all... corporate tax cuts, right? So what's Mintzberg's beef?

Montreal Gazette:

He [Mintzberg] fears that Harper’s brand of conservatism, which can be considerably more hard-edged and combative than Canadians have been used to, “puts at risk the things that make Canada different and wonderful” in a world he sees as increasingly dominated by “an unholy economic dogma of corporate entitlement.”


Harper often takes credit for Canada avoiding some of the heavy fall-out from the financial crash. But as Mintzberg points out the safeguards that kept Canada from experiencing the worst of it had nothing to do with Harper.

Montreal Gazette:

... the elements that saved Canada during the U.S. crash were put in place long before the Harper government arrived on the scene. It was the Liberal governments of Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien, for example, that slashed Canada’s government debt. As for the strict bank regulation that helped keep our financial sector safe, it was actually loosened by the Harper government before it more recently reversed course.

Other concerns relate to the type of political culture that would characterize a Harper majority government. Mintzberg believes political discourse would be debased by more of the 'harsh, personalized attacks on opposition figures that have become commonplace under Harper.' He also anticipates that there would be a loss of support on the part of government for medicare and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

More of Henry Mintzberg's views on the upcoming Canadian election can be found at http://www.mintzberg.org/