In politics, it's all political. No exceptions.
Discussions, diplomacy, decisions...it all comes down to the political gain or loss. The smart politicans keep it simple with a cost-benefit analysis.
With that in mind, Prime Minister Stephen Harper had no reason to come to Prince George for the 2015 Canada Winter Games.
For him, there is a federal election this year and he not only wants to win but keep that majority in Parliament he's come to enjoy. Tens of thousands of supporters, financial contributors and hard-working card-carrying party members, are counting on him to deliver that result.
Heading into this past weekend, his choices were the following:
A) go to Prince George to attend the men's gold medal hockey game and the closing ceremonies of the Canada Winter Games.
B) go to the Quebec Winter Carnaval and then stop by the Tim Hortons Brier in Calgary.
C) Order in pizza and binge watch Season 3 of House of Cards on Netflix for new ideas.
Option C can be ruled out right away, since Frank Underwood is a lightweight compared to Harper.
Option B is the most appealing. There are lots of votes in Quebec and Harper would rather see Tom Mulcair's NDP keep its hold on the Quebec seats in the House than see the photogenic son of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. As for the Brier, the folks in Calgary need some consolation after the huge drop in the price of oil in the last nine months and the Conservatives have worked hard to win the Tim Hortons crowd since Harper became leader. Tim Hortons sponsors the Brier so that's where Harper will be.
Option A is worth considering...for about the same length of time as the margin of victory that Stuart Balantyne won one of his two gold medals in swimming at the 1977 Canada Summer Games - two one-hundredths of a second.
The political cost-benefit analysis on Option B goes like so:
Cost - a short trip on the Prime Minister's jet from Calgary.
Benefit - slim to none. There are few votes in Prince George, two safe ridings that have been held by the Conservatives since forever, the major Conservative supporters for fundraising, organizing, strategizing, and winning are not in Prince George and more viewers of TSN tuned into the Brier than to the Canada Winter Games.
In politics, there's no point in venturing if the gain isn't plain.
For Harper, staying away from Prince George was a no-brainer.
It's the first Canada Games he has missed since he became Prime Minister. Sure, he went to Whitehorse in 2007 but he held a minority in Parliament then and he was eager to appear prime ministerial everywhere he went and trying to convince a large swath of cautious voters that he wasn't Frank Underwood, that he was a good guy who liked clean-cut kids excelling in sports (and liked the votes of their parents even more).
It should also be noted that Justin Trudeau and Mulcair didn't come to Prince George, either, and for, no doubt, the exact same political reasons Harper had.
So maybe it was a much better thing that Harper hung out in Calgary, rather than spending his Sunday afternoon draping the Ontario boys with gold medals at CN Centre. Harper would have been on the first plane out Sunday after the closing ceremonies, while Johnston cared enough to stay over and take part in a public conversation Monday at the Playhouse with UNBC president Daniel Weeks and Prince George mayor Lyn Hall on government and academic collaboration (more on that tomorrow).
The Governor-General is, constitutionally speaking, Queen Elizabeth's regent and a step up from the Prime Minister and the guys who desperately want to be Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is the Right Honourable but David Johnston is both the Right Honourable and His Excellency. Johnston doesn't get to close veterans affairs offices or approve the construction of unpopular pipelines from the oil sands to Kitimat, either.
Harper missed out on a great two weeks and an incredible performance from athletes across the country, some of whom he will be cheering one day in the NHL and at future World Cups and Olympic Games. Prince George missed out on having the Prime Minister at the party.
From that standpoint, his loss was far greater than ours.
