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| "I just said yes to everything I was ever asked to do" - John Baird |
Harper knew the damage a disloyal lieutenant could do to a leader because for years that was the kind of lieutenant he’d been.
Preston Manning’s memoir of his years as Reform Party leader, Think Big, is in part a chronicle of Stephen Harper’s troublemaking years. At almost every turn, if Harper felt that Manning was making a bad decision, the young renegade felt free to agitate against his leader, whether through rebellious action or indiscreet communication. When Manning took a long time deciding whether to support the Charlottetown constitutional amendments in 1992, Harper, who was sure Manning shouldn’t, chafed at the boss’s indecision. “When these internal disagreements were eventually leaked to the media -- as such disagreements invariably are -- they gave our opponents fresh ammunition,” Manning wrote. “‘Friendly fire’ invariably attracts ‘enemy fire.’” When Manning hired Rick Anderson, a Liberal-connected Charlottetown supporter, as Reform’s national campaign director, Harper objected and was “prepared to air his objections in the media.”
In 1994 two Globe columnists, “fed by a disgruntled caucus member,” wrote columns that alleged Manning was abusing his parliamentary expense account. During the Easter break from Parliament, “Stephen Harper and several other caucus members went public with their criticism,” Manning wrote. “Even though procedures existed for handling any complaints . . . Stephen went to the media.”
There followed a special caucus meeting and several rounds of internal finger-pointing. Manning’s relations with his wife, Sandra, at whom “part of Stephen’s attack had been directed,” suffered. She felt he hadn’t done enough to defend her.
“This whole issue -- which really wasn’t about expenses at all -- was the most painful experience our family had endured to date,” Manning wrote. “What made it particularly hard to endure was that it was initiated not by an external opponent, but by one of our own.” If being a Member of Parliament meant his family would be attacked, Manning wanted no part of it. “That night, I took off my House of Commons pin -- given only to MPs -- threw it into my briefcase, and never put it on again until the day I left Parliament.”
Preston Manning’s memoir of his years as Reform Party leader, Think Big, is in part a chronicle of Stephen Harper’s troublemaking years. At almost every turn, if Harper felt that Manning was making a bad decision, the young renegade felt free to agitate against his leader, whether through rebellious action or indiscreet communication. When Manning took a long time deciding whether to support the Charlottetown constitutional amendments in 1992, Harper, who was sure Manning shouldn’t, chafed at the boss’s indecision. “When these internal disagreements were eventually leaked to the media -- as such disagreements invariably are -- they gave our opponents fresh ammunition,” Manning wrote. “‘Friendly fire’ invariably attracts ‘enemy fire.’” When Manning hired Rick Anderson, a Liberal-connected Charlottetown supporter, as Reform’s national campaign director, Harper objected and was “prepared to air his objections in the media.”
In 1994 two Globe columnists, “fed by a disgruntled caucus member,” wrote columns that alleged Manning was abusing his parliamentary expense account. During the Easter break from Parliament, “Stephen Harper and several other caucus members went public with their criticism,” Manning wrote. “Even though procedures existed for handling any complaints . . . Stephen went to the media.”
There followed a special caucus meeting and several rounds of internal finger-pointing. Manning’s relations with his wife, Sandra, at whom “part of Stephen’s attack had been directed,” suffered. She felt he hadn’t done enough to defend her.
“This whole issue -- which really wasn’t about expenses at all -- was the most painful experience our family had endured to date,” Manning wrote. “What made it particularly hard to endure was that it was initiated not by an external opponent, but by one of our own.” If being a Member of Parliament meant his family would be attacked, Manning wanted no part of it. “That night, I took off my House of Commons pin -- given only to MPs -- threw it into my briefcase, and never put it on again until the day I left Parliament.”
So yeah, Harper liked Baird, because for all his pluck, the thing he resembled least was a young Stephen Harper.
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