We live in a culture where uniformed punditry is considered a virtue. The mass media grant many individuals the implicit expertise required to opine the daily news and their “informed” opinions are often merely speculations about the partisan and ideological elements of governance. The modern Canadian columnist is, more often than not, uninterested in policy.

The rhetorical flourishes of a Rex Murphy, Mark Steyn or Andrew Coyne provide the foundation for our own public, often far less informed, punditry. It is this culture of speculation that politicians must appeal to and harness.

The federal government has recently demonstrated their inability to influence and understand this culture. The media has, in turn, failed to cut the Conservatives some slack.

Former-prime minister Brian Mulroney celebrated his 70th birthday on March 20. The celebration took place amid media criticism that Harper and his cabinet were being overtly disciplined in remaining uncommunicative with the former Tory PM. He continues to trudge through an exhaustive judicial inquiry into his relationship with German businessman Karlheinz Schreiber, which precipitated the ban Harper placed on communication between the party and Mulroney.

Further, the Conservative caucus became rambunctious when, shortly before his birthday, the media reported that Mulroney was no longer a member of the Conservative Party. The Prime Minister’s office was believed to have facilitated this leak.

“ The media has, in turn, failed to cut the Conservatives some slack.

Rex Murphy opined: “As Samuel Johnson once remarked when someone questioned whether Alexander Pope was a poet: ‘if Pope be not a poet, where is poetry to be found?’ Well, if Brian –two term PM– Mulroney be not a Conservative, where is conservatism to be found?...Brian Mulroney is 70. Harper and his minions should have rented happy faces and gone as a bunch to Westmount to wish him Many Happy Returns.”

I doubt that Murphy has forgotten that our current prime minister was a founding, and highly influential, member of the Reform Party of Canada. I similarly doubt whether his memory misplaced the fact that Harper believed Reform could usher in a return to conservative principles in an era of mock-conservatism. The Reform Party was a response to Mulroney’s liberalism and the Conservative Party is made up, in large part, of old reformers.

There is a precarious balance between Progressive Conservative loyalties and Western reformism taking place within the governing party. It is doubtful then that a party still consolidating these divisions would extend warm regards to a man that represents so much of their ideological pain, particularly when that very man is being investigated for fraud at the federal level.

It is this sort of discipline that has been so often maligned. In our culture, a disciplined and uncommunicative party will draw only suspicion from the media and from the public. It will draw this suspicion even as the media accept that a government must, at very least, appear unified.

It is the semblance of unification that dictates the Conservative media strategy. They do not give the media leeway for interviews at cabinet meetings and they kept Conservative candidates out of the riding debates during the federal election last year. They are attempting to muzzle dissent from within party ranks. This strategy can only lead to further claims about that sacred horse – “the big-C conservative agenda.”

This hidden agenda does not exist. However, it remains the government’s responsibility to quell this speculation.

During the federal election campaign last year, I attended a debate at the University of Winnipeg for the riding of Winnipeg Centre. It was a bombastic affair. Media-darling (and current NDP MP) Pat Martin and Liberal candidate Dan Hurley appeared to play ideological footsie while the other left-leaning candidates seemed merely out-of-touch. Like so many of her peers, Kenny Daodu, the Conservative candidate, did not attend.

Her absence was not conspicuous. Her attendance, however, was desperately needed.

Published in Volume 63, Number 27 of The Uniter (May 20, 2009)